VUL megathread, page-4041

So no commercial scale DLE then. Lol.
Not even on a salar.

I think you should be a bit more conservative rather than utter phrases like "Egg on the face of those who continue to deny that DLE works and is the next big thing around the corner."
Devil is in the detail.
Once this is commercially successful and the end product has passed qualification from end users.... then go for it.
Doing that on lab / pilot scale with no numbers published on cost is premature.

Here is a statement from Dr J Burba talking about lithium extraction.
Co-inventor of the original "DLE" process invented at Dow Chemical ( now Du Pont ). ~1992
You can listen to him talking about all of that here video interview

He eventually got asked by FMC to fix their Fenix lithium operation where the Dow Chemical patent was acquired and improved and only became a commercial operation ~1998
Later CEO of Simbol, numerous patents etc.
So he has been around and knows a thing or two about lithium.

These are his words extracted from attached article
DrBurbaArticle.pdf

"It is very clear that the lithium extraction industry desperately needs to shift to cleaner, faster less expensive technologies.
Even FMC’s operation, which is the best of the lot, has numerous problems.
Over the last decade, there has been a lot of hype and excitement over new and novel technologies that will solve this problem.
Unfortunately, most of these technologies will never be commercial.Designing a process to selectively extract lithium from complex saturated brines is stunningly difficult.
Designing one that can be profitable is much more difficult.
Most of these projects are either reworks of old ideas that were tried and failed in the 1980’s or new concepts with marginal operational bases.
What works in the lab does not always work at scale."

Not all the "DLE" players are going be to successfull......and none of them are proven just yet.

I am heavily invested in AGY. small Argentine brine player building their phase 1 commercial plant right now coming online mid year 2022.
They are in a JV with Puna Mining which is head up by Pablo Alurralde.
Pablo in turn was the Enginering and Technology manager at FMC at the Fenix project from 1997-2012....
Also invented new patents credited to FMC during his tenure obviously improving the DLE process first brought online in 1998.

Point is two fold.
If "DLE" was the be all and end all then he would have used that on his own project....instead he chose to go evaporation ponds.
That is after not only working on the only "DLE" operation for 15 years but also improving it!

"DLE" has to work, but not all will be successfull because it is a lot harder than we can appreciate to get it working commercially at scale.
Just the fact that there is only one real long term commercial "DLE" operation should tell you that.
This may change in the next few years, but currently that is the state of things.

I am invested in VUL too.
Thus far I like the way that they are setting up the business and how they are approaching the problem and steps they take to mitigate risk.
When there is a potential point of failure they seem to have alternatives lines up before it becomes a problem.

Trying to be innovative while staying pragmatic.

Looking forward to seeing this come together in the demo plant and what the outcome will be.

It is going to be a real interesting year for my lithium investments!