
Lithium find in Cornwall spurs hopes of regeneration - timthorn
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/sep/17/significant-lithium-find-spurs-hopes-of-cornwall-regeneration
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derefr
If anyone’s wondering why lithium is a somewhat-rare element (only 25th-most
abundant in the Earth’s crust) in the first place—given that, by Big Bang
nucleosynthesis, it “should” be the nearly as abundant in the universe as
hydrogen or helium: we aren’t really sure! It’s an unresolved problem in
physics:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_lithium_problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_lithium_problem)

(We _do_ know that stars can “destroy” lithium baryons at high-enough
temperatures, and that does explain _part_ of lithium’s rarity. But even given
that, it “should” still be 3x more abundant than it is; or rather, the Big
Bang should have _produced_ 3x more lithium than it did, given our current
models of it.)

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cproctor
I didn't know Cornwall was a mining center. I thought, "I wonder if there are
any good collections of old mining structures and machinery" and then found
this [1]. Thanks, old internet! I hope you don't get killed by the walled
gardens.

[1] [http://www.cornishmineimages.co.uk/](http://www.cornishmineimages.co.uk/)

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gnufx
One definition of a mine was "a hole in the ground with a Cornishman at the
bottom", and Cornish pasties were supposedly miners' lunch. See also the
Camborne School of Mines.

Edit: s/is/was/ and hear Steve Knightley's song "Cousin Jack".

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_Microft
If someone is familiar with the exploration or mining industry:

Does this suggest that lithium rich brines could be found elsewhere as well
and maybe in which environments they might be expected?

Why does it take half a decade to get going in such a case?

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fred_is_fred
I expect most of the time is spent on getting financing, permitting, mineral
rights, building needed infra, finding buyers for it, and also more testing on
the size of the find and potential rate of extractions.

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_Microft
Whenever I see timelines like this, I think it must be possible to do this in
half of the time.

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cgio
Maybe, but it will actually take double the time.

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mrlonglong
Hopefully we can ditch our ICE cars if the price is right. I long to buy a EV
car that does 300+ mile range and can charge at 150kw+ for 20k-25k GBP.

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lcamach84
It is strange to see the concepts like "regeneration" and "mining" in the same
sentence

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timthorn
It sounds like this is extraction more than "mining" \- the source brine is
also being used for geothermal energy. A few more details in this article:
[https://www.insidermedia.com/news/south-west/globally-
signif...](https://www.insidermedia.com/news/south-west/globally-significant-
find-for-cornish-lithium)

