Lithiumâs increasingly important and a supply in the UK could be handy.
The UK governmentâs industrial policy and strategic planning over the last⌠well, since before I was born.
Iâm torn on this one, especially after seeing how the regime thatâs been in control since 2010 handled the Sirius Mining issue.
Ugh the pressure. Fine, they got me⌠Act In Haste, Repent At Leisure.
Itâs just a small amount but I figure this will either do very very well or fail spectacularly. It doesnât strike me as an industry that will tolerate any middle ground.
I pulled my investment,got cold feet. The exact same thing could happen that happened to Sirius Minerals. CL do all the graft then run out of money and then the vultures strike ie: Anglo American
It was at this moment that Juno17 had to be reminded of the party line.
"That example was a foreign investment which showed great confidence in the future of Global BritainŠ and in the success that this government and this party have driven in making the UK the first choice for overseas investors"
Mining is also a well known CashCow as Iâm sure you know 
I changed my mind AGAIN. I took cold feet last year with CL and never invested. I am going to invest 1/4 of what I was going to invest,just to keep my toe in. This will either be sensational or nothing
Can you remember the share price last year? I see theyâre asking for ÂŁ0.09 now and saying that theyâll try not to crowdfund again.
My level of investment wonât even keep the coffee machine running for more than a week or two.
5p from what I saw on the page. Iâm torn really, looks like its being managed well so far, will look to list within three years and I like the idea of minimally-disruptive mining (whole geothermal thing plus potential exports to Europe could be done through channel tunnel instead of ship). On the otherhand, listing may bring liquidity but doubt the price would increase, probably the opposite actually as it will still be pre/minimal revenue. Also have no clue as to water based extraction - is this new? Has anyone been successful extracting other minerals like this? I understand the deposits looks impressive but that translates very little to what weâre ultimately investing in.
As far as Iâm aware, lithium is extracted through big evaporation ponds - like salt (sodium chloride) in general. Itâs not your traditional open cast/pit mine. Stands to reason that they could also find it in briney deposits underground I guess?
This is from one of the documents, shows a âplantâ at the joint geothermal project, Iâd be very interested in learning more since they describe the waters running directly from the geothermal plant. I do understand pond evaporation is the main method for brine extraction but I think they are specifically designating the deposits here as âwatersâ with much lower dissolved solids. I guess its not fundamentally different, I bet theyâre also using some kind of evaporation especially with all that natural heat.
//flashbacks of the absolute horror show that is fracking//
Theyâre going to have to be very proactive in convincing the locals that this is nothing like that. Hopefully it doesnât require any fracturing or injection of toxic chemical cocktails at all.
I would think they are going to use a chemical process to extract the lithium from the water. There are several companies planning to use this to purify waste water from oil wells and extract any useful minerals. I donât think the local residents would be keen on having their fields turned into huge evaporation ponds.
Oh yeah, I didnât think theyâd go the evaporation ponds route in the UK. I doubt you can evaporate any ponds in the UK, not even in the South East WEST. Youâd just have perpetually soggy lithium.
From what I could find DLE is what the industry is trending towards because it means you donât need to builds ponds, lose water through evaporation and slap the brines with all kinds of chemicals to break down those impurities. For extraction you do have to throw some kind of solvent at the water that will then be brought back down though, so what is the effect of that?
They also claim they can extract from granite âusing an environmentally-friendly methodâ. Donât personally associate granite with those words so thatâll be interesting.
Edit: They replied to my question at least:
One of the key things about adsorbtion [sic] and membrane technologies is that they do not leave anything in the tail brine. Hence the water goes back underground as it was before - minus the lithium.
Hereâs a useful link: Ageli - Geothermal Lithium - Eramet
//flashbacks of the absolute horror show that is fracking//
Looks like its just a pair of geothermal boreholes (also only 1km deep, as opposed to several kms for shale).
Thanks thatâs a great article about eramet,the process seems to be environmentally friendly. Iâm going for 50% of my original investment.
It is nothing like fracking.
The area they are building in is an area long exposed to industrial activity. Iirc the facility is being built in a disused China clay mine which will have had settling ponds at some point so I donât think lack of evaporation ponds is that critical!
The million dollar questions to me are:
how much existing or planned lithium capacity is there? Versus projections of demand? When I looked at Bacanora I wasnât convinced that it wasnât already becoming a crowded market.
perhaps more importantly for this project is what is the cost of extraction the way they propose vs the market? There are a few things in the pitch documents that made me a little worried that they need Govt intervention when they talk about domestically sourced and sustainably sourced - not because those are not worthy options (I would be happy to support both!) but because I wouldnât trust the Govt to support the mine vs a âfree marketâ.
Iâd be interested in other peopleâs views!
Iâve learnt that now - and anyone else on the same journey can see the company respond to the fracking comparison in this post - https://www.crowdcube.com/companies/cornish-lithium-ltd/pitches/lEJ2KZ/discussions/Z5R6xb
The whole process here is just a by-product of a normal geothermal plant and it does appear as âeverything thatâs not lithiumâ is just pushed back underground to where it came from in the first place. My main concerns were about the disposal of waste water like fracking would have (not an issue) and also the worries that local people might have that this is like fracking (could be an issue, but a good PR program should easily show the difference).
This is my main concern. The ruling party since 2010 has shown absolutely no strategic vision for supporting industry in the UK, even more worrying with relative isolation on the way at the end of year. The recent announcements for increasing wind power production in the UK are great news for British workers and the Danish and German giants in that sector but again fail to do anything to establish an industry here. Perhaps this will benefit from support with the whole âgreen recoveryâ thing but I wouldnât hold my breath for that to ever become a reality.
Assuming the trials go well, how much money do they have to raise to become operational? And at what price must lithium be to be viable?
Checkout the Crowdcube discussions. People have asked similar questions and got replies. Sorry but I canât remember which posts they were - https://www.crowdcube.com/companies/cornish-lithium-ltd/pitches/lEJ2KZ/discussions
Another interesting article here:
Wrathall is expected to pursue a listing on the London Stock Exchangeâs junior market in the next five years.
