Live data from Hacker News

USGS uses machine learning to show large lithium potential in Arkansas

usgs.gov

81–90 of 237 posts

Re: USGS uses machine learning to show large lithium potential in Arkansas

#81
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My only experience with Arkansas was waking up to a speeding ticket at 3 in the morning. Who puts out a speed trap at 3 in the fucking morning? But if it’s anything like Oklahoma…

Towns that make a living by ticketing people passing through. The worst place in the world for this is Italy. Every time I go there they find some esoteric rule to ticket me for. This time in Padova, apparently I drove in an area where only locals are allowed to drive. Bunch of swindlers.

Indeed in Italy there are area (mostly historical centres) where cities limit the influx of cars to keep it liveable and walkable, therefore only residents are allowed to bring their car in.

Re: USGS uses machine learning to show large lithium potential in Arkansas

#82

ugh i really don't want people to mine in the mobile basin. that's one of the most diverse ecosystems in north america. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8j9coyJeB4Q

It seems backwards, but pretty much the only fuel that protects ecosystems on a large scale are fossil fuels and nuclear. Global reforestation is almost entirely the result of households switching from wood to coal in the 20th century.

Uranium is extracted by mining the surface. I don't know ore concentrations though, so maybe not much land area is needed since it is a dense energy source?

Re: USGS uses machine learning to show large lithium potential in Arkansas

#83
post #35

Me thinks we might switch batteries to sodium in just a few years.

I think there will be markets for many different chemistries and there's unlikely to be some total winner in the near future. Each chemistry has its own tradeoffs and use cases. Some will fade and die over time like Ni-Cad, but even that takes longer than you would expect.

It would be amazing for some low weight, low volume, high energy density, high discharge rate, high charge rate, cheaply manufactured from abundant materials, low thermal sensitivity, high thermal tolerance, low passive loss, non-explosive, high cycle count, low memory, shelf stable battery chemistry to appear, but thus far every one fails in several of the categories.

Re: USGS uses machine learning to show large lithium potential in Arkansas

#84
post #21

From the paper's method section, a bit more about which type of ML algo was used: An RF machine-learning model was developed to predict lithium concentrations in Smackover Formation brines throughout southern Arkansas. The model was developed by (i) assigning explanatory variables to brine samples collected at wells, (ii) tuning the RF model to make predictions at wells and assess model performance, (iii) mapping spa…

RF is a heavy hitter when it comes to tabular data. XGBoost is good as well, but more often than not needs and autotuner to really unlock it (e.g pycaret).

Re: USGS uses machine learning to show large lithium potential in Arkansas

#85
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would assume any positive effects are balanced out by living in Arkansas.

My only experience with Arkansas was waking up to a speeding ticket at 3 in the morning. Who puts out a speed trap at 3 in the fucking morning? But if it’s anything like Oklahoma…

Both areas can be great.

Re: USGS uses machine learning to show large lithium potential in Arkansas

#86

ugh i really don't want people to mine in the mobile basin. that's one of the most diverse ecosystems in north america. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8j9coyJeB4Q

It seems backwards, but pretty much the only fuel that protects ecosystems on a large scale are fossil fuels and nuclear. Global reforestation is almost entirely the result of households switching from wood to coal in the 20th century.

> It seems backwards, but pretty much the only fuel that protects ecosystems on a large scale are fossil fuels and nuclear.

This is ludicrously off-base for fossil fuels, even if we're only talking about local pollutants from the plants themselves, nevermind things like Exxon Valdez or the pipelines or the act of mining. Nuclear seems likely, though as the other commenter noted it's not a magic bullet either.

> Global reforestation is almost entirely the result of households switching from wood to coal in the 20th century.

This is a European phenomena mostly, and is a result of urbanization mostly.

Re: USGS uses machine learning to show large lithium potential in Arkansas

#87

Say Lithium becomes essentially free because we find so much of it…would that drastically lower battery costs? Is our current supply of lithium limiting production?

>would that drastically lower battery costs?

I'm skeptical. China is already mass-producing batteries, securing as much lithium as possible. Additionally, US regulations will significantly increase costs for battery manufacturers.

Re: USGS uses machine learning to show large lithium potential in Arkansas

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People downvoted you to the point that your comment is grayed out and about to be hidden but there is hardly metric by which Arkansas is not in the bottom ten on a list of states. Infant mortality rate? 3rd most deadly for babies. Poverty rate? 7th poorest. Homicide rate? 7th most dangerous. Obesity rate? 3rd fattest. Practically any map of any measurable statistic where states are colored red for "bad" and green for…

Here's another list - Highest poverty rate? Lowest literacy rate? Last in opportunity? 8th worst in public safety? If you guessed California, you'd be right. Sweeping generalities and handpicked metrics do not tell an entire story.

A large portion of the USA sees California as a place to avoid- so those sweeping generalities and those particular metrics might be accurate. California is only a nice place to live if you're rich, and most people are not.

Re: USGS uses machine learning to show large lithium potential in Arkansas

#89

Love to see a project that uses bog standard ML techniques and doesn't call them AI. Respect.

When the tide goes out on the AI hype there’s going to be a lot of companies currently using expensive API calls for simple classification tasks that will be quietly revamped to use a simple CNN. ML is a toolbox of methods. Not every problem needs a transformer.

> Not every problem needs a transformer.

They do if they want to get the intention of a Venture Capitalist!

Re: USGS uses machine learning to show large lithium potential in Arkansas

#90
post #66

Love to see a project that uses bog standard ML techniques and doesn't call them AI. Respect.

Are we getting to the critical point where we declassify a bunch of stuff as AI? Used to be expert systems were considered AI. Now anything-not-an-LLM is going to stop being AI?

That treadmills been going on for a long time. Didn’t OCR used to be classified as AI?
Post reply on HN