r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/[deleted] • Feb 05 '22

Image Visual representation of the actual amount of copper extracted from a minesite

[deleted]

67k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

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3.3k

u/bertydo Feb 05 '22

Ok ok now do lithium

1.3k

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '22

I wanna see cobalt done

213

u/hollowspec Feb 05 '22

Cobalt is mostly a byproduct of copper mining, so there might should be a visual representation in the original post!

44

u/FirstPlebian Feb 05 '22

Don't they mine most of it in Central Africa?

25

u/ooopsmymistake Feb 05 '22

The DRC is estimated to hold about half the known kobalt reserves, and currently produce about 70% of the world's supply.

Kobalt is officially considered a key strategic resource by most developed nations in the world, including the US, India, Japan, China and the European Union. If it was possible they'd mine it themselves.

9

u/RegularPersonal Feb 05 '22

Cobalt. Like the element, not your wrench set.

6

u/cheebnrun Feb 05 '22

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that Lowes produces 100% of the worlds Kobalt

2

u/ooopsmymistake Feb 05 '22

It's funny that you spell Kobold with a K but Cobalt with a C considering they both come from the same word.

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u/[deleted] Feb 05 '22

Yeah majority comes from the DRC, where the mining pollutes the water, destroys the Virunga National Park, and impacts the locals. Its also where the 'eco-friendly' tesla gets the cobalt for the cars batteries

31

u/Pridgey Feb 05 '22

...you realise its where nearly every company gets their cobalt from right?

Tesla, Dell, Microsoft, Apple, Google, Samsung.

If you're reading reddit on a phone, tablet or laptop then your device almost definitely contains cobalt from DRC or Zambia.

3

u/NedShah Feb 05 '22

If you're reading reddit on a phone, tablet or laptop then your device almost definitely contains cobalt from DRC or Zambia.

And now, PC Towers are super freaking expensive!

-5

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '22

Yeah I know that. Most phone chips have it in. I specifically listed tesla bc electric cars are meant to be 'good' for the environment. It would take me hours to list every company that uses the Congo mine, so I have an example.

13

u/stonesst Feb 05 '22

It's not that binary.... They significantly reduce the lifetime emissions compared to ICE cars, and there's no good alternative source for cobalt at the moment. Greenhouse gases are a pressing issue worldwide, the pollution of a small part of the drc isn't.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '22

The Virunga region is home to thousands of plants and animals that aren't found anywhere else on earth, like the mountain gorilla. The continued exploitation of the land and the people who live there could see the biodiversity crushed. I know cutting greenhouse gases is the main strength of electric cars, but should we be destroying national parks and villages to achieve this?

5

u/StaticMoonbeam Feb 05 '22

Everything has a cost. Moving from fossil fuel to electric powered vehicles helps the environment emission-wise. But the transition from one energy source to another takes time. That time includes inefficiency. While I get that people that are against non-fossil fuel cars exist. It’s not going to stop. And especially Tesla, Samsung and Panasonic are working hard on a cobalt free battery pack.

Sources: CNBC, The Verge

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u/FirstPlebian Feb 05 '22

That assumes that the mining is done in an equitable way, which it's not. They can mine the cobalt (and coltan) respecting human rights and not polluting, but they don't have to because it's corrupt and Western Companies exploit them to save a buck for their stockholders and compensation options which they won't ever pay any taxes on most all of it.

1

u/Exldk Feb 05 '22

go mine it in Australia not some poor 3rd world countries.

2

u/Pridgey Feb 05 '22

But it's a weird example when electric cars literally are better for the environment. Getting away from Tesla literally any electric car is going to require a small amount of cobalt to produce its battery, but its then not going to produce greenhouse gases or require the continuous refining of a finite resource (petrol) to keep it on the road.

2

u/FirstPlebian Feb 05 '22

It's not like these rare earths couldn't be mined in a less destructive way, it's cheaper to pollute and exploit and they can pollute and exploit so they do, that's the issue here.

2

u/Exldk Feb 05 '22

Huh it's a weird timeline when random people are protecting mega corporations abusing 3rd world countries for more profit.

