Sunday River may get company - Lithium Mine

[skiguy]

What has helped reduce acid rain has been reduction of SO2 and NOx emissions at coal-fired power plants and automobile exhaust, respectively, rather than CO2, which has continued to increase. And as a global society we have done a remarkable job with closing the ozone holes in the stratosphere by reduction of CFC emissions. If we only could do the same for CO2 and CH4 emissions.

Thank you for the clarification.

 

[JoshandBaron]

I believe the USN operates the largest number of reactors in the US, with a perfect safety record. Although much smaller than commercial plants, they operate in harsh conditions with highly enriched (weapons grade) uranium. And remember, more people died in the back seat of a certain politician's car than all the nuclear power plants in the US.

You don't need to make up facts to make a case for nuclear's safety.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Guardfish_(SSN-612)#1973_Reactor_Accident

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucle...United_States#List_of_accidents_and_incidents

 

[maineguy]

It looks like only one of these incidents concerned the USN. Well, I guess nobody's perfect. Concerning the commercial nuclear plants, I didn't see any deaths directly linked to the nuclear side of the plant. You know, like main coolant pumps, pressurizers, etc. And when you see something like "failure of X leads to reactor shutdown", that's not an accident. It's the system doing what it is supposed to do. I think they refer to it as an incident, and is thoroughly investigated by the NRC I believe. When I trip a circuit breaker in my house, I don't consider it an accident or an incident.

 

[Dr. Dasypodidae]

Agree, but the movie with Jane Fonda didn't help I believe the USN operates the largest number of reactors in the US, with a perfect safety record. Although much smaller than commercial plants, they operate in harsh conditions with highly enriched (weapons grade) uranium. And remember, more people died in the back seat of a certain politician's car than all the nuclear power plants in the US.

Yup, art once again foreshadowing reality, in this case by 12 days.

My father was in the USN as an electrician on various ships during WWII. During his cancer-shortened career as an electrical contractor he wired many houses with electrical heating as he was convinced that electricity would become essentially free with nuclear fission reactors, and that individual buildings would have small reactors in their basements, like submarines. An uncle was a career USN diver who hooked up the rescue bell that saved 33 of the 59 sailors on board the Squalus that sank off New Hampshire’s coast in May 1939. Grade school classmates were not so lucky when the Thresher went down in deeper water off Cape Cod in April 1963 with all 129 on board perishing.

 

[maineguy]

Yup, art once again foreshadowing reality, in this case by 12 days.

My father was in the USN as an electrician on various ships during WWII. During his cancer-shortened career as an electrical contractor he wired many houses with electrical heating as he was convinced that electricity would become essentially free with nuclear fission reactors, and that individual buildings would have small reactors in their basements, like submarines.

Tell me about it. When we bought our house in 81, the electric utility was PSNH for some reason. It later changed over to CMP. But, because of the belief that the Seabrook plant would be supplying lots of cheap electric power, all the houses in my neighborhood were wired for electric heat Because of this, most of the homes heated with wood and just used the electric as a back-up. Over the intervening years, almost all of the houses have converted to oil or propane and the ubiquitous stacks of cordwood gradually disappeared from their yards.

Interesting comments on Squalus and Thresher. The transcripts from the Navy hearings on the Thresher loss have recently been declassified and are available online. A great read if you're into nautical stuff.

 

[Dr. Dasypodidae]

And, lest we forget, Jimmy C was President when China Syndrome and TMI happened and spent 7+ years in the USN submarine service post-WWII, overlapping with my uncle for one year at the submarine base in Groton, Connecticut. A cousin’s son still works at Electric Boat in Groton.

