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This Arkansas Town Could Become the Epicenter of a U.S. Lithium Boom: Exxon Mobile plans to extract lithium to help power electric vehicles
Wall Street Journal ^ | 07/31/2023 | Collin Eaton and Benoît Morenne

Posted on 07/31/2023 10:01:36 PM PDT by SeekAndFind

MAGNOLIA, Ark.—Slipping a handgun into his belt, the mayor of this small town hopped out of his 1995 Ford pickup and went in search of further evidence of a new energy boom.

On the other side of freshly painted gate, Mayor Parnell Vann pointed out a squat blue spire of valves, bolts and pressure gauges attached to a long-dormant well—a telltale sign someone means to bring it back to life. On the thick-wooded back roads, crisscrossing fields where oil drillers gave up long ago, Vann found two more similar wells that day.

These days, companies in the area aren’t looking to find more oil—they are instead prospecting for lithium, a metal that is increasingly prized around the world as an essential ingredient in electric-vehicle batteries. If the U.S. is to ease its dependence for lithium on other countries such as China, it may need this quiet corner of southwest Arkansas to lead the way.

Exxon Mobil, a new player in the hunt for U.S. lithium, is planning to build one of the world’s largest lithium processing facilities not far from Magnolia, with a capacity to produce 75,000 to 100,000 metric tons of lithium a year, according to people familiar with the matter.

At that scale, it would equate to about 15% of all finished lithium produced globally last year, according to one analyst.

The Wall Street Journal reported in May that Exxon purchased 120,000 gross acres in the area for a price tag of more than $100 million. A consultant for the seller had estimated the prospect could have the equivalent of 4 million tons of lithium carbonate equivalent, enough to power 50 million EVs.

The giant project could be built in stages, with modular trains constructed together or in separate locations near its future lithium production sites in South Arkansas,

(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; US: Arkansas
KEYWORDS: arkansas; ccp; china; ev; exxon; lithium; mining; saltonsea
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1 posted on 07/31/2023 10:01:36 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

I have no doubt that the NIMBY liberals in this country will put up road blocks on all of this development. So the child slave labor on other continents will still continue.


2 posted on 07/31/2023 10:10:54 PM PDT by KC_Conspirator
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To: SeekAndFind
So they can make these.
3 posted on 07/31/2023 10:25:45 PM PDT by SpaceBar
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To: SeekAndFind

Sounds like Obama’s solar panel program that gave large grants to companies to build solar panels, and the majority of the companies went bankrupt or collapsed.


4 posted on 07/31/2023 11:08:16 PM PDT by mass55th (“Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.” ― John Wayne)
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To: SeekAndFind

If they start naming their baby daughters Elithabeth, you’ll know it’s true


5 posted on 07/31/2023 11:35:32 PM PDT by chajin ("There is no other name under heaven given among people by which we must be saved." Acts 4:12)
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To: SeekAndFind

Good.

At the moment China is running circles around us on lithium supplies.

And their biggest EV supplier, FAR outsells Tesla.

Now granted, Tesla has more value sold, but not the most, in numbers sold.


6 posted on 08/01/2023 12:02:19 AM PDT by cba123 (Tôi là người Mỹ. Hiện tôi đang ở Việt Nam)
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To: SpaceBar

You might not know this, but China is FAR outproducing us, or anyone else (in the world) in electronic cars now.

One such company is WuLing (know this because they are soom pairing up with a Vietnamese company) to make them in Vietnam also.

Now they are small and (very) cheap.

But they are selling boatloads of them.


7 posted on 08/01/2023 12:21:42 AM PDT by cba123 (Tôi là người Mỹ. Hiện tôi đang ở Việt Nam)
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To: cba123

I am often stunned that folks do not have the proper context in which to compare “countries”. France, who has more nuclear power plants than us is the size of a state.
Of course they would sell like crazy in a place where the WEF has achieved their goals of you will own nothing and be happy.
You want to put your daughter n wife in these cheap things while they are running around routinely at 60 to 70 mph. These cars are heavy and more mass colliding means more deaths or injury.
Not to mention the fires. Lithium is water reactive.
How many boats have to burn before they are told not just no.