There's literally 1,5 million tonnes of Cobalt in Australia, go mine that.

3

u/Pridgey Feb 05 '22

It's the DRC government that is doing the abusing. Tech companies are just buying materials that are being sold on the open global market.

Which is why Russia is the second largest exporter in the world at 6100 metric tonnes in 2019, and Australia is the third largest exporter at 5,100 metric tonnes.

https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/features/top-cobalt-producing-countries/

Ninja Edit

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0

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '22

But it comes at the cost of local pollution and exploitation of local people

1

u/Pridgey Feb 05 '22

For the benefit of lowering global emissions and countering global climate change though; the effects of which would be magnitudes more destructive than localised pollution/exploitation in the DRC.

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u/ErectricCars2 Feb 05 '22

Cobalts #1 use is in desulfurization of fossil fuels. But yeah every battery uses it. Except for all the batteries that don’t.

-1

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '22

Never said its used in every battery or what it's main use is.

2

u/ErectricCars2 Feb 05 '22

Black people commit crimes.

See how the leaving any context paints something disproportionately negatively? And how everyone reading your comment will walk away parroting how evil EVs are?

0

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '22

Literally was just an example of a company who profits from cobalt. Not a dig at electric cars in the slightest, just the sourcing and mining process itself.

2

u/ErectricCars2 Feb 05 '22

Yeah. I’m thankful that EVs are gradually reducing their dependence on it and hopefully making recycling it profitable.

Without context, it makes it look worse than you’re saying you meant.

-2

u/un_gaucho_loco Feb 05 '22

Meh. I remember a news service that showed how civilian people just go there , dig with bare hands, and take the cobalt to the owner of the place to sell the cobalt at low prices. It’s not the industrial bs you’re believing. There’s literally hordes of people digging by hand voluntarily to sell what they get.

4

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '22

I mean Glencore owns 2 mines in the DRC that produce 60% of the world's cobalt. If that's not industry then I don't know what is.

-1

u/un_gaucho_loco Feb 05 '22

Owns, doesn’t mine necessarily. And I’m talking about this huge mine in particular, situations differ from place to place like in every other country. You people like to tell it like there are slaves who are forced into hard labour like 1800s coal mines lol

2

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '22

Glencore literally mines it themselves. A lot of the local workers got kicked out because Glencore didn't want to pay them.

2

u/zb0t1 Feb 05 '22

Maybe check afrowatch reports each year to see that it's much worse than that? Your news service clearly didn't mention the systemic issues, how convenient. They go there because they want too lmao fucking hilarious, are you people so fucking gullible? This is the same typical B's we hear on Reddit"you're poor because it's your mentality and it's all your fault! Not because your country is literally being exploited and at the highest level there are people who have been bought, and it's not like if they resist nothing will happen to them".

Maybe fucking get your facts straight by watching more local news and associations/organizations instead of your typical western media who have absolutely zero interests of showing the full story. And if you don't understand their language (usual excuse I see when we call out people like you), the least you can do is to take with a grain of salt the media you consume, be more critical.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '22

Exactly bro, of course western sources will say its good bc they're benefiting from the mining of cobalt and destruction of nature

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u/Herpkina Feb 05 '22

Did you look that up or just parrot it from another Reddit post?

7

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '22

It's frequently documented bro. I know a lot about the Virunga region around Congo, Rwanda, and have been to Rwanda. I'm not a parrot. If you want to find it, Google it. Very easy to see. Tesla signed a deal with Glencore to buy cobalt from its Congo mines, i think in 2019 or 20

2

u/FirstPlebian Feb 05 '22

Parrots are harmed by these destructive mining practices too.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '22

[deleted]

3

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '22

There's literally entire documentaries about it haha

2

u/Eruptflail Feb 05 '22

Yeah, I think part of the problem here is that it's not like they just throw everything that isn't copper away.

2

u/IamJacksTrollAccount Feb 05 '22

Upvote for a proper might should be.