 

[peakbagger]

A fairly wandering thread. A comment about Lithium battery chemistries. The LMNC (Lithium Manganese Nickle Cobalt Oxide) chemistry used for high energy applications like EVs is now being replaced with LFP (Lithium Ferrous Iron Phospate) in some EV applications and Tesla has switched over to LFP for their Megapack storage tech. The expectation is that LMNC is going to be phased out as battery tech improves so the demand for cobalt will be reduced. Most of the metals in a battery can be recycled but with the growth curve of batteries the companies making them are going to the cheapest source and that is the Congo. Cobalt is available elsewhere, it's just cheaper to buy it from a country that condones. slave labor and inhumane living conditions of its citizens. Shame on the rest of the world for allowing it to happen (the same could be said for many Chinese product made by Chinese Muslims in Xinjiang province).

It comes down to responsible sourcing. Lithium is available from multiple sources and unless there are societal limitations on the sourcing, business is going to go to the lowest cost source. If the Newry deposits cost less to process than brine deposits (or geothermal brine) then its worth it for the owners to try to get the permits to mine it, if not its a moot point unless the government steps in. The US is trying to incentivize the production of batteries and their materials by domestic suppliers but already the Europeans are pushing back.

BTW with respect to nuclear, the most likely candidate for the next generation of Small Modular Reactor (SMR) nuclear plants is dependent upon a source of nuclear fuel only made by Russia. Post Soviet Union breakup, in order to keep the large nuclear industry busy rather than going to work proliferating the technology, most nuclear fueling production was handed off to the Russians. B&W the developer and supplier of the Navy reactors, did have a SMR concept they were trying to sell but it been dropped. Odds are Pebble Bed reactor tech brought back to life by China and currently being commercialized will be the next tech that is viable, it has its pluses and minuses but a big plus is its gas cooled and not dependent on external cooling to go into a safe shutdown.

 

[hikerbrian]

Using batteries to power cars always struck me as analogous to having to pack out your poop on a backpacking trip - even when the batteries are low or dead, you've got all that weight to drag around. My house growing up (NH, built in the 70s) also had baseboard electric heating, but everyone in the neighborhood heated mostly with wood. Funny how that works. Now my parents are pretty much the only people in the neighborhood who still heat with wood, and the neighbors occasionally complain about chainsaw noise. Sigh. BTW, my father-in-law served on the Nautilus in the late 50's-early 60's, Ken Kreutziger if any of you old farts know him.

Nuclear has got to be the way to go in the future. But it's awfully difficult to know when that future will arrive. Smartest kid at my high school got his BS and MS from MIT with a dual major in chemistry and nuclear engineering, but as far as I can tell he's never worked in the nuclear power industry. Conjecture on my part, but I think it's because there are few good jobs/careers in that space relative to, say, nuclear medicine. Will that shift sometime soon? My understanding is the next generation of fast reactors is capable of using spent nuclear fuel (waste) from current reactors, and efficiency is upwards of 90%, compared to roughly 5% currently. As for fusion, I don't expect that to impact my lifetime. Still, my son is fascinated with nuclear energy, and it sure could help with the CO2 situation. Intuition (and the 'incidents' link above) tells me the number of accidents from nuclear energy are vanishingly small, but three have been very high profile, and one in particular will continue to have far-reaching consequences for many generations. Still, if you look at injuries per unit energy produced, I have to think nuclear has been incredibly safe. I suppose it's like comparing the safety of flying vs driving. Psychology is at odds with reality.

 

[peakbagger]

I had written this up regarding Coos county renewable power awhile back that may be of interest to those who think it not possible having a renewable grid

Some Coos County facts that may mess with some folks thinking about renewable power generation. Coos county is major net producer of a mix of intermittent and dispatchable renewable power and could be a much larger producer. There is close to 60 MW of mostly run of the river hydroelectric. There is minimal storage in the Androscoggin River and operating limits in the Union Water Power (they control the upstream storage lakes) means that they pretty well adjust output to the river flow. Its variable with the season but mostly baseload (24/7) unlike the big hydros in Maine that have large man made lakes to allow diurnal dispatch. Brookfield that owns more than half of the power output is in the process of installing Tesla LFP (Lithium Iron Phosphate)Megapack battery storage in Berlin (they also have installed similar in East Millinocket) to allow more peak dispatchable power. (Even Tesla has switched from the Lithium Manganese Nickel Cobalt chemistry that is problematical from a materials supply basis) on their bulk storage battery packs and some (by not all of their cars) to Lithium Phosphate chemistry that do not require cobalt (also not prone to self ignition).

