How about Arkansas and DLE?  Standard Lithium hopes to be in production as early as 2027 via DLE regarding the 8,000 foot deep Smackover formation lithium brine rich aquifer that starts in Texas and stretches all the way to Florida.  Its center is located in Southern Arkansas.

There is that acronym again:  DLE     Direct Lithium Extraction.

Standard Lithium has worked with the largest brine operator in Arkansas, Lanxus.  Lanxus has produced bromine from brine for many years in Arkansas and the same facilities that currently broduce brine can be utilized to produce Lithium from brine.

See the video about Standard Lithium's investment for the future in Arkansas to produce commercial lithium via DLE.  The information about their DLE starts at 6:24 in this video if you want to skip over the introduction, but I would advise seeing the whole video instead.

DLE is being developed by a large number of different companies throughout the world.  Unfortunately, at the present time, DLE is not part of the definitive plan for Thacker Pass to utilize on the lithium clay to be mined in Humboldt County, Nevada.  

DLE appears to be a trend for the future by quite a number of lithium mining companies and Albermarle is involved with the effort in southern Arkansas.  Exon Mobile also has a dog in that fight as well.  The DOE has taken a significant interest in what Standard Lithium is doing.

It may be that lithium clay is not technically amenable to DLE.  I have no idea whether it is or not, but if it is possible to do DLE to process lithium from lithium clay then the obvious question would have to be:  Why aren't we moving toward DLE?

I have no doubt that the Lithium Americas Technical Development Center near Reno has investigated this as an alternative technology, but I don't recall reading anything about their comments on whether or not DLE is feasible for Thacker Pass.  If any of you have information about DLE as related to Thacker Pass, then please be forthcoming and share it here on this forum.  It may turn out that I am totally wrong about DLE as it is related to Thacker Pass and there is some obvious, obvious to the mining profession, reason why DLE is inappropriate for the Thacker Pass situation.

The research at the LAC Technical Development Center has centered on using existing technology to create a slurry that is further processed, again using existing technology, to continue the processing to create Lithium Carbonate pure enough to use in electric vehicle batteries.  Perhaps that focus is married to using "existing technology" for some reason that steers the company away from a technology yet to be fully developed such as DLE.  Does that allow for a conversion to DLE in the future when all the bugs have been worked out and one particular DLE proces forges ahead of all its competitors to be a clear winner in that race?

Yes, DLE is still "in development", however the promise of being able to take the base lithium ore and convert it to a commercial lithium product that is at least 99.9% pure LCE withiin 24 hours of being taken out of the earth has a certain "appeal" to it, provided that it is economical in the first place.

MSN: Why all eyes are on Arkansas' lithium - https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/why-all-eyes-are-on-arkansas-lithium/vi-AA1qw5qm?ocid=socialshare

LAC Lithium Technical Development Center: Virtual Tour - YouTube

Best wishes to all LAC/LAAC investors.

Onward through the FOG!

Okiedo