The post attached gives the energy needs I calculated for each 1 tonne of hydroxide - Post #:
40107095From the Kwinana and Nemaska studies, I calculated to produce 1 tonne of hydroxide requires 11 MWh to 14 MWh of power. I went through these calcs in the embedded posts above. That is a lot of power is required to produce hydroxide - a typical household in Australia consumes annually 7000 kWh electricity, refer:
https://electricitywizard.com.au/electricity/electricity-cost/how-much-does-electricity-cost/ . 11 MWh, to produce a tonne of hydroxide, is equivalent to keeping the power on all year round for 1.2 Australian homes (so the process is very enrgy intensive by the looks of it). 1 tonne of hydroxide give you at a guage as to what it is: depending on battery size only 17 to 25 EVs.
In terms of your comments, yes generally gas/oil is the direct input to the kilns.
However, in the absence of gas/oil direct feed they are going to have to use electricity (i.e. probably a little similar to what Tomoga is doing in NSW where it draws a crap load of power from the grid - yes I know aluminium example but similar concept.)
But that will require a certain design to make the kilns work as if fed directy by gas - not ideal. Suspect at the end of the day, as per earlier posts of mine when this issue was discussed, if hydroxide is produced it will be done offsite, (i.e. at a port site and/or regional area and/or in China/Europe where the product may end up been exported assuming in a JV arrangement, like PLS is hoping to do with POSCO, AVZ will have a share in the downstream converter facilities) and in part the reason for that also has to do with the inbound transport task given that producing hydroxide also has other inputs and that means a inland transport task as well. So ultimately, in the hypothetical, if they are to produce hydroxide onsite they will need to deal with transport issues around inputs to minesite plus dealing with the technical issue around 'kiln' design if the kilns need a electricity source as against the typical gas/direct energy feed etc etc.
The transport task, and by that the adequacy of infrastructure, here will determine the short term strategy (i.e. here I presume transporting 6% grade spodumene) as against the longer term strategy (i.e. where will hydroxide be produced).
All IMO IMO IMO