The Burgess Biopower plant in Berlin is 75 MW, it is baseload with a lot of turn down and they typically have 30 to 60 days of fuel in the yard which consists of mix of sawmill waste from the large sawmill operation in Milan and a smaller one in Berlin along with low grade waste wood from timber harvesting. It is regarded as renewable power although there are groups that feel that it is not renewable enough as its dependent on the carbon cycle to reclaim its CO2 emissions. As long as there is market for lumber there will be sawmill waste and forestry operations so if it is not turned into power its got to go somewhere although if the nascent biochar industry is successful, that may change (its definitely not assured at this point).

There is also the somewhat out of sight out of mind 100 MW (nameplate) windfarm in Millsfield, along with the 14 MW (nameplate) Jericho wind farm. They are intermittent resources but the output tends to track the weather. There is another wind power project that was slated for ridgelines north of the Balsams that was at one point rated for 160 MW with the potential for an additional 100 MW that is on hold until transmission issues are resolved.

There are also 2 other biomass plants, Whitefield and Bethlehem that are currently idled totaling around 33 MW. Both were dispatchable and had on site fuel storage for 30 days. The party in control of the state would rather let Bow burn coal for cheap than run biomass plants with the exception of Berlin and they have their sights set on Berlin.

Add it all up and Coos county could be a major net renewable energy producer with one big problem, it is limited in how much power it can export to the rest of the state or the region as the powerline operated under the special permit across the WMNF is not large enough and upgrading it would require a very difficult permitting process. Currently there are times when plants cannot put out all the power they can generate due to this limit. There also would also need to be major investment in the so called Coos Loop electrical transmission system to increase it capacity but Eversource has been upgrading it under the guise of reliability since the Northern Pass project got shelved. They know the numbers but will not reveal them. My guess is the additional wind farm capacity could not be supported easily put getting to the point were they could export it all would probably be far less of an effort.


BTW, I have had solar hot water on my home for about 25 years, a small grid tied solar system for about 21 years that was expanded so I have not bought power from the utility for about 15 years and have not used heating oil for about 7 years. I heat my home with mostly wood (thinned from my wood lot) and a mini split run off excess solar capacity. I also drive a plug in hybrid Rav 4 and charge it from excess solar. Dependent on time of year and where I am going I get 30 to 50 miles of driving "free". Even on the highway I get 40 MPG after the "free" miles are used up. So reducing carbon impact is not impossible it just takes a bit of planning and deciding on priorities.

 

[skiguy]

I had written this up regarding Coos county renewable power awhile back that may be of interest to those who think it not possible having a renewable grid

Some Coos County facts that may mess with some folks thinking about renewable power generation. Coos county is major net producer of a mix of intermittent and dispatchable renewable power and could be a much larger producer. There is close to 60 MW of mostly run of the river hydroelectric. There is minimal storage in the Androscoggin River and operating limits in the Union Water Power (they control the upstream storage lakes) means that they pretty well adjust output to the river flow. Its variable with the season but mostly baseload (24/7) unlike the big hydros in Maine that have large man made lakes to allow diurnal dispatch. Brookfield that owns more than half of the power output is in the process of installing Tesla LFP (Lithium Iron Phosphate)Megapack battery storage in Berlin (they also have installed similar in East Millinocket) to allow more peak dispatchable power. (Even Tesla has switched from the Lithium Manganese Nickel Cobalt chemistry that is problematical from a materials supply basis) on their bulk storage battery packs and some (by not all of their cars) to Lithium Phosphate chemistry that do not require cobalt (also not prone to self ignition).

