Tesla corpus Christi Lithium Plant Review & Discussion! 11 March 2024 Development Update (10:00 AM)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 มี.ค. 2024
- On my way to Starbase to watch and provide Live Stream coverage of Starship’s 3rd launch and the Tesla Lithium Plant was right on the way so I was able to stop and get in an updated drone flight of the site and show some of the significant progress sine my last update in November 2023.
The site was busy across the main construction site, with most of the effort concentrated on the first half of what will be two parallel processing parts of the main Lithium plant, but we also saw activity with land clearing, foundation preparation and material storage all over the area!
In the video introduction, you get to see my first drone launch from the bed of my new Cybertruck, which was on it’s first trip after being accepted for delivery on Friday the 8th of March! We then discuss many of the significant changes to look for throughout the video, including some illustrations and other amplifying information
Timestamps:
Introduction & overview with discussion & illustrations: 0:06 to 3:10
Lithium Plant Drone Flight & Narration: 3:11 to 19:51
A few additional highlights:
The rotating kiln and cooler assemblies on top of the massive foundations is making great progress on the first half of the production facility, with a lot of supporting structures already assembled and installed around these two gigantic “tubes” that form part of the pyrometallurgical portion of the processing portion of the facility. We also see clamshells being installed around the rotating cooler which is most likely related to maintaining the correct temperature necessary to transform Spodumene Concentrate 6 from the alpha (inert) to beta (reactive ) material ready for the next step in the processing.
Much of the hydrometallurgical portion of the first half of the facility is also under construction now, including reinforced slabs and mounts for the tanks necessary for this stage of processing. Additional foundation and footing construction is observed around this area, including trenching through the mid-point of what will be the two mirror image processing lines of the completed facility.
The rail spur has not yet been completed, but I was able to talk with one of the rail crew who were out doing inspections and I think we can expect this added rail line to the raw material warehouse of the plant completed later this summer. I did learn that the main railway existing now is owned by Union Pacific, but the rail spur will be funded by Tesla and they will be responsible for maintenance and repairs of this new rail spur.
Finally, the new electrical substation to supply electricity to the site is under construction on the far north end of the facility, and we can see new power poles along a dirt road to the north where the wires are being installed to connect the new substation to the Lithium Plant. This is a critical part of getting the facility operational as quickly as possible as there are no other utilities located in this area. Along with the water detention ponds, that serve as water management, but also can provide water through a (possible) in-site water treatment facility, this site now has most of the utility service it will need!
More interesting discoveries and discussion in the main video! Thank you for watching and I hope this has been informative, educational, and entertaining for you. If you would like, please consider supporting me via Patreon (link is in the description of this video and in the video itself) so I can continue to make and share these incredible videos.
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Video, photos, illustrations, and commentary on this video is by me, Joe Tegtmeyer unless otherwise annotated.
Music in this video is obtained from the TH-cam free and unrestricted and royalty-free use library.
Drones used are DJI Mini 2, Mavic Air 2 & Air 3. - ยานยนต์และพาหนะ
That take with the cyber truck in the back is awesome !👌 congratulations! 🎊
🤗👍
Cybertruck helipad! ❤️
Thanks Joe.
8:07. East storage area. Road top to bottom of screen is due east-west.
Along the fence line. 9 large transformers.
8:28. Railway. Left. Shiny pipe. Natural gas supply possibly.
Bottom centre. HDD drilling site being set-up. Yellow item would be a drilling mud recycling machine. Black HDD drilling rig to the right.
Centre. Footings for a another structure.
11:41. Westside. Right. Long parallel strip footing/grade beam. To the left, the triangular plates might be fabricated pile caps.
May be looking at footings for a building, and footings for a crane/conveyor system inside.
13:49. Left. Tanks being fabricated on site, as at the Southend of GT.
14:01. Bottom left. Rotary Cooler. Last seen the white insulation sleeve was supported on a stack of timbers. Capping piece to the right.
Far right. Stack of heavy duty ducting.
15:27. Tall white hopper. Massively reinforced around the tapering base.
15:53. Bottom left. Rectangular hoppers. Supplied by Donaldson, who supply the blue painted filtering equipment in Casting and Cathode at GT.
Would be nice to have an update 11th of May to see the progress made in two months time! Great Video 👍👍
Excited to now be learning about lithium processing plants from watching your detailed videos. I appreciate all the behind the screens research you do to be able to explain things so clearly. I’ve been following you since Day One of Giga Texas. It’s so awesome to see the fruits of your literal years of labor with your new Cybertruck. Congrats!
Thanks and glad these are helpful!
Wow! a lot of progress! Nice video as always, and the take-off from the Cybertruck tail gate was awesome to see!
