The Silver State’s hottest commodity is lithium. While much of the conversation taking place about the third element on the periodic table centers on its application in batteries, a workshop held at the ҹɫÊÓƵ this month explored lithium in fusion and fission energy technologies. Two isotopes of lithium, 6Li and 7Li, represent opportunities for applications in fission and fusion, which workshop organizers say warrant further research into the element’s properties. The relevance of lithium to fusion and advanced fission energy applications presents new opportunities for technology and industry developments in Nevada. The day-and-a-half-long workshop ran from June 3 to 4, and had 61 attendees from state and federal government, national laboratories, industry and academia.
The workshop comprised five topical sessions: Lithium deposits and mining; The Nevada lithium industry for batteries; Fusion energy and advanced fission; lithium isotope separation and enrichment; Economic impact, workforce development and supply chain. Speakers included scientists and engineers in industry, academia and national labs, along with businesspeople and policy experts. Several University alumni presented at the workshop.
“Nevada already brings together resources, processing capacity, and policy alignment,” Mridul Gautam, senior vice president for Research and Innovation, said in his opening remarks at the workshop. “That combination puts this state in a position few others can match.”
Lithium isotopes can play an important role in both fission and fusion technologies, and the workshop was designed to bring experts together to learn about what’s known, what’s unknown and where opportunities lie.
“Nevada has an extreme wealth of natural resources, and in particular, lithium,” Matthew Craps, Principal Scientist at Savannah River National Laboratory, said. “The downstream isotopic separations that are all going to need to happen, I think Nevada can play a very key role in that.”
The workshop was co-chaired by Roberto Mancini, Trevor J. McMinn Endowed Research Professor in Physics, and Carlos Cardillo, executive director of corporate partnerships and director of the Nevada Center for Applied Research. The rest of the organizing committee included Fred Dilger, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects; Rob Ghiglieri, administrator of the Nevada Division of Minerals; Simon Jowitt, the director of the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology and state geologist; and Victor Vasquez, professor and chair of the Department of Chemical & Materials Engineering.
“The workshop met and exceeded expectations in that we were able to bring together the key people in the area of lithium for fusion and fission energy technologies and the Nevada lithium industry,” Mancini said, “along with the quality of the talks given by the invited speakers from industry, national labs and academia and the depth and insights of the brainstorming discussions. It was also clear that the timing of the workshop was ideal.”
The workshop organizers are finalizing a report that will document the findings and recommendations of the workshop. Mancini and Cardillo identified three action items: advanced lithium characterization, development of lithium isotope separation methods that can be scaled up for industrial production, and the planning and development of a national supply chain for lithium isotopes.
"Our challenge, and our opportunity, lies in the diversification of lithium extraction,” Cardillo said. “We must pioneer new, sustainable and domestic methods to secure this resource so it can simultaneously feed the high demand for grid-scale batteries and power the next generation of nuclear reactors.”