The Burgess Biopower plant in Berlin is 75 MW, it is baseload with a lot of turn down and they typically have 30 to 60 days of fuel in the yard which consists of mix of sawmill waste from the large sawmill operation in Milan and a smaller one in Berlin along with low grade waste wood from timber harvesting. It is regarded as renewable power although there are groups that feel that it is not renewable enough as its dependent on the carbon cycle to reclaim its CO2 emissions. As long as there is market for lumber there will be sawmill waste and forestry operations so if it is not turned into power its got to go somewhere although if the nascent biochar industry is successful, that may change (its definitely not assured at this point).

There is also the somewhat out of sight out of mind 100 MW (nameplate) windfarm in Millsfield, along with the 14 MW (nameplate) Jericho wind farm. They are intermittent resources but the output tends to track the weather. There is another wind power project that was slated for ridgelines north of the Balsams that was at one point rated for 160 MW with the potential for an additional 100 MW that is on hold until transmission issues are resolved.

There are also 2 other biomass plants, Whitefield and Bethlehem that are currently idled totaling around 33 MW. Both were dispatchable and had on site fuel storage for 30 days. The party in control of the state would rather let Bow burn coal for cheap than run biomass plants with the exception of Berlin and they have their sights set on Berlin.

Add it all up and Coos county could be a major net renewable energy producer with one big problem, it is limited in how much power it can export to the rest of the state or the region as the powerline operated under the special permit across the WMNF is not large enough and upgrading it would require a very difficult permitting process. Currently there are times when plants cannot put out all the power they can generate due to this limit. There also would also need to be major investment in the so called Coos Loop electrical transmission system to increase it capacity but Eversource has been upgrading it under the guise of reliability since the Northern Pass project got shelved. They know the numbers but will not reveal them. My guess is the additional wind farm capacity could not be supported easily put getting to the point were they could export it all would probably be far less of an effort.


BTW, I have had solar hot water on my home for about 25 years, a small grid tied solar system for about 21 years that was expanded so I have not bought power from the utility for about 15 years and have not used heating oil for about 7 years. I heat my home with mostly wood (thinned from my wood lot) and a mini split run off excess solar capacity. I also drive a plug in hybrid Rav 4 and charge it from excess solar. Dependent on time of year and where I am going I get 30 to 50 miles of driving "free". Even on the highway I get 40 MPG after the "free" miles are used up. So reducing carbon impact is not impossible it just takes a bit of planning and deciding on priorities.

Great info and kudos to you for your energy self sufficiency. When the rest of us are living beyond the thunder dome you’ll still be enjoying yourself out hiking.

 

[skiguy]

Interesting take from The Wyoming Legislature. https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/...-out-sales-of-new-e-vs-by-2035-200704042.html

 

[peakbagger]

https://time.com/6294818/lithium-mining-us-maine/

 

[skiguy]

https://time.com/6294818/lithium-mining-us-maine/

Good info. Thank you for posting.

 

[Hillwalker]

One major problem is that in Maine Lithium is classified as a metal which makes it fall under that category of mining. Were it simply a gravel pit there with be no difficult permitting necessary. And of course, technically lithium is a metal. There is work afoot to attempt to have the parent mineral that would be mined to extract the lithium a mineral not a metal.

 

[peakbagger]

It doesnt help that the Pickett Mountain mine developer and the Bald Mountain promoter are in the background trying to get the laws made simpler.

 

[peakbagger]

The Portland Paper has an article today that the mining law in Maine has been modified, but not yet approved to allow additional exploration of the mine site.

https://www.pressherald.com/2024/02/29/state-environmental-board-adopts-new-mineral-mining-rule/

It was represented as not having sulfide deposits a source of long term acid mine drainage but apparently there may be some so it is not a guarantee yet, but I expect the owners have a lot of investors willing to back them.

 

[peakbagger]

https://www.pressherald.com/2024/05/16/regulators-approve-mining-law-changes/

I wonder if the owners will apply for a permit?