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Tesla's lithium refinery discharges 231,000 gallons of polluted wastewater a day

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Re: Tesla's lithium refinery discharges 231,000 gallons of polluted wastewater a day

#261

Post by f33d5173 »

hansmayer wrote: post #245
f33d5173 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we doing "i just cant even" posting in 2026? Wastewater is not expected to be safe as drinking water, so it meeting the standards for drinking water shows how safe it is. If you have a reasonable argument to the contrary then please post it.

This is what social media and LLMs have done to the average member of the society - one has to explain to folks like you everything literally, because you're not able to infer anything on your own any more. Where do you think the wastewater goes eventually genius? Do you think Elon Musk transports it safely into outer space? Or does it have a chance of eventually polluting your own drinking water too? It does not eve…

Yes, if you're going to bother to respond, you should use words, and not mere guttoral gestures like a cave man. I consider this an advancement of society and not a regression, but perhaps that's my particular bias.

Re: Tesla's lithium refinery discharges 231,000 gallons of polluted wastewater a day

#262

Post by hansmayer »

f33d5173 wrote: post #261
hansmayer wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what social media and LLMs have done to the average member of the society - one has to explain to folks like you everything literally, because you're not able to infer anything on your own any more. Where do you think the wastewater goes eventually genius? Do you think Elon Musk transports it safely into outer space? Or does it have a chance of eventually polluting your own drinking water too? It does not eve…

Yes, if you're going to bother to respond, you should use words, and not mere guttoral gestures like a cave man. I consider this an advancement of society and not a regression, but perhaps that's my particular bias.

"guttoral" ? I'd learn to write first, before holding others lessons :)

Re: Tesla's lithium refinery discharges 231,000 gallons of polluted wastewater a day

#263

Post by CamperBob2 »

MisterTea wrote: post #258
CamperBob2 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and it has absolutely nothing to do with increasing air volume. The idea is to lower hydrocarbon emissions by burning them off in the exhaust manifold.

Depends on the vehicle. Again, I was in a medium duty truck where this system was used.

No, it does not "depend on the vehicle." Stop spreading bullshit. Failing that, do it elsewhere.

Re: Tesla's lithium refinery discharges 231,000 gallons of polluted wastewater a day

#264

Post by burnerRhodov3 »

gyanchawdhary wrote: post #97
perrohunter wrote: post #46

what a coincidence, all they want to do is report negatively on anything that Tesla touches, I've grown skeptical on all these sort of reports, most likely other refineries have similar or worse track records, but that doesn't fit the narrative right?

[flagged]

you hit the nail on the head. People have gotten so uptight about literally everything nowadays that we can't even build in this country anymore. It's literally an EV company...

Re: Tesla's lithium refinery discharges 231,000 gallons of polluted wastewater a day

#265

Post by tpmoney »

DANmode wrote: post #226
tpmoney wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also the same thing someone would say that knows they're running a satanic cult sacrificing whales in the sub-basements of the property but knows the evidence of that isn't coming out of this output pipe. And at least so far, the government has not alleged that the contamination is coming from some other here-to-fore undiscovered but connected to the tesla factory location, nor that they are running a satanic wh…

Wait, are they sacrificing the whales by putting them in toxic wastewater, in your ridiculous example? Otherwise, someone’s industrial process is responsible for those samples… and if the only business in the area that matches the waste is…

The point was that “that’s just what someone polluting somewhere else would say” is about as productive of an assertion as any other assertion that they’re involved in some conspiracy. You can’t derive any useful information about whether or not they are actually polluting from the statement.

As far as where those pollutants are coming from, multiple other commenters have noted there is another near by oil and gas processing equipment facility/manufacturer, a highway and multiple farmlands in the same area, all perfectly viable sources of pollution. Especially since as other commenters have pointed out a lot of these values appear to be just slightly above the local background values. And again given the overall lack of communication and the apparent need for manual monitoring, it seems pretty fair to say that you can’t just assume that the measured values are because of this pipe and not any of the other potential sources that are also going to be flowing into this ditch.

Re: Tesla's lithium refinery discharges 231,000 gallons of polluted wastewater a day

#266

Post by tpmoney »

InvertedRhodium wrote: post #230
semiquaver wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the permit is to discharge into a ditch. And that is also the ditch that they are discharging into.

