Could Hawaii Geothermal Plant Become a Windfall...

[dakine]

From civilbeat.com

If power plant on Big Island were to start extracting valuable minerals like lithium on state-owned land, royalty payments should increase.

Last year, Tesla Motors, the maker of all-electric luxury sedans, revealed its plan to open a $5 billion battery factory, the world’s largest. The idea is to mass-produce the lithium-ion batteries it needs to reach its goal of making 500,000 electric cars a year by 2020.

To make it work, the company has to find enough lithium, the lightest of all metals found on earth and the hidden power behind modern gadgets, like cellphones, laptops and a new generation of electric cars.

The trouble is, there’s nowhere near enough battery-grade lithium currently being mined to meet the sudden demand, and it’s spurring a race to find new sources in the remotest corners of the world, from the wilds of northern Tibet to distant salt plains in South America.

But the solution could come from an unlikely source: geothermal power plants, including the one operating on the Big Island...

More at:

http://www.civilbeat.com/2015/04/could-h...or-public/

[Obie]

I would imagine our council will pass an ordinance to ban the process before it can even be tried.

[rainyjim]

We'll need an EIS first,

and what about all the people getting cancer from lithium extraction?

and don't forget the sacredness, isn't this against someones religion?

[pbmaise]

Build the 28 ft tall triple deep electric barb wire fence with constant dog patrols before building anything that extract anything of value from the Aina. It is stealing and Kapu.

By the way the fact that Hawaii County could be earning revenue by powering both Maui and Oahu via geothermal and undersea cable is totally unthinkable too.

Imagine replacing fossil fuels. What horror.

[kalakoa]

25-5-72 Permitted Uses, Agricultural Districts
© The following uses may be permitted in the A district, provided that a special permit is obtained
(5) Excavation or removal of natural building material or minerals, for commercial use.

Of course, State would simply grant blanket permission regardless of County zoning, because that's how it's done here.

[pbmaise]

Simbol Materials, a 7-year-old company based in
California, is trying to change that. In 2010, it
received a $3 million grant from the U.S.
Department of Energy and pumped $6.7 million
of its own money into a pilot project aimed at
showing the financial feasibility of extracting
high-quality lithium from geothermal brine.

Since 2011, it’s been taking the mineral-
extraction technology developed at Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory and applying it at
its demonstration plant that uses brine from the
49.9-megawatt Featherstone geothermal power
plant in the Imperial Valley of California.
The process works like this: After the
Featherstone plant pumps up the hot brine and
uses its heat to make steam to spin a turbine and
generate electricity, Simbol borrows the still-
warm fluid for roughly 90 minutes and passes it
through a series of membranes, filters and
adsorption materials to extract lithium.

At $6,600 per ton, Simbol will have sales of about $100 million per year.

Now this is all just nonsense. Leave the minerals in the ground.

[lavalava]

Malama da Aina but I find green bottles everywhere from parks to beaches from streets to gutters!

[rainyjim]

Everyone knows the bottles, cig butts, and broken appliances are all littered by haole transplants. The same goes for meth users.

You must not have been born here lava lava

Maybe if your skin was a different tone you'd be able to understand these types of things

[Susan]

Wow Jim that was a pretty hateful post.

[snorkle]

He's Fragile.

Alternet article about race relations.