Magnesium from Seawater // Magrathea’s Mission to go Back to the Future

Welcome back everyone, I'm Jordan Geisigee, and this is The Limiting Factor. This is video number 4 of the Magnesium series. Earlier in the series I addressed the common concerns around magnesium like flammability and corrosion, and showed that there are new alloys available to address those concerns. I also showed that until recently, ultra-high-quality, thick-so-molded magnesium castings were limited to shop weights of just a few kilograms. But the companies like Eidra are now working towards castings that are 20 kilograms or larger, which opens the door to magnesium underbody castings that weigh up to a third less than aluminum castings and thick-so-molded magnesium wheels that offer a 3-5% range improvement overcast aluminum wheels but cost less to manufacture. Thanks to the innovations happening with magnesium alloys and casting technology, I expect demand to surge for magnesium as the decade progresses to reduce the weight of electric vehicles. That's because removing mass from the vehicle reduces the size of the components required to move that mass around, like the battery pack, motors, brakes, and suspension, which are all expensive.

大家好，欢迎回来，我是乔丹·吉西吉，这是《限制因素》。这是镁合金系列的第4集视频。在本系列的早期，我提到了镁合金的常见问题，比如易燃和腐蚀，还展示了有新型合金可以解决这些问题。我还展示了，直到最近，超高质量的厚壁型镁铸件仅限于几公斤的铸造厂重量。但像艾德拉这样的公司现在正致力于生产20公斤或更大的铸件，这为重量比铝铸件轻三分之一的镁车身铸件和厚壁型镁车轮打开了大门，这种车轮可以比铸铝车轮提供3-5%的续航里程提升，但制造成本更低。由于镁合金和铸造技术的创新，我预计在未来几年，随着电动汽车的重量减轻需求不断增加。这是因为从车辆中去除质量会减小移动该质量所需的组件的尺寸，比如电池组、电机、刹车和悬挂等，这些都很昂贵。

So reducing the vehicle weight through magnesium can be used to make electric vehicles cheaper, which is the primary goal of automakers this decade. The question is, where will the magnesium supply come from to meet that demand? Magnesium production is currently 1-60th the production of aluminum, which is its closest competitor. That means even a small shift towards magnesium by the automotive industry could quickly drive up prices and overwhelm supply chains. In my view, the best way to meet increasing demand for magnesium is by extracting it from seawater. That's because seawater is the largest and most widely available source of magnesium on the planet, containing about 1 pound of magnesium per 142 gallons, or 1.85 kilograms per 1 cubic meter. So today I'm going to walk you through Howdao Chemical and Norsch Hydro dominated the magnesium market for over 50 years by using a seawater extraction process for magnesium, why that was eventually replaced by cheap and dirty magnesium from China, and Magra Thea's plans to resurrect magnesium production from seawater and brines to provide the world with the first inherently carbon neutral structural metal while producing it more cheaply than aluminum.

因此，通过镁减轻车辆重量可以降低电动汽车的成本，这是汽车制造商这十年的主要目标。问题在于，镁供应将从哪里来满足这种需求？目前镁的生产量是铝的1-60分之一，而铝是最接近的竞争对手。这意味着即使是汽车行业对镁有一点微小转向，也可能迅速推高价格并超过供应链。在我看来，满足镁需求增加的最好方式是从海水中提取镁。这是因为海水是地球上最大、最广泛可获取的镁源，每142加仑含有约1磅的镁，或每1立方米含有1.85公斤。因此，今天我将为您介绍Howdao Chemical和Norsch Hydro如何通过海水提取过程主导了镁市场50多年，为何最终被中国廉价且污染的镁取代，以及Magra Thea计划通过从海水和卤水中提取镁来提供全球第一种固有碳中和结构金属，而且比铝更便宜生产。

Before we begin, a special thanks to my