″ “The irony of all of this is, the hectorite is being mined right now, but it’s not actually being mined for the lithium. What they’re mining it for is the hectorite as a clay, and hectorite clays have unusual properties in that they are stable to very high temperatures. So what the deposit at King’s Valley is being mined for now is to make specialty drilling muds that are used in the natural gas and oil industry.”
I was writing about exactly this, on my blog back in 2013
https://protokol2020.wordpress.com/2013/09/10/handling-yellowstone/
Vast new deposits of lithium could change the global politics of battery production.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/will-supervolcanoes-help-power-our-future-180964635/?no-ist
″ “The irony of all of this is, the hectorite is being mined right now, but it’s not actually being mined for the lithium. What they’re mining it for is the hectorite as a clay, and hectorite clays have unusual properties in that they are stable to very high temperatures. So what the deposit at King’s Valley is being mined for now is to make specialty drilling muds that are used in the natural gas and oil industry.”