“A ditch” and “this ditch specifically” are two entirely separate concepts.

I feel like this is the reporter choosing ambiguous words. Was this a permit to discharge into “an unnamed ditch” whose location and ownership and end destination are unspecified in the permit and so it is unclear whether this ditch is the appropriate ditch? Or is it “an unnamed ditch” located near by the property, and is very clearly this ditch, the ditch just has no name? The wording in the article could be read either way.

Edit:

Found the permit in the news article linked from the original article. It seems like the wording comes directly from from the permit (https://ewscripps.brightspotcdn.com/14/fb/2a0cdfa24e8791af37...). That reads to me though that this is then the second case (this specific ditch, which is unnamed) and not “an unnamed ditch, of which this is the wrong one”

Re: Tesla's lithium refinery discharges 231,000 gallons of polluted wastewater a day

#267

Post by MisterTea »

bluGill wrote: post #138
MisterTea wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Air pumps were for catalyst efficiency. The old ones needed extra oxygen molecules floating around for the big stuff (hydrocarbons) to oxidize with until the catalyst was up to operating temp and working at peak-ish efficiency. My experience comes from driving and working on a 1988 GMC 6000 truck with an anemic 350 small block with a Muncie SM465 behind it. There was no catalytic converter, only a muffler. It featu…

In 1988 the factory put a cat in the exhaust. It also would have had fuel injection and a computer, and thus no choke. In short this truck was very much not stock (or possibly you are not in the US?) and so it is interesting but not helpful for the discussion.

Sigh. You didn't even try thinking and vomited out a bunch of nonsense. See the brochure this poster found, same one I have somewhere at home: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48203115

Re: Tesla's lithium refinery discharges 231,000 gallons of polluted wastewater a day

#268

Post by MisterTea »

mulmen wrote: post #235
cucumber3732842 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

350ish (or less) + 4spd trucks kinda fell out of favor over the course of the 70s for bigger engines and 5spds (usually with a 2spd rear end but I digress). I'm sure you could still get one, but who would when you could get something better on the lot for the same money. Sounds like someone swapped a 70s-80s engine from a lighter application in. I don't think that truck would've had manual choke from the factory. Lot…

> I'm sure you could still get one, but who would when you could get something better on the lot for the same money. It was almost certainly cheaper to get the small block and if that's all you need why spend more to burn more gas? The 1988 GM Medium Duty Truck brochure lists the 5.7L (350CID) V8 and SM-465 as standard equipment. I have no idea what the sales numbers were but it's not far fetched for a 1988 truck to…

Hey, thanks for finding that brochure. Same one I have.

Re: Tesla's lithium refinery discharges 231,000 gallons of polluted wastewater a day

#269

Post by mulmen »

MisterTea wrote: post #268
mulmen wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm sure you could still get one, but who would when you could get something better on the lot for the same money. It was almost certainly cheaper to get the small block and if that's all you need why spend more to burn more gas? The 1988 GM Medium Duty Truck brochure lists the 5.7L (350CID) V8 and SM-465 as standard equipment. I have no idea what the sales numbers were but it's not far fetched for a 1988 truck to…

Hey, thanks for finding that brochure. Same one I have.

Neat! What do you do with it? I spent my summers in college driving C60 grain trucks. They were real workhorses! The 1979 with a 5 speed, split axle, and 427 was the best of the bunch but the 82 with a 366 did great work too. Sometimes I wish I could hop in one and split a few more gears but these days I shower before work.

Re: Tesla's lithium refinery discharges 231,000 gallons of polluted wastewater a day

#270

Post by DANmode »

tpmoney wrote: post #265
DANmode wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, are they sacrificing the whales by putting them in toxic wastewater, in your ridiculous example? Otherwise, someone’s industrial process is responsible for those samples… and if the only business in the area that matches the waste is…

The point was that “that’s just what someone polluting somewhere else would say” is about as productive of an assertion as any other assertion that they’re involved in some conspiracy. You can’t derive any useful information about whether or not they are actually polluting from the statement. As far as where those pollutants are coming from, multiple other commenters have noted there is another near by oil and gas pr…

Oil and gas wastewater contains toxic petroleum hydrocarbons and radioactive materials, while lithium wastewater is defined by chemical reagents and strong acids or bases.

There is some overlap (high salinity, boron).

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