Issue link: http://resourceworld.uberflip.com/i/492982
30 www.resourceworld.com a p r i l / m a y 2 0 1 5 MINING L ithium brine deposits typically out- perform hard rock and clay lithium sources on cost, sustainability and permitting. This gap is becoming more pronounced when we take into account technological advancements in brine processing. According to statistics compiled by Credit Suisse in 2014, Lithium demand is expected to outpace supply by 25% by 2020. This is primarily the result of an expected surge in lithium's use in the transportation and energy storage industries. The lithium market is highly con- centrated with about 76% of global production coming from a few compa- nies; SQM and Rockwood Lithium in Chile, FMC Corp in Argentina, Talison in Australia and Rockwood Lithium in Nevada. New sources of supply will be developed from projects located in the most favourable jurisdictions that demon- strate the best economics. Two Canadian-listed, lithium brine projects hold promising exploration ground in Nevada, basically just down the road from Tesla's new Gigafactory which is being built in Reno. This new plant will specialize in producing lithium batteries for electric vehicles and grid storage. Pure energy Minerals Ltd. [PE-TSXV; HMGLD-OTC] is focused on the advance- ment of the Clayton Valley lithium brine project in Esmerelda County, Nevada. The company holds a 4,500-acre claim block that extends for 12 km north-south and encompasses the deepest sections of the Clayton Valley basin. The claim is contigu- ous to and in the same basin as the Silver Peak lithium mine (operated by Rockwood Lithium) which is currently the only pro- ducing lithium facility in the United States. Clayton Valley is an elongated half- graben basin that is about 26 km long. The basin acts like a large tilted bathtub, and is filled with a porous mixture of loose sediments, tuff and some evaporates. At its deepest, the basin infill sediments are about 1,500 metres thick. It is a closed system, meaning water flows into the basin but does not flow out due to the confining bedrock geology. The valley is surrounded by highly lithium-enriched rhyolitic tuffs and lithium-bearing sedi- ments, as well as an active geothermal system. Over time, the lithium has been mobilized from these sources and depos- ited into the groundwater. Over the past 2 million years or so, the dry climate has concentrated the groundwater (via evapo- ration) forming hypersaline lithium-rich brines. The brines are primarily hosted within the more porous units in the basin (sand, gravel and tuff layers). Several large continuous aquifers have been identi- fied. Early drilling results have identified lihium-rich brines averaging between 230 to 400 ppm lithium. Pure Energy is evaluating a number of technologies with strategic partners to potentially develop green processes to extract lithium from brine. The conven- tional process technology involves setting up large evaporation ponds. These ponds typically have lower lithium recovery rates and leave extensive residual salt as waste. The idea is to build a solvent extraction, low thermal evaporation plant that could recover in excess of 95% lithium in less than 24 hrs. This is much faster than the 18-to-24 month turn-around in evapo- ration ponds. In addition, Pure Energy envisions a low impact 'invisible min- ing' concept where the brine would be pumped, processed and then re-injected back into the ground leaving salt waste on the surface. Pure Energy Minerals is working on Lithium brine projects making waves in Nevada by Thomas Schuster Drilling for lithium brine at Pure Energy's Clayton Valley property, Nevada. Photo courtesy GeoXplor Corp.