Btw, your voice sounds like you had a lot of fun at Starbase ;-) !
🤗 and I did have a ton of fun here! Talked a lot too and my voice kinda betrays that in this video!
You scared me there for second Joe I know you have a lot going on and you do your best and once again congratulations on your new cyber truck,i I check TH-cam every day waiting for you to post again thanks for all your hard work your the best 🙌🏽🤝🏾
Thanks … it has been a very busy week for me and sorry for delays getting videos uploaded.
I don't know why yr surprised, he literally said there may be an upset to the uploads at this time.
He was in boca chica filming the starship (sub)orbital flight
@@JoeTegtmeyer no problem Joe trust me you’re good at what you do take you time we just really love you and your work 😎
Perfect timing for an update ❤. I have an interview soon. Please root for me.
Awesome that you took my suggestion and took off from the bed of the Cybertruck.
😎🤗
Hey.. that was MY suggestion 😂
5:57 next to the cylindrical vessel there is a horizontal vessel that looks a lot like the autoclave vessel that is described in the Pressurized Alkaline Lithium extraction method developed by Outotec (now merged with Metso). In such a vessel the reactive spodumene coming out of the pyrometallurgy phase (the kilns) is pressure leached with Alkaline. I had thought the vessel would be larger than what we see here, so i'm not really sure, but anyway we should be on the lookout for this and other telltale equipment all along the production line.
Furthermore I had thought that the SC6 feedstock storage building would be an early delivery but nothing of the kind. The contractual supply of SC6 from Quebec must me stored someplace else, as the SC6 production there started up some time ago.
Check out my 6 part video series I did in early September … I think that will help you out with your questions.
good to see it all coming together....👍
I appreciate the update, although disappointing to see this isn't being built as fast as Giga Texas!
I really liked the landing pad in your Cybertruck bed😂👍
Love the new helicopter landing pad 😂
Me too!
😍😍
Okay right off, putting the cyber truck in the shot seems really smart 👍
Thanks Joe for again videotaping and explaining the Corpus Christie Lithium Plant. How are the rotating kilns heated - gas or electrical heating? Thanks for replying that the rotating kilns will be using Natural Gas to heat the kilns.
Natural Gas. There are references of electrical kilns, but they look much different with relatively large electrical heating packs strapped along the entire outside surface of smaller-looking kilns. I don't think electrification has been accomplished for this XL type of kiln.
Definitely Natural Gas.
Look at you with your cybertruck. Congratulations !!
Thanks 🙏 for the commentary 😊
Thanks, Joe!! Awesome info video !!
Awesome work Joe. Thanks very much!
wow so cool, great looking truck as well
Thanks!
Joe, that liftoff sequence was AWESOME!
Thanks!
nice CT congrats!
Merci👍👍👍
👋👍
Thank you Joe for the update. I’ve been wondering how the progress is coming.
You are welcome!
Taking off from the bed of the cybertruck is golden
😀
If the plant requires moving the railcars around other than a train dropping them off and picking them up, there may be a long enough railroad track siding to allow for such activity within the plant without entering the main line.
Ideally, enough material would be used to unload 50 cars or more at a lower freight rate. A loop track is often used for such trains. I don't see signs of that.
Thanks, Joe! I appreciate how you handle the English language.
🤗
Will the second processing line mirror or replicate the first? There can be advantages of either but replication is generally easier to build and operate. Thanks for the tour.
What to see ever flight take off from CT launch pad. That’s awesome
Thanks!
There is NO way this site is operational by summer. Summer 2025 is much more realistic target.
Tesla is a company which assembled a high end casting machine in their parking lot. They will focus on bringing up the production line even if the toilets and cafeterias are not ready.
Summer 2025 for early commissioning, and well into 2026 for product.
If I were you I'd open the tonneau cover and stand up in the truck bed when flying the drone. Not sure why I'd do that, but I would. Every single time. lol
Do you think they will eventually build a battery plant to be near the materials here?
Is LiOH.H2O a mistake? Should they go for Carbonate now that the standard models are going LFP.
Much more Driscoll than Corpus Christi
Any body know where at giga Austinn, Elon is planning on building the model 2?
Eastside.😊
Southend extension.
Is it unfair to say that this is slow progress? It seems really slow.
Perhaps I’m just impatient to see their projects come online and start adding to the financials…
It's really slow!
I know you don't mean it that way but I keep thinking the loser sweater is a little inappropriate to wear. You're kinda greeting your viewers with hey losers.
OK
I like it. Where can I get one? Thanks, also love your videos Joe.
It's a take on a common meme. Joe simply isn't the type to intentionally offend anyone.