Transcription
Giga, Texas is very exciting, and we will talk about that soon, but not today. Today, we're talking about the lithium refinery near Corpus Christi, Texas. And if we're going to talk about that, that means we've got to bring on the master himself. Yes, that's right. Joe Tegmire is here. He is going to tell us about what he has seen from the air, what he knows. And he will, as always, spill the secrets that he's not allowed to share. He doesn't do that, and I don't know if he has any secrets about the lithium refinery, but what he can share is his insights and, uh, give us some info on what's actually going on, why it matters. And we're going to go through his drone footage and take a look and see just what is going on. I'm Brian. Welcome to Futurza.
>> So, Joe, you just got back from Starbase not that long ago. How many launches have you seen now?
Well, yes. I've just got back from flight 12. So, I've been at all 12 of them. And, uh, as you can see behind me, I'm kind of split. I've been doing a lot of Starbase stuff, a lot of Giga Texas stuff, Cyber Cab stuff, and of course, the lithium plant. So, I've been all over, and I'm getting ready to head out to Europe. So, uh, I'm trying to be as busy as you.
>> He's modest. He also covers the Boring Company and, uh, the SpaceX facility out in Bastrop. So, uh, he is indeed very busy. Uh, this is last-minute notice, you guys, but, uh, Joe's going to be in Flacow, Austria for the X takeover in Europe, June 5th and 6th. I'll be in Mosgiel holding it down domestically, uh, the same dates. We can't do both. We don't have, uh, Jared Isaacman's plane. So if we did, then maybe. But, uh, it'd still be, still be a tight commute.
>> All right. So, uh, what I'm looking at here, by the way, guys, follow Joe. Would you, could you, uh, check him out? We've got this little place here. Lovely, isn't it? Well, that's the render, and it's already starting to look like that, except that it only has one of the two lines. Uh, but we will discuss that as well. We have got here a new road being paved, uh, that wasn't paved before. No, it was pretty much a dirt road, like much of the rest of the site is right now. But, uh, that heads off to the north, and it kind of, uh, it's an access point for some of the trucks bringing in the spodumene concentrate 6, which is the raw material. But it also connects up to the substation that powers the entire plant. You can see the power lines next to the road. So, it's, uh, kind of an important, uh, new addition. And having the asphalt, I think, is really nice because the amount of dust there is kind of out of control. And I was actually kind of hoping to see more asphalt around the plant, uh, just to help with that dust control. But, uh, yeah, so they continue to be adding in and changing some of the infrastructure while they are in production, which is, uh, really great to be able to see.
>> That's kind of unique to Tesla. Historically, what I've always observed is, uh, companies will build something to absolute completion and then flip the switch. Uh, Tesla prefers a more agile, more nimble approach.
Okay. So, then we've got some new equipment that we've seen here. Uh, this is, uh, redundant equipment, or is it potentially for, uh, the upcoming, uh, construction of the second line? What do we, what do we speculate this is?
I'm not 100% sure, but it does look like similar equipment that was installed in the first part, or the first half of the plant. As you saw with the render, uh, eventually it's going to have parallel processing lines, but right now they've only got one. And I think the reason why is that they wanted to get it up and running and kind of get a lay of the land and see what the market was like, what was going on with lithium. Uh, because from the time that they started building the plant till now, the worldwide market has changed considerably. And with those ups and downs, I think they wanted to take a little bit more prudent, uh, approach to that. So, they've got half of it there, but it looks like some of the materials are starting to arrive. So, maybe, uh, it doesn't look like it's a high sense of urgency like the original one. So, maybe towards the end of the year, they might have enough to maybe start doing that. But, uh, they're also just, it looks to me because of some of the new structures that they're putting in, is that they're continuing to sort of tweak or refine their process as they go. So I think they're learning a lot and they're also preparing for, uh, expansion. And it is also possible, this is total speculation on my part, but, uh, as we've seen with transformers, the lead time for that is excessively long. So this type of equipment may be similar where they want to go ahead and acquire it and start accumulating it to have it on hand before they start, uh, trying to build because otherwise, as you were saying, many other companies, they want to get everything completely done perfectly at one time, and when they wait, it can really extend those, uh, times of building. So I think that they're just trying to get ahead of the game right now.
So what you see is, if you need to build a new building and you're missing several critical components, you don't have a factory, you have a building full of stuff.
>> True.
>> That could be, uh, problematic.