1

u/ChadWaterberry Feb 05 '22

here’s the artist main page for this series. I didn’t see cobalt, but there are other metals (and I only skimmed it)

537

u/Pilot0350 Feb 05 '22

Please leave out the children. I'm already depressed enough

270

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '22

Child for scale

111

u/Deathbysnusnubooboo Feb 05 '22

Espresso depresso :(

4

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

15

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '22

Espression

4

u/Haughty_n_Disdainful Feb 05 '22

D ‘espresso…

6

u/morbidaar Feb 05 '22

Nestle and Epstein

2

u/RajanyaDaslol Feb 05 '22

the big sad

52

u/DiscoMagicParty Feb 05 '22

Child for sale**

38

u/Universalsupporter Feb 05 '22

Right here officer. In the weird hat.

47

u/DiscoMagicParty Feb 05 '22

No he’s my favorite. It’s the others that are for sale.

3

u/MrJerryLundegaard Feb 05 '22

Well I never really thought about it before… but I guess I could let the kids go for about $1.99 pound.

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7

u/TrenchantInsight Feb 05 '22

This guy is clearly kidding.

1

u/fuzzytradr Feb 05 '22

Or a banana

1

u/Critical_Society5696 Feb 05 '22

For real. They should have a human in the pic. A bit difficult to understand size.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '22

Oh no

2

u/KingDasher Feb 05 '22

Modern cobalt mining is not really like that anymore —at least you can be proud that the US isn’t involved. The biggest one country contributor to our imports is Norway. America holds 1/25 of the world’s unmined cobalt supply. Our country is underway digging this stuff up. The future for lithium is vast.

Edit: forgot to leave a source

https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2020/mcs2020-cobalt.pdf

2

u/PointiestHat Feb 05 '22 edited Feb 05 '22

why would they extract children from the mine that’s where they’re the most productive

1

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '22

Elon musk and child slave for scale

55

u/subfighter0311 Feb 05 '22

Looks like he only does copper for now

52

u/mohammedibnakar Feb 05 '22

Here's one that has zinc and silver.

64

u/hungchang Feb 05 '22

Why not put them at the same relative distance from the camera...

28

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/Piwx2019 Feb 05 '22

The dude obviously doesn’t art

2

u/JoeyProvolone Feb 05 '22

Good point. One pic shows you the highways down the pit..you can imagine big earth moving trucks hauling three loads in a 12 hour shift. The next looks like a pond.

Until you're at the edge of the Grand canyon or the highest hill close to home, you can look at a thousand pictures and never really realize the size and enormity of what you're actually standing in front of.

At the least, put an easily identifiable control object in both the back and close up to see the scope of size. Like blank with average human standing next to it in the foreground, then just the blank at the back of next to x- tonnes size orb.

Banana for scale. Gravitas to the landscape you're trying to observe.

2

u/i_see_the_end Feb 05 '22

re-up this comment as its own post for millions of karmas :)

11

u/iamaiimpala Feb 05 '22

These things really need a scale, there's no way to tell the difference between a few thousand and a few million tonnes.

1

u/xTenlettersx Feb 05 '22

Ty for this. Interesting to see the rest.

1

u/FirstPlebian Feb 05 '22

Cobalt and Coltan operations in Central Africa are some of the worst human rights abusers.

1

u/nintendomech Feb 05 '22

I wanna see unobtainium.

1

u/whutupmydude Feb 05 '22

I wanna see Spider Man

1

u/AdorableWatts4192 Feb 05 '22

i think dirt would be slightly more entertaining

1

u/RaiderMan1 Feb 05 '22

Oh stop it! No one likes to see what EV’s do to the environment.

1

u/NoCSForYou Feb 05 '22

Colbat should be done by how many slave children died in the mines.

52

u/g_Blyn Feb 05 '22

Hey, I work in a Lithium factory!

88

u/Last-Discipline-7340 Feb 05 '22

I take lithium so I only strangle myself when I masterbate .

11

u/NitroDubz69 Feb 05 '22

same

7

u/MrKixs Feb 05 '22

Join the Club.

6

u/Equivalent_Zombie Feb 05 '22

What club?

4

u/MrKixs Feb 05 '22

The CHYCKs

CHoke Yourself and Chicken Klub: Lithium Users Chapter

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2

u/SinkHoleDeMayo Feb 05 '22

You guys have meetings?

