Now imagine if we could learn from our past in the Rust Belt and see that temporary good jobs are not enough, so we should nationalize this resource in order to bring a wider benefit to the region outside of just this industry. Oh well though, that’s not really worth it when we could make like 5 or 6 people SUPER rich instead.
Anyway, link to the article here.
Full article here 
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PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh found a goldmine of lithium in Pennsylvania.
The discovery suggests that up to 40 percent of the lithium used in the United States could come from the wastewater from Marcellus Shale gas wells in the Keystone State.
"This is lithium concentrations that already exist at the surface in some capacity in Pennsylvania, and we found that there was sufficient lithium in the waters to supply somewhere between 30 and 40 percent of the current U.S. national demand," said Justin Mackey, research scientist the National Energy Technology Laboratory and PhD student at Pitt.
Mackey has been working on this study for years. He and his mentor Daniel Bain, associate professor of Pitt's Geology and Environmental Sciences, analyzed Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection compliance data and published their findings in Scientific Reports, a journal.
Mackey said the lithium is in waste that is already being handled.
"If you can extract value out of materials, and specifically lithium from this, then you reduce the cost of remediating and handling this waste," he said.
They haven't looked into how much lithium is in wastewater in neighboring states like Ohio and West Virginia.
"That number could be a lot larger, so there's an economic boom for the region as well," Mackey said.
What is lithium used for?
Lithium is essential for the production of technology we use every day, including smartphones and laptops, but it comes from across the globe like China and Chile.
The United States Geological Survey lists lithium as a critical mineral. Mackey said that designation means the U.S. government wants all lithium to be produced domestically by 2030, and this discovery could lead to Pennsylvania fueling domestic production.
There are facilities in Arkansas that are starting lithium mining operations, but Mackey said this is different in Pennsylvania.
"We've actually found that the Marcellus produced water has as high lithium concentrations as both brine mining operations in Arkansas and in Chile," he said.
"The attractive nature of this type of resource, it being water, is that you can start to apply some newer technologies like direct lithium extraction methods, where you're just focusing on the lithium and keeping everything else in solution," he added.
While fracking can be a controversial topic, he hopes this becomes part of the conversation.
"I do hope that it sheds light on creative remediation and reuse of these fluids. There's a lot of materials that are embodied in the water," Mackey said.
Mackey said they're already looking at lithium compositions in other formations, as well as expanding their analysis to other produced waters and looking at the environmental assessments for direct lithium extraction operations.
"We want a domestic source of lithium to decarbonize the American economy that is both safe, reliable and environmentally friendly," Mackey said.
Hey Rust Belt, remember how you had an economic boom then bust and complete abandonment from the government? Would you like another?
Unfortunately, given that the lithium is being extracted from fracking wastewater, it might lead to further shale gas development.
God has special providence for fools, drunkards and the United States of America
The US has a shitload of resources, such as oil, metals, lithium, rare earths even. Somebody who thinks that the reason why the US invaded the Middle East was primarily for oil will be very surprised when they learn that the US is actually an oil and gas-producing titan, higher than many petrostates even.
The problem isn't "oh golly gee, we just can't find this resource so we have to invade other countries for it!" The problem is that the profitability of extracting those resources inside the US is low, while in countries with fewer labour protections, the profitability is much higher. Additionally, training workers for more advanced jobs like refining lithium and rare earths can be a significant problem because apparently the capitalists don't wanna bother with it, if the failing plan for American workers to work at Taiwan-built chip plants in Arizona or Nevada or wherever they're trying to build it is any indication.
Sounds like Pennsylvania is about to have Democracy© brought to it.
It should be noted that lithium is everywhere on the earth's surface and it is hardly a limited resource like say petroleum or cobalt. The bottleneck to mass production of lithium batteries is in the refining process, and this is where China currently holds a dominant position.
Buried lede: fracking wastewater contains massive amounts of lithium!
The water that’s supposed to go back into the water table contains massive amounts of lithium!
They haven't looked into how much lithium is in wastewater in neighboring states like Ohio and West Virginia.
Boy it would be very good for Eastern Ohio to have a major green energy industrial boom under a planned socialist economy
The US intelligence establishment now writing reports on why it is essential we invade the rust belt to depose it's authoritarian government and impose the freedom of markets.
Oh good, let's turn the beautiful mountain ranges in this part of Pennsylvania into the flat topped horrors that dot West Virginia. That's the way to fix the economy, surely.
I guess it's through fracking so I imagine it'll be less stripping from the top and more collapsing internally, like sucking the air out of a cheap water bottle (I am not a geologist)
Annual estimates suggest statewide lithium mass yields of approximately 1160 (95% CI 1140–1180) metric tons (mt) per year.
The world's mine production of lithium reached a new high of 180,000 metric tons in 2023
So less than a percent of current global extraction (and shows you how far behind the US is).
But golly gosh, I guess this means we'll need to keep doing fracking! We'll call it green fracking, or smart fracking, or clean fracking.
Now imagine if we could learn from our past in the Rust Belt and see that temporary good jobs are not enough, so we should nationalize this resource in order to bring a wider benefit to the region outside of just this industry
They’re going to mine the lithium and send it to like Arizona to get processed lol. Not sure what thr water situation is like in the rust belt, but I feel like it could’ve been revived as a tech hub but instead they built a microchip factory in a desert
Good thing it’s in Arizona, because 1 ton of lithium only requires 2 million liters of water to process
Aren’t there sodium based batteries that don’t need lithium or as many rare earth minerals?
Yes but they're not as energy dense. Although the energy density is only needed to run bloatware shit to harvest data to then set the planet on fire crunching that data to better target ads at people with ad blockers...
I bought a couch a month or two ago and still all my ads are based on buying a second couch of the exact same brand. Like, congrats on figuring out what I intended to buy after I bought it. Or when Amazon thinks that I want to buy additional toilet seats.
Yeah but consider how many CPU cycles and data scientist coffees it took to come to that conclusion. Ooh my python tensorflow dick and balls 5 trillion Nvidia gpus told me that person who buys sofa wants sofa
announces it.
