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Lithium, Moebius Strips, and Asteroids (Patreon)

Published:
2023-09-20 16:00:08
Imported:
2023-09

Content

Massive Lithium Supply Found in the USA


Sizes and types of large, known lithium deposits. Image: Benson et al, Science Advances 9, 35 (2023)

Scientists have discovered a huge deposit of lithium – a metal used in batteries – in a volcanic crater along the Nevada-Oregon border. The deposit lies in the southern portion of McDermitt caldera at Thacker Pass and is larger than the previous record holder in Bolivia. It could entirely change the global market and geopolitics of lithium, which is a major ingredient in the batteries used in electric vehicles. The lithium is found in a rare clay mineral that was formed by a combination of volcanic and hydrothermal processes. However, the mining project faces opposition from Native Americans who consider the area sacred and historical. Paper here, summary here.

NASA to Recover Largest Space Sample Ever on September 24

Image Credit: NASA

This coming Sunday, September 24, 2023, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will return an asteroid sample to Earth. It contains 250 grams of rocky material collected from the surface of asteroid Bennu in 2020, and is the largest such sample ever collected. The spacecraft itself will not return – it will just release the sample and head out to a new mission to asteroid Aphonis.

Once released, NASA estimates that the capsule will take four hours to hit the Earth’s atmosphere. A heat shield will keep the capsule safe as it plummets. At the last step of the journey, two parachutes will deploy to slow down the descent and make for a safe landing on a military range. Read more from NASA blogs here and watch a video about the process here.

Mathematician Cracks Möbius Band Puzzle

Image: David Benbennick / Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY-SA 3.0 

A Möbius strip (or band or loop) is a one-sided surface. You can make it yourself by taking a strip of paper, half twisting, and then attaching one end of the strip to the other to form a twisted loop. What’s the shortest paper strip that will work?

Mathematicians have tried to answer this question since 1977. Now, Richard Schwartz of Brown University has proposed an elegant solution to the problem. In his paper, he demonstrates a proof that the aspect ratio (ratio between the length and width of the strip) must be greater than √3, or around 1.73. His next goal is to figure out how short a Möbius band can be if it is twisted three times instead of once. Paper here, more here.

Comments

Anonymous

Here is a crazy idea: what if, besides a huge deposit of lithium ore, someone found also a huge deposit of helium? If someone did, then we could get enough to fill many dirigibles propelled by electric motors and covered in solar cells charging lithium batteries, to replace heavy-than-air CO2 spewing aircraft for cargo, mail and passengers' transportation, when speed and getting there soonest are unnecessary: slowing down towards a more livable world. I doubt there is enough helium on Earth for that to happen, but what if?

Aleksei Besogonov
>>118034448

There are no deposits of helium. Helium is mined from natural gas, some gas wells can get up to 10% of the total content. We have more than enough of helium as long as we mine enough natural gas, although right now the low helium prices make it uneconomical to distill helium for most producers.

Anonymous

Thanks Aleksei for clarifying where the helium we use comes from and does so both cheaply and in enough quantities to fill all those party balloons; although mentioning "a huge deposit of helium" was, more than a serious observation, one meant to go along with the "huge deposit of lithium" theme. But here is another crazy idea: how about having dirigibles (a.k.a "airships") lifted by the buoyancy caused by carrying internal containers full of absolutely nothing? Dirigibles are not entirely full of helium or hydrogen inside their cigar-shaped aerodynamic envelopes, but within hese they carry those gases in large bags, or some other kind of containers that are considerably smaller than the envelopes. If internal tanks were made of a material sturdy enough as well as sufficiently light, capable of resisting the atmospheric pressure integrated all over them, particularly while near ground level, perhaps with interior reinforcements, while otherwise keeping only a hard vacuum inside (and ignoring those vacuum fluctuations that do nothing one needs to worry about here) making such tanks would be just one more problem to solve in materials' science. Assuming this problem has not been solved already for some other reason. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_airship

Anonymous

I still don't see the solution to our energy problems in batteries: https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter4/transportation-and-energy/combustibles-energy-content/ With limitless energy from the integral fast reactor, if the federal government would fund Argonne National Laboratory to upscale its design to 2500 MW, would produce enough to meet all demand including generating H2 locally, wherever that is. Batteries require a lot of resources to make and then require a recycling system that doesn't exist.

Anonymous

The development of fast neutron reactors has a long story, from the 1950's to the present, and several different ones have been built and tried many times with varied degrees of success. There is currently considerable interest in this kind of reactors, as well as work under way in several countries to develop these. However, while these reactors have important advantages over the more conventional ones now in use, such as considerable more energy extracted from the same amount of nuclear fuel, much reduced nuclear waste as well as the capability to recycle it into more useful fuel, the fact that this kind of reactor breeds a fuel rich in plutonium as part of its routine operation, so they create fuel as they use it, reducing the need to make more to keep them going, this also has risen the specter of ***nuclear weapons proliferation*** to countries that adopt this technology, in principle, to use it in power stations. As to the claim that by replacing fossil fuel power stations these reactors will greatly reduce the amount of CO2 injected by the burning of such fuel into the atmosphere, as they emit none of it, often this is mentioned without also pointing out that the making and transporting of the original fuel and of the concrete needed to build their housings do create a significant carbon footprint. (Same as all other renewable sources of electricity, a type to which, in my opinion, Fast Neutron Reactors do belong.) Principle and development of Fast Neutron (Plutonium Breeder) Reactors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-power-reactors/small-nuclear-power-reactors.aspx https://www.neimagazine.com/features/featuretime-for-a-new-focus-on-fast-reactors-10380132/ At Argonne National Lab: https://www.ne.anl.gov/About/reactors/integral-fast-reactor.shtml The Pros: New technology, waste management and pyroprocessing: https://innovationorigins.com/en/fast-breeder-reactors-a-solution-for-nuclear-waste-or-an-eternal-empty-promise/ The Con: Nuclear Weapons Proliferation issues: https://armscontrolcenter.org/fact-sheet-advanced-reactors-nuclear-security-and-non-proliferation-concerns/ Excerpt: "Further, for non-nuclear weapon states, obtaining a reprocessing facility to fuel fast-neutron reactors opens the door to pursuing the fissile material for a nuclear weapon. Pairing non-proliferation goals to nuclear commerce is a necessity because most nuclear technology is dual-use. It can be used for civilian or military purposes" This is from a presentation at the International Atomic Energy Agency that summarize nuclear weapons proliferation risks: https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/41/070/41070082.pdf Excerpt: "Analysis of the proliferation risk of FNRs systems : the path forward: Identification of a comprehensive set of proliferation scenarios : Concealed diversion of nuclear material (either at once or protracted) Concealed misuse of a process or facility (ex: introduce undeclared fertile assemblies in a reactor core) Overt diversion of nuclear materials or overt misuse of a facility “Breaking” scenario (country which denounce its non proliferation commitments)"

Anonymous
>>118156242

Oscar: Regarding: 1. Proliferation: it can already happen. The solution to proliferation is political. 2. Carbon footprint: Once they're built they're built and they will provide CO2 emission free power from that point on, indefinitely, including to create heat to create more concrete!

Anonymous

Agreed on (2), depending on how many reactors are built and whether they are built over a rather short period of time and then we are all done building them and don't need to keep on rebuilding them every few decades, or not. I am inclined to "or not" being he likely correct answer. As to (1), more proliferation becoming accepted as legal and normal is no great way forward, because that would become more possible than is now (and it happens), if political accommodations are made to allow the proliferation of fast-breeding reactors.