8 posted on 08/01/2023 1:25:01 AM PDT by momincombatboots (BQEphesians 6... who you are really at war with. )
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To: SeekAndFind

Just watch. The Joe Briben regime will find a way to block Exxon and hand the whole operation over to the CCP while making sure that the Big Guy gets his 10%.


9 posted on 08/01/2023 1:33:53 AM PDT by Fresh Wind (Faux News: "We distort, you deride")
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To: cba123

I first saw one of those in Jakarta around six months ago, and now I see three or four every day. I have not yet seen anybody dare take one out on the motorway.


10 posted on 08/01/2023 2:45:32 AM PDT by punchamullah
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To: KC_Conspirator

This will be JUST LIKE FRACKING. Liberal Enviro-weenies will claim contamination of ground water and earthquakes.

Yes, “they” support child slave labor for their Green Liberal Wet Dreams.


11 posted on 08/01/2023 3:25:57 AM PDT by OHPatriot (Si vis pacem, para bellum)
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To: OHPatriot

I hate to break this to people, but even if this goes through, it doesn’t necessarily mean Americans will benefit from it.

Take energy, for example.

Deep State is exporting record amounts of our energy elsewhere.

Why would lithium be any different?


12 posted on 08/01/2023 3:32:56 AM PDT by mewzilla (We will never restore the republic if we don't first secure the ballot box.)
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To: SeekAndFind
What I find freaky is the use of lithium for power is so hyped today, The starship enterprise used Di-lithium Crystal's as its power source.

Did Gene Roddenbury know something 60 years ago?

Weird...

13 posted on 08/01/2023 3:41:56 AM PDT by Ikeon (I'm a mirror , what you see in me is actually a refection of yourself. )
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To: cba123

What is Mandarin for electric Yugo?


14 posted on 08/01/2023 3:48:40 AM PDT by Daveinyork
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To: cba123

“You might not know this, but China is FAR outproducing us, or anyone else (in the world) in electronic cars now.”

That’s the nice thing about a Command Society...


15 posted on 08/01/2023 4:59:44 AM PDT by BobL (Trump has all the right Enemies; DeSantis has all the wrong Friends)
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To: KC_Conspirator
"I have no doubt that the NIMBY liberals in this country will put up road blocks on all of this development. So the child slave labor on other continents will still continue."

Sort of hard to do, since Dow Chemical has been producing bromine from the same brine for a very long time. And all the states that the Smackover formation lies under are not "progressive".

16 posted on 08/01/2023 5:08:35 AM PDT by Wonder Warthog (NRA Life Member)
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To: BobL

You are correct and what’s more, the EV companies that were now aren’t

A lesson that is hard to learn is that it is easy to make but hard to sell. BYD and Tesla own the China EV market and are responsible for many, many command economy EV maker bankruptcies and tens of thousands of unemployed.

China isn’t


17 posted on 08/01/2023 5:21:00 AM PDT by bert ( (KWE. NP. N.C. +12) Joe Biden is a kleptocrat)
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To: punchamullah

We are due to start receiving these here, in about eight more weeks.

They are setting up the new plant to make these now. It has been approximately one month since they announced a three month set up time to start production of the new cars. So two more months.

There are just over 100 million people in Vietnam.

Provided they are smart enough to include A/C in all of them (very important here) their possible market is about 50 million, to start out.

😎

Ok that is a (bit) of an exaggeration.

Just a bit.


18 posted on 08/01/2023 6:58:51 AM PDT by cba123 (Tôi là người Mỹ. Hiện tôi đang ở Việt Nam)
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To: cba123

(Because everyone here rides a motorcycle)


19 posted on 08/01/2023 7:02:43 AM PDT by cba123 (Tôi là người Mỹ. Hiện tôi đang ở Việt Nam)
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To: momincombatboots

Actually I believe the really cheap models, will probably not use Lithium.

They won’t go far, but they aren’t actually designed to.


20 posted on 08/01/2023 7:23:09 AM PDT by cba123 (Tôi là người Mỹ. Hiện tôi đang ở Việt Nam)
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