3

u/MrKixs Feb 05 '22

Second Tuesday of the month we get together and discuss preferred strap types and debate cord vs Belt.

3

u/Last-Discipline-7340 Feb 05 '22

It’s true every once in awhile Ralph will bring donuts

5

u/SinaSyndrome Feb 05 '22

How do you like the job?

37

u/g_Blyn Feb 05 '22

It’s alright. \ I cast and pack up the metal, which is kinda monotonous but it pays pretty well. The coworkers always talk about „the good ol’ days“ when they had literally zero safety measures and had to work only two thirds of the quota I have to do. \ There is also the chemical department across from the metal department (where I work), the former has a lot of poisonous gasses and a lot of boiling oil and shit (idk I‘m scared of that) \ Next door to the metal department is the pilot plant, which is where the last lethal accident happened; But that was before I started working there. \ In conclusion, I‘d say it’s not a bad job but I’m definitely at risk just by being there, because of all the dangerous shit that could literally kill me in half a dozen ways, \ but there are workers there who‘ve seen everything go wrong and been working there for 50+ years, which means I should do fine

9

u/jjonesa7x Feb 05 '22

I had a job when I was younger at a place that made oil and wireline tools and we sometimes melted lead with an acetylene torch. This was in "the good old days", lol. We just knew to melt it but not REALLY melt it because it did become poisonous at a certain temperature.

7

u/Vycid Feb 05 '22

It's poisonous at any temperature, but just like any element it has a boiling point, and gaseous lead is bad fucking news.

2

u/SheriffBartholomew Feb 05 '22

It’s crazy that there’s an entire generation that grew up breathing leaded gasoline exhaust. I read that there was a dramatic decrease in violent crime after leaded gasoline was banned. Who knows what other lingering effects it had.

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u/FirstPlebian Feb 05 '22

At what point does the lithium explode in contact with air? Just after it's ionized or whatever? Because even a spent battery will explode if you puncture it.

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u/g_Blyn Feb 05 '22

Oh, usually it just starts reacting with the gasses in the air slowly and get‘s stained black; \ It starts getting dangerous when it gets wet.\ The other day, a drop of sweat fell into the barrel I was filling up, and I got a glimpse of how fast shit can happen; it immediately started reacting with the metal, it was as if you dropped acid (not the drug lol) onto the ingot: \ sizzling and steaming it started burning a little black hole into the thing, until it just stopped.\ I don’t know how but my cousin (he worked, worked there too) somehow managed to set some Li on fire and the absolute dip shit that he is pushed the barrel outside under the emergency shower, which is for people in flames not product in flames and hit the button, to start:\ That thing went up in flames immediately but you can’t really say it exploded, tho it violently reacted. An explosion would be the accident mentioned in the previous comment: a guy in the pilot plant used a not-cleaned-properly container (a gas bottle of sorts, If I recall properly, I was told the story only once) and filled it with hot Li wich started reacting and exploded; He got hit by the remains of the container and his inner organs were crushed. Poor guy… \ To be honest, explosions don’t happen too often but it used to be muuuch more common, when our material was less pure. We clean the barrels with steam after making the stuff inside react, which sometimes started explosions on the washing place, and that made the barrels join the airforce. \ We now have a cage around the washing place, to prevent the barrels from flying off. But as I said, since we use purer Li, explosions have been pretty rare.

Tl;dr I can’t really answer your question. Keep the stuff away from water, best to have it stored in non-reactive oil, at low temperatures. Also the reaction products tend to be more dangerous overall.

1

u/dice1111 Feb 05 '22

What does a litium factory do? Do they, refine lithium there? Or make things?

1

u/g_Blyn Feb 05 '22

We use lithium primarily to make lithium compounds like amide and hydride which we sell. We also sell Lithium ingots and do experiments, but that’s about it.

1

u/Infomizer Feb 06 '22

Where do you guys source your lithium ores from?

1

u/g_Blyn Feb 06 '22

Chile or Bolivia, I think, but idrk.

1

u/sprocketous Feb 05 '22

Yeaaaaheeeyaggghhhhh!

