Is Lithium The New Gold?

[Fred M Cain]

I have been reading with interest, or, more accurately, rereading with interest after a span of many years, David Myrick’s classic treatises The Railroads of Nevada & Eastern California.

 

My interest was kinda caught on the Tonopah/Goldfield/Beatty and Rhyolite areas.  This was a HUGE beehive of heavy mining activity served by at least four railroads.  Sadly, it flamed out after just a few short years and everything was abandoned.

 

The other day, I received an investing newsletter about new lithium finds in Nevada.  Imagine my amazement when an accompanying map pinpointed the location as, …..Tonopah!  I was thrilled but don’t really know what to make of this.

 

How is lithium ore refined? Does anybody know?  Can it be refined right at the mine?  If so, it would only take a few semi loads to ship out the refined lithium.  However, refining and milling at the mine site might not be a good option if huge volumes of water are needed.  There is not much water in Tonopah.  Then, they would need to ship huge tonnages of ore out of state and that would in turn require – railroads.

 

I don’t want to get ahead of myself and imagine too much, but how would they do that?  Could some of the abandoned roadbeds from so long ago once again have track laid on them?  That would probably only require a minimum of grading. 

 

What about the unused and rusting away Atomic Energy Line to Yucca Mountain?  Could that be extended to reach the long-ago abandoned LV&T right of way in the Beatty/Rhyolite area?

 

Imagine, if you can, a new town built either on the site or near the site of Rhyolite.  That would indeed be a most bitter irony.  Hopefully if that were to ever happen, the mistakes of the past would not be repeated.

[croteaudd]

Hi, Fred!

For the sake of argument, you could put a lot of cell phone and camera lithium batteries in a coal car!  There may be a huge market for lithium, but I don’t think railroads could economically tap into it.  Batteries could be made on site and have FedEx or UPS “Ground” deliver to corporate distributors or big purchasers.  A fifty to a hundred lithium ‘coal cars’ seems extremely unlikely.  Fifty to hundred coal cars of coal are the norm.  And remember, Fred, the railroads are interested in volume.  It just doesn’t strike me as something railroads would pursue.

[tree68]

A similar situation was recently discussed elsewhere here on the forum.  It had to do with copper.

The feeling was that the volume just wasn't there to warrant rail transport, and particularly the investment necessary to make rail transport possible.

 

[Fred M Cain]

Croteaudd,

Well, yes, like I'd mentioned, it just all depends if the lithium is milled and refined right at the mine or not.  If so, then, yes, you could get all the lithium you'd need in a semi or maybe even in a straight truck. (It's dangerous, so I doubt FedEx or UPS would accept it).

BUT ~ !  If the ore has to be shipped remotely, that raises a whole 'nother wrinkle.  My guess is that several 120 ton ore car loads would be needed to just produce a relatively small amount of pure lithium.  That's my best guess but I have to admit I don't know for sure.

I'm thinking about contacting the mining company but I suspect I won't get very far with them.

In the bitter end, my speculation may be hugely premature because the mine at Tonopah may never even open at all in the first place.  The environmentalists are already sharpening their knives.

I used to be an adament environmentalist myself but my views have changed somewhat.  We can't just stop all mining, drilling and logging.  The human population requires raw materials to support itself.  People impose pressure on the natural environment which is a most unfortunate fact but that's just the way it is.

There's an old axiom, "if didn't come from a farm or a forest, then it had to have come from a mine".  Petroleum extraction is, its own way, also a form of mining.

[croteaudd]

Fred M. Cain:

Looking at a map the impression one gets about Tonopah, Nev. is it is in a no man’s land.  The surrounding areas were examined on a map.  Beatty is close to 100 miles to the south, slightly east.  Not too far east from Beatty, in the TRAINS Newswire some years ago was news about a rail effort to haul nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain by a new rail line that would connect to the Union Pacific at I believe Caliente, Nev.

Going west from Beatty one enters California and after many miles comes to Lone Pine, a town that rail photographer Richard Steinheimer took a number of photos in, that appeared in TRAINS.  Lone Pine is also the town the famed photographer Ansel Adams in the early 1940’s shot one of his super well-known photos in.  I’ve been to both photo sites!  The last visit was a disaster.  Plotting to take a photo that combined Steinheimer’s and Adams’ efforts, that last mile was barricaded off!  What a disappointment!

Anyway, your thread brought related ex- or possibly future rail areas to mind.

[MidlandMike]

The closest active railhead to Tonopah is at Hawthorne (ex-SP).  The line ran beyond to Mina until about the 1980s.  From there ran the Tonopah & Goldfield until 1947.

I understand they need a lot of chemicals to process the Li ore, so they may need a RR more for inbound traffic.

[Backshop]

I wonder how much water is required for processing and if it is available in the vicinity.

[croteaudd]

Hey, Fred M. Cain:

Are you OK?  Haven’t heard anything from you …

[Fred M Cain]

croteaudd

Hey, Fred M. Cain:

Are you OK?  Haven’t heard anything from you …

 

I started typing up a response yesterday while at work and got distracted and the message failed to post so I just let it go.

It's fun to think about a new railroad in the Tonopah area but at this point we're all just speculating so I guess I'll wait until we can get more detailed information on the planned mines.