>> I think a lot of people watch over that. They, they see the structure and they think it's done, but they don't account for the equipment inside the structure that's needed to do the production. And sometimes, in, in a lot of ways, that is the longest lead time, and they really are trying to get ahead of that, and I think that's what we're seeing.
>> Indeed. Uh, I think that we saw that with, uh, the construction of Lucid's much expanded factory. I had a lot of Lucid investors telling me that my skepticism was unwarranted because, look, the building is finished. And I said, we're not seeing equipment being loaded in every day. Uh, if you watch other factories, like Tesla's, specifically like your footage, more specifically of Giga Texas, you would see that every day equipment crates, big stuff is going into the building, test parts are coming out of the building. And for Lucid, five years ago, four years ago, all we saw was the building itself.
>> That's great, but it's empty.
>> Yeah. You know, I was having a recent conversation with somebody about the, uh, Giga Texas Optimus plant. And the only point I want to bring that is about that is they're seeing construction and they're like, "Oh, okay. So, what, probably by the end of this year, we're going to see robots?" And I'm like, um, I'm going to say end of '27, '28 because the structure may be completed, but all of the equipment inside that's going to take a while.
>> And, uh, I don't think the building will be substantially complete this year. We're just seeing the first vertical sticks going up. Uh, it, it's a big building.
>> And while parts of it could be completed, uh, if it was prioritized by the end of the year, I still don't think production would be a reasonable expectation. So this big old building here is the Spodumene house. What's going on?
>> Yeah, there's a couple of things that's interesting here. One, people may ask, what is spodumene or spodumene concentrate 6? Again, that's that raw material that is brought in. It's kind of a pulverized rock. It's kind of a rough, powdery material, and it's got 6% lithium within the rock. So you, you need to refine it a lot more, and that's what the plan is for. But because of the, I think it's something like six or 10 to one from how much spodumene you have to how much lithium that you make, the quantity of the spodumene concentrate 6 is quite substantial, and it's something you want to keep out of the elements. So they have this really large, uh, warehouse that, uh, they bring in the spodumene, they keep it there, they maneuver it, and then they use conveyors to take it to the plant itself. But we also are seeing just on the south end, uh, kind of more construction. There's some footings being put in. So there may be some expansion. So maybe, uh, maybe a different process. Maybe they've realized that they needed some additional space for maybe, uh, something else. I, I'm not really sure. And then we see that kind of a tent-like structure at the very end. And I think that's where the trucks that are bringing in the spodumene go, and then they unload. And it's a way of doing that so that it mitigates the dust that's everywhere and also keeps it out of the elements. And so that's a relatively new addition. It also is eventually where I expect a rail spur to be put in somewhere in that area to help bring in the material with the railroad. But that is, there's no indication of that spur. There's no indication of the railroad, uh, track coming into this area. So I think the, uh, the plant's production capacity right now is, uh, enough that they can just use trucks, and that's what we're seeing. Uh, there's, there was none on this particular day. It was a Sunday. Uh, but I have seen in the past trucks all lined up on that, uh, kind of west side of the structure waiting to unload. Mhm. For reference, a semi without special variances can haul about, uh, 25 tons of material. A rail car is more like a 100 tons. So when you see a long rail car, it is hundreds of trucks. It is displacing for very heavy things that are all going to the same place. It's a good solution.
At the top middle of the screen there, we see, uh, that paved road we were just talking about,
>> sneaking off into the distance as if it's going towards a specific, uh, location. What's up there?
>> That is that new electrical substation that they added in that brings the power to the plant. Uh, I, I thought about flying up there, but, uh, this particular day, the winds were really, really strong. So I ended up having to fly the flight from two different locations to minimize how much distance I was flying away from myself. So getting all the way up to there really wasn't in the cards this time. U, but I have been there before. It looks similar to what we see up at Giga Texas with that electrical switchyard or substation. There's transformers, power lines coming in, circuit breakers, and then the electrical lines follow that road down into the plant. And then there's, uh, connections where it, uh, kind of tees off and goes to support the plant. But,
>> and it's not like we don't know what a substation looks like,
>> right? Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> But it is probably the only real utilities out there, uh, as far as water or anything like that. Uh, it's pretty much self-contained, so there aren't big water pipes coming out here. It's all the ponds that you see and some of the plants that they have there.
>> Mhm. Better shot of those additional footings you mentioned earlier. That's helpful. Uh, now, uh, getting on to the exciting part of the plant is the kiln.