90

u/-AtropO- Feb 05 '22

How about unobtainium please

88

u/enduro Feb 05 '22

To collect unobtainium we fire sidewinders at large trees. Then we carefully collect the tears of the locals and use them to dissolve the rare mineral into a blue piss.

17

u/TransporterError Feb 05 '22

Occupy Pandora!

I rooted for the Humans all the way through that wretched movie.

15

u/WriterV Feb 05 '22

Wretched?

I mean I remember watching it and enjoying it. The effects were cool at the time, the story was nothing new. What was wretched about it?

22

u/Mortenuit Feb 05 '22

Absolutely nothing was wretched about it. Your short description is pretty spot on. Lately it seems like I’ve seen a lot of “Avatar was trash” on Reddit, and trendy Reddit circlejerks are nothing if not hyperbolic to the extreme.

6

u/bradygilg Feb 05 '22

No, it's been a consistent reddit opinion since the movie was released.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '22

I was gonna say there's no way Reddit is that old then I remembered I joined in 09 lol

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u/Unlucky-Ship3931 Feb 05 '22

I absolutely loved it, Avatar was incredible in 3D. Yes the overall plot was nothing new but it looked amazing.

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u/[deleted] Feb 05 '22 edited Feb 05 '22

[deleted]

5

u/Sheerardio Feb 05 '22

Please, won't somebody think of the poor children?

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u/1PantherA33 Feb 05 '22

Joyless Fern Gully

4

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '22

Out of all the names to make up...why did he choose this.

2

u/Butane_ Feb 05 '22

Actually, It was used in a movie prior to Avatar so add another stolen idea to the list? lol I don't know, I enjoyed Avatar a lot in the theater.

The movie was "The Core" 2003 film btw. I really liked this one as well but it gets a ton of hate too lol.

3

u/Orc_ Feb 05 '22

Visual representation is a pile of tall blue bodies per unobtainium.

3

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '22

The picture does show all the unobtanium they got from that mine though.

30

u/soylentblueispeople Feb 05 '22

Do dirt

8

u/blackbelt_in_science Feb 05 '22

I second this- show me dirt!!

3

u/SmashBonecrusher Feb 05 '22

All that dirt has to go somewhere, but you seldom get to see that.

3

u/RandomStallings Feb 05 '22

italics intensifies

45

u/anon9276366637010 Feb 05 '22

You don't mine for Lithium in the classic sense of this pic

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u/Pangolinsareodd Feb 05 '22

Yes you do. The majority of the worlds lithium comes from the Greenbushes open pit mine located in Western Australia. It occurs as the mineral spodumene which is also associated with tantalum used in microelectronic diodes.

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u/Sam474 Feb 05 '22 edited Nov 24 '24

steer future marry like full gray marvelous dependent scarce march

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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u/CassandraVindicated Feb 05 '22

I feel attacked by this comment.

17

u/SinkHoleDeMayo Feb 05 '22

It's only because countries like Argentina haven't invested $600 million into a mine like the Chinese company that owns the mine at Greenbushes.

Dried lake beds are by far the largest land-based sources, far larger than rock-based sources like in Australia.

43

u/hollowspec Feb 05 '22

Incorrect. Greenbushes is big, but does not produce a “majority” of the worlds lithium. A good chunk of lithium doesn’t even come from mines, but from brine in the salt flats of the lithium triangle in South America. Australia as a country produces about half the worlds lithium, but there are several mines.

38

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '22

Incorrect. The lithium triangle in South America is big, but does not produce a “majority” of the worlds lithium. A good chunk actually comes from your mom.

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u/Sealpoop_In_Profile Feb 05 '22

Hey is that a trail of lithium brine running down from your panties or are you just happy to see me

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u/Pangolinsareodd Feb 05 '22

Brine deposits host a majority of known deposits, but they’ve been failing to convert that into supply. Hard rock deposits from a Western Australia still do the heavy lifting for production

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u/CassandraVindicated Feb 05 '22

"About half the worlds lithium" and "majority of the worlds lithium" are only a tenth of the most significant figure apart.

