Rocks Reads Roundup, 10/11
More federal funding of mines, more REE-coal stuff, zinc batteries, and protips on stretching one long Zoom or whatever into multiple pitches
Hello everyone! This week's links roundup is late because this past week was just too dumb, and also my dog had dental surgery (which is like, a whole day-long thing for a big dog) so I spent most of Friday probably unnecessarily worried about something going wrong while she was under anesthesia. She's fine now, today she got to have a play date with a friend's puppy today which was very cute and in the sea of terrible things a gentle reminder of the existence of joy and love. Enjoy this week's links!
If you've been on edge thinking about just how Elon Musk's proposed clay lithium extraction setup would actually work in practice, this analysis co-published by lithium consultant Alex Grant of Jade Cove Partners is a pretty good overview. The TLDR: it's possible it could work–there's related approaches being tried in at least one mining project and some research by the Department of the Interior that could be relevant–but it almost certainly will involve more steps (potentially more energy-intensive ones) than Tesla's laid out thus far, making promises of a greener extraction method dubious.
There was a flurry of news coverage over the federal government investing $25 million into an Irish company that focuses on mining projects supporting electric car and green technology supply chains. The funding for TechMet Limited to develop a cobalt and nickel project in Brazil comes from the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), which is basically a lender that funds private projects in other countries in the service of "development." In the midst of all the fucking things to know about I completely missed the creation of DFC in 2018 via the BUILD (Better Utilization of Investments Leading to Development) Act, which consolidated a bunch of government development funding groups into a single entity, basically as a soft power saber-rattle over China's Belt and Road Initiative. (Embarrassingly, my first question upon learning about it was "but what will all the CIA assets do with fewer obscurely identified aid organizations to use as fronts?")
The weird thing about the coverage this week is it mostly seems to be trying to connect the minerals national emergency executive order (mentioned in last week’s newsletter) to the investment, in part because TechMet issued a press released about the investment this week. But DFC announced the funding back in September? (Incidentally, reading that press release on new investments is fascinating in a “hmm, probably fucked” sort of way–a lot of fintech and microloan platform stuff, which sounds great until you look further into it). But I'm glad I know about it now and that TechMet is more on my radar–they fund a lot of companies and mines, including ones that have been written about here like battery recyclers Li-Cycle and Burundi's Rainbow Rare Earth mine, which was reported to be in talks with the DoD last year amid a new wave of dumb China panic.
A pair of stories from Forbes about how the state of California has ended up at the forefront of exploring alternatives to lithium battery storage, both by Jeff McMahon. Basically, California's now-inevitable annual deadly fire seasons are pushing the need for backup power sources beyond diesel generators. They're specifically looking at microgrids, which are cool as hell, and while some of the state's work on this has been using lithium batteries (in part because lithium battery research is getting more funding than other options these days), they're looking for alternatives with even greater storage capacity. Zinc seems to be a fore-runner, which I really need to spend more time reading about because the only thing I really know about them is the guy who owns the LA Times is all in on zinc batteries and they seem cool.
(Another way to interpret this set of articles: a writer attended one (1) webinar with a California Energy Commission official and spun it into two (2) separate articles. Honestly, respect the hustle–I would have been a dumbass who tried to pitch some longform big picture thing with at least one mention of how California is on stolen land, and I probably would have gotten paid less money than those two articles added up to. Anyway, you should probably watch the actual webinar.)
Once again (feel like we need an audio cue for this or something): Department of Energy rare earth-coal funding announcement! This is separate from the RFP I wrote about in the 9/27 mailing; it's giving $150,000 to 13 projects working n "conceptual designs of commercially viable technologies" for REE extraction from coal and coal waste products. Looking at the list, some of the "projects" funded I'm pretty sure are actually collaborations–I talked to a guy from West Virginia University last year and he connected me to a guy at Winner Water Services* who was part of the same DOE REE-coal grant (I'm pretty sure Tetra Tech is on that one too?). Some of the projects listed are semi-new to me, which is interesting and I'm curious to follow up on.
*Side note and also, hi editors and writers who subscribe I will fucking destroy you if you steal this from me instead of just hiring me to do it: One reason I desperately want to do a big wild REE-coal story is because of Winner Water Services, which is one of several "Winner" companies in Sharon, Pennsylvania that all connect back to late local tycoon Jim Winner (his real name!!) who made his fortune inventing The Club. Yes I mean the thing for cars The Club. I just, come on, there's so much to work with here.
Friend and excellent rocks thinker Zane Cooper's collaborative project Alchemical Infrastructures is online as a virtual exhibit for AoIR. Slightly rocks-adjacent insofar as it's more about energy consumption and Bitcoin mining (or as Zane puts it nicely, Bitcoin making) in Iceland, but some really gorgeous work and a long time coming. (Also a cameo from a guy I met at a tech activism training intensive in 2013, who is now a Pirate Party representative in the Icelandic Parliament?)