>> Uh, you'd mentioned in your video that they are operating 24/7. I imagine that is in part because shutting down a kiln operation for 8 hours a day, uh, could be problematic, or at least difficult or expensive. Uh, is that part of it, you think?
>> I think so. I think it's sort of like diesel trucks where you see them running all the time. I think it's the same thing is once they get this set up and operational, uh, keeping it steady state is probably ideal. So when I was there, I could actually see, uh, both the, uh, kind of that rusty pipe between the two, uh, structures. That's the, the heating part, the kiln. And then below it, you see it, kind of a white jacketed one. That's a cooler. So they work together, and they bring the material in, and it's rotating, and it also pitches to allow gravity to pull it through as it's heating it up and cooling it down. And I just think that, uh, you know, well, when I was there, I could see it actually rolling on the bearings. You can see the bearings where it's supporting on both sides. And I could also see the drive unit in motion. U, but yeah, I think they, they need to keep it at some degree of operating all the time so they don't have startup or shutdown issues or just having to go through the whole process of getting it going. But it was clearly working even on this Sunday. And I could also see other parts of the plants operational. So they were, they were doing some processing while I was there.
>> And, uh, yeah, do go watch the videos if you haven't, folks, because you can see Joe does zoom in on the actual rings, so you can see that they are in motion. Uh, you got the, the, the hot tube and the cold tube, uh, moving material forward. Oh, one thing I wanted to mention is when we saw that tent a minute ago,
>> uh, when you said that trucks would pull into it, someone might look at this and say, "Well, that door looks pretty short." But if you look at this loader over here, you'll see that it is not a small. It is a lack of scale because we are at a tremendous distance that makes it a little harder to understand.
>> Yeah, that's something I always struggle with is trying to show scale. And I was actually thinking when we were looking at the rotating kiln, and if you look at the trucks next to it, you can see the bearings are so big that the trucks could drive through those bearings.
>> Oh, yeah.
>> Huge.
>> Yeah. And my question that I would ask of their engineers is, since those bearings are exposed to the elements, how do you mitigate dust and other particulates? I, I don't know if you even can, but, uh, it'd be an interesting question.
>> It is a good question. Um, uh, I, I would imagine that they have to have a maintenance, uh, process where they're cleaning it and lubricating it a lot because of the, the dusty, uh, environment it's in. And that's why I was really surprised. As you can see here, there's not a lot. I mean, there is some concrete, but there's not a lot of asphalt. There's not a lot of surface treatment to keep all the dust down. Uh, they use water trucks from those ponds to constantly be driving around spraying it down. So, um, yeah, that's a little bit of a mystery to me why they chose not to do that. U, this is also a great shot because it shows an addition that has been made since I was last there, you know. So, what we're
>> Oh, go ahead.
>> No, I, that's the question is, tell us about this one building that is, uh, slightly cleaner than the ones next to it.
>> Yeah. So, what we're looking at is, you can see that large warehouse in the back where the spodumene comes in. You can see the conveyors. It goes through the process of the plant, and then it ends up at the tall building on the right, and that's where the final product, lithium hydroxide monohydrate, is packaged up and shipped out. So that's kind of like their packaging and shipping part of the plant. But next to it, that lower building, uh, when I was there before, I could see the foundation starting. Now it is complete. And what I think this is, because I could actually see trucks going in and out of it, um, but the process that they use has a byproduct, and that byproduct is like a silicate mixture, almost like a sand kind of thing. It's inert, and it's also very good for making concrete. So they are able to produce a lot of that because, as I mentioned, the spodumene concentrate 6 is something like six or 10 to one of what you get for the final product. So you get a lot of byproduct material. So, I think they built this to house all of that to then ship it off. And that is exactly what they're doing. They're shipping it up to, uh, concrete manufacturing companies, and they're making concrete, which is then used for other structures around the area. So that's one of the unique parts of the process that Tesla is lithium is using here for the lithium hydroxide is unlike big brine tanks and, uh, a lot of sulfuric acid and those kinds of materials that you see in most other plants. Here, they have a different process that makes material that's great for concrete.
>> And with that said, uh, is, I know you speculated that the lack of, uh, surface treatment, the lack of pavement or asphalt, maybe because this area isn't done. They may continue expanding or reconfiguring in this area.
>> And I think,
>> you can see the structures here on the right. You can see kind of that grassy area where there's ponds. That's where the second half of the plant will be. In fact, you can see the tower next to the, um, the warehouse with the conveyor up to it. That's where the beginning of the process would go for that part of the plant.
>> Right there at the edge of the grass.