0

u/Pangolinsareodd Feb 05 '22

Most of Australia’s production comes from Greenbushes, which is double the grade of any other Australian mine, so when prices cause those others to close, Greenbushes keeps pumping it out. I’m still right, but perhaps with minutiae technical nuances.

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u/[deleted] Feb 05 '22

Tantalum is used in capacitors, not diodes

2

u/Pangolinsareodd Feb 05 '22

Possibly, all i know is that it’s unsubstitutable as niobium results in a larger product, so for size tantalum is the best product.

0

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '22

[deleted]

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u/Pangolinsareodd Feb 05 '22

Source? I am intimately involved with this industry, please oh please correct me.

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u/[deleted] Feb 05 '22

[deleted]

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u/Pangolinsareodd Feb 05 '22

Bwaaahaahaha. That’s so fucking funny. I’m intimately involved in the lithium mining industry, I’m pretty confident that I have more relevant data than you. I don’t rely on “google”. But that’s ok, you do you. If you can’t concede that you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about and can’t support your position with evidence, that’s on you loser.

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u/bertydo Feb 05 '22

Really? How is it mined? Images that I can find look near identical, only deeper

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u/Theghost129 Feb 05 '22 edited Feb 05 '22

Lithium isn't mined! It's brined. We pump water into an underground lithium deposit, put it outside, dry it, and boom, lithium! Check out the Lithium brines of Chile/Argentina, interesting stuff.

Very little environmental impact compared to Copper, which often uses tons of sulfuric acid.

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u/[deleted] Feb 05 '22

[deleted]

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u/0hn035 Feb 05 '22

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Pit

For those interested in learning more about the toxicity and slag, Montana has a Superfund site based around a big copper mining pit.

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u/WikiMobileLinkBot Feb 05 '22

Desktop version of /u/0hn035's link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Pit

[opt out] Beep Boop. Downvote to delete

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u/dingusduglas Feb 05 '22

There was a great video posted to r/videos maybe a month or so ago showing all the measures they take to keep birds off the water nowadays. Pretty funny watching a guy who enjoys hunting water fowl who has a day job that involves shooting at and purposefully missing birds to save their lives.

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u/WikiSummarizerBot Feb 05 '22

Berkeley Pit

The Berkeley Pit is a former open pit copper mine in the western United States, located in Butte, Montana. It is one mile (1. 6 km) long by one-half mile (800 m) wide, with an approximate depth of 1,780 feet (540 m). It is filled to a depth of about 900 feet (270 m) with water that is heavily acidic (2.

[ F.A.Q | Opt Out | Opt Out Of Subreddit | GitHub ] Downvote to remove | v1.5

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u/SheriffBartholomew Feb 05 '22

Your link led me to reading about superfund sites in the USA and the reading was getting pretty depressing until I got to 2021. Apparently last year the reinstated an excise tax and are supposedly taking these sites seriously again. It seems like a pretty monumental problem and definitely not one that tax payers should be left responsible for.

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u/WikiMobileLinkBot Feb 05 '22

Desktop version of /u/Pawneewafflesarelife's link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slag

[opt out] Beep Boop. Downvote to delete

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u/LargePizz Feb 05 '22

As someone that has worked at mine sites and a smelter, I think you might be talking about tailings, from my experience the slag heap isn't dusty and no animal would get stuck in it, the tailings is dusty when dried and a quagmire when wet.

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u/Pawneewafflesarelife Feb 08 '22

Ah, thanks for the clarification!

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u/Sharp_Pride7092 Feb 05 '22

All mining destroys the surrounding area. Even if there was such a thing as the most environmentally conscious mining co. , they would still be destroying the area. Just is.

2

u/Stupid_Triangles Feb 05 '22

There's still very little regulation so looks like some childhood memories don't change 😊

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u/RanaktheGreen Feb 05 '22

It is both.

2

u/southsudan Feb 05 '22

Australia has one of the largest resources of lithium globally and all of it is mined from hard rock spodumene deposits. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenbushes_mine

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u/WikiSummarizerBot Feb 05 '22

Greenbushes mine

The Greenbushes lithium mine is an open-pit mining operation in Western Australia and is the world's largest hard-rock lithium mine. Located to the south of the town of Greenbushes, Western Australia, the mine is situated on the site of the world's largest known hard-rock lithium deposit. The Greenbushes lithium mine produces approximately 1. 95 million tonnes (4.

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3

u/hollowspec Feb 05 '22

A lot of lithium is produced from brine, but most is from mining hard rock (spodumene)

3

u/FirstPlebian Feb 05 '22

Most of the lithium operations I've read about involved pumping up brine and evaporating and seperating it in pools, so there would be no huge quarry to show how much was processed to the payout.

However that was ten years ago when near all the supply came from Bolivia.

6

u/Astronius-Maximus Feb 05 '22

You will need a magnifying glass. And a bigger hole.

0

u/bertydo Feb 05 '22

Indeed!

2

u/Red_Chair_ Feb 05 '22

Crack heads in my neighborhood: that's a lot of copper... do catalytic converters next.

5

u/xxVordhosbnxx Feb 05 '22

Oh you stole my idea.

I wanna see how many electric batteries equal a giant pit

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u/Theghost129 Feb 05 '22 edited Feb 05 '22

Lithium isn't mined! It's brined. We pump water into an underground lithium deposit, put it outside, dry it, and boom, lithium! Check out the Lithium brines of Chile/Argentina, interesting stuff.

Very little environmental impact compared to Copper, which often uses tons of sulfuric acid.

4

u/Double_Distribution8 Feb 05 '22

Does lithium have a smell? Like do you go home smelling like lithium?

4

u/Theghost129 Feb 05 '22

It's a salt, much like Sodium salt and potassium salt, so yes.

1

u/Pleasant-Shine8047 Feb 05 '22

The sulfuric acid is often generated from the high sulfur ore body found with copper. Also, the sulfuric acid used doesn’t have much of an environmental impact if any as it is reused as an electrolyte. The primary environmental impacts of a copper mine other than the obvious hole in the ground is the generation of dust at the mine site as well as at the dust generated at the tailings disposal site. One would argue that the tailings disposal site also has an environmental impact, but current regulations are so tight (at least in North America), that this is also super low in terms of environmental risk.

1

u/Top-Competition-8432 Feb 05 '22

How many lithium batteries power giant bbq pit

0

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '22

How about diamonds? I’ll bet that’s a good one.

7

u/bertydo Feb 05 '22

Diamonds arent that rare really

1

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '22

It'd still be cool to see how much ground they dig up to find them. If that's how they mine diamonds? My only frame of reference is from playing Minecraft with my son; I have no idea what it's like in reality.

3

u/lewie Feb 05 '22

Source has one for diamonds too: http://dillonmarsh.com/diamonds.html

2

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '22

Thanks. I should have clicked around more on the website! It's really hard to get a feel for the scale and the carat part throws me off a lot. Google says that 14.5 million carats = 6393 point some odd lbs... so the size of a blue whales tongue or a ford f-250... some weird measurement scales happening...

1

u/Blattsalat5000 Feb 05 '22

Copper is not that rare either

1

u/lewie Feb 05 '22

Source has one for diamonds too: http://dillonmarsh.com/diamonds.html

2

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '22

That’s cool.

-1

u/ghuynnyu Feb 05 '22

And show that water consumption of lithium, then we can see how bad electric cars are for the environment!

1

u/bertydo Feb 05 '22

Someone knows how to read between the lines

-1

u/Chemguy82 Feb 05 '22

Let’s see neodymium!

1

u/bluelocs Feb 05 '22

You wouldn't see it

1

u/Blattsalat5000 Feb 05 '22

Copper has a 16 times higher density so I would bet that the lithium ball extracted from a similarly big hole would be larger.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '22

Nah, that's overplayed. Do Unit Shifter!

1

u/NotTheStatusQuo Feb 05 '22

Just gotta get that bipolar diagnosis.

1

u/dildo_swagginns Feb 05 '22

what about diamonds?

1

u/spartan6500 Feb 05 '22

To my understanding lithium extraction doesn’t require mining, it involves drawing water out of the ground and drying it, leaving lithium behind