>> Yes. So, you would imagine what we're seeing on the center left of the screen replicated and mirrored on the right-hand side of the screen.
>> Well, that means we have to figure out what, uh, this building is. And, uh, I, I already suspect I know the answer, but I'm just going to call it the wrong thing because it's funny. The Cyber Whistle.
>> The Cyber Whistle. It does kind of look sort of like that, doesn't it?
>> It does. It does. So, this is strategically located in between the first line and the future expanded second line. What is it?
>> Well, I'm going to have to speculate on this, too. And it's not a Cyber Whistle, and it's not a Star Wars kind of facility or whatever. I think it's just mainly the control room. It's where, where a lot of the employees can be. And that, uh, kind of the angled part almost looks like, uh, a place you could go outside, almost like a patio or something. So, but I think it's just basically where the operations are for the entire plant, and it's well-suited, uh, because they can get a great shot of what's going on with the raw materials and also how the plant itself is operating. Uh, in the future, based on the render, there will be another, uh, kind of office building constructed, but that is not yet done, and it would be sort of below where the drone is from its perspective right now. So, so that's my guess. Operations center.
>> That was my, based on where it's located, based on where it's situated, that would make the most sense based on the, where the windows are. And now that you mention it, that back patio is a patio because on this side of the building, there's no opening, and on the other side of the building, there appears to be an opening, like a little walkway. So maybe that's maybe.
>> Based on what you said though, I think that they missed a great opportunity. If they had sloped the longer part of the roof down just a little bit more, they could have had a Cybertruck.
>> Yeah. Yeah. You know, they've got to consult me. They,
>> the, the smallest little missed opportunity. Very disappointing. So, uh, one thing I've noticed here is a lack of giant chemical tanks, right?
>> Uh, that's not a big part of their process, is it?
>> No, it's not. Uh, again, they use, uh, some of the water, and that's what the ponds come from, and they use some other chemicals, but it's, uh, it's a pretty straightforward process. Um, and I believe that they recycle quite a bit of the materials, the, the chemicals that they do use and the water. And so they don't need what you would see at a traditional plant with gigantic tanks, gigantic ponds, a lot of the infrastructure to move water and also to be able to handle some of the, uh, the, the less nice byproducts. Again, I think sulfuric acid is the big one that most other lithium plants use, and that can be problematic. So, uh, this process is pretty nice.
>> So on this, uh, there was a recent report. Oh my gosh, Joe, the world is ending. Uh, where they were complaining about the runoff from this facility.
>> And that even though it adhered to all the permits, they decided to test it for some other things downstream and found that it was just like at trace levels of things that are not a problem today, but perhaps over time could become a problem. They were concerned that lithium would be discharged. My thought on that was, why would they discharge the one thing they're definitely going to use? That doesn't make any sense. But from looking at the site, from studying it and understanding it, do those complaints even make sense based on the fact that they don't use a lot of the harsh chemicals and, uh, they're reclaiming and recapturing and, and selling the byproduct on so many of these fronts?
>> Yeah. Um, I don't know. Uh, this is going to be more of a speculation on my part rather than saying for absolute shy, but, uh, I know that, uh, they are putting in a concerted effort to try to make sure that they recycle and they protect the environment as much as they possibly can. They are using a process which by definition is very, uh, inert and it doesn't have a lot of the really bad byproducts that you would normally have. I, I know that some people tend to be worried about things that they may not completely understand or they may assume that this plant operates like different plants. Uh, so I think that there may be just a lot of, uh, people talking about things or worried about things that may not be an issue. And I know that Tesla is working through the process to make sure, as you've pointed out, that they've been testing the, whatever is around the site. They've been looking at, whatever the byproducts are, whatever the chemicals are. Um, and if there were an issue, I, I am, uh, I'm very confident that they would work through that to make sure that it's not, uh, being a bad neighbor or doing something to the site that's going to be, uh, pretty, uh, pretty bad even over time. Uh, you know, in this area, there's, there's other things like refining and that kind of stuff. I would think that that would be by far a more big of a concern than what's going on with the lithium plant. The real problem that I saw with the study that they conducted on the water downstream of this facility is that they didn't also take samples from upstream from this facility.
>> So it is, uh, pretty challenging to know what came from where.
>> Uh, I feel like that's a, a pretty egregious mistake.
>> So of course now the last thing I got to ask you is, uh, what have you heard? What are, have they shared anything about the efficiency of the operations, expansion plans, uh, the future, the present, what's going on?
>> Um, not specifically as far as, you know, hey, we got this plan and next May we're going to do stuff, but I can just go by circumstance. One, just looking at some of the materials that they're starting to, uh, collect, some of the ones that may be longer lead times. It looks like there is a plan to do that. Uh, that, you know, the, the doubling in size or mirroring what's already there. Um, I know that the, uh, product is arriving at the battery cathode plant up at Giga Texas, which is sort of the input, uh, for that process, and there is a lot of activity there as far as adding even more equipment in. They just put in some, uh, covered workshops, maybe some covered areas for material that may be coming in, and they put a new, uh, temporary loading dock up on the second floor. So they are continuing to proceed with the operations there and adding more capabilities, uh, for the battery cathode plant to make the, uh, cathode material for the 4680s. I also know that over at the 4680, there are, there are a lot of permits that are being filed. I can see a lot of equipment, uh, some interior construction going on to add in that equipment. I know this because I can see the concrete slabs coming out that have been cut out. So, you know, from the lithium processing to the battery cathode plant to the 4680, there is a lot of expansion going on from all three of those sites. So I can only imagine that, uh, they're pretty happy with where they're at, and there's plans for them to continue more construction. You know, it's amazing how much construction is going on at the Giga Texas and adding even more is not a surprise to me at all.
>> And, uh, worth noting that the byproduct here is not garbage. It's something you can sell. People will buy your trash from you because they can make concrete or other products.
>> And on this, uh, expansion, I've had people say, "Well, it's behind schedule because it's not already fully scaled." But it's worth noting that when this was announced, lithium prices were more than double what they are today.
>> Right. So there is a, uh, urgency when prices get that high where you can justify overspending to get things done early. And as you noted in the video, we didn't show it, but there are five spare transformers on site. Something like five.
>> That is a good thing, but at the same time, it's part of the problem. It's part of the shortage because everybody feels that they have to get their spares in early, and that exacerbates the shortage. But that is something that can be remedied over the next few years.
>> And there's two things that came to mind when you were saying that. Uh, we were talking about people think when a structure is done that they're done, but you have to have all the equipment in there, uh, to make it work. The other thing that's very important, and I think people forget or they don't understand, is that the lead times can be years, and within years, a lot of things can change on the macroeconomic part of the, the, the, the equation. And as you've said, the lithium cost, the lithium processing, the demand for lithium has gone through like three or four cycles since they broke ground. So, you know, when you are building these kinds of structures, you have to have this vision of where it's going to go, but you also have to accept a certain level of risk because things can change during the time to actually build the structure to be able to be in a good position. And the thing is, is that Tesla did that, and now they, at least they have a production facility. So as things change, maybe on the political realm, maybe on the economic realm, uh, they're in a really great position because that they took that risk and they started the construction what, three or four years ago, about three years ago, and now they're in a position that they are in, which has improved their position a lot more than if they had just waited or if they weren't sure or, or let's just, you know, let's just go with what, uh, what is there. The second thing I, I remembered, um, and it's been part of the, the plan all along, and I think that there's been some discussion recently, and that has to do with something called black mass recycling, and it's basically recycling existing batteries. It's something like Redwood does, something Tesla wants to do, and the lithium plant, uh, in some of their plans that I've seen, uh, they would like to be able to add that capability, and I think that, uh, we will probably see that over the next year or two being developed as well.
>> When I was at Giga Nevada, they told me that we do all of our recycling in-house, and then the next day I had a tour of Redwood Materials where I saw a pallet of what was clearly 2170s. So, uh, maybe that's an aspirational goal in Nevada. They haven't quite gotten there yet. And I did say, "What are those?" And they said, "We're not allowed to tell you, but you can look at them."
>> Yeah.
>> You know, recycling of batteries is going to be a big thing as more and more vehicles, cars, stationary storage uses batteries. And the nice thing about that is the refining, uh, is pretty simple. You don't have to do all the mining, and you just take what is existing, and you can recover almost 100%, like 98, 97% of the material.
>> Everything but the glue.
>> Uh, yeah. Very interesting. Guys, uh, if you haven't done it already, head over to Joe's channel, find out what he's up to. If you want to meet him, you can do that June 5th and 6th in Flacow, Austria. He's going to be there for the X takeover. Uh, check him out. So, in the comments, what did we miss? What do we misunderstand? Leave it. I beg of you. Please leave it. Everyone else, stay tuned. Stay juicy. And I cannot wait to hear from you. Clever robots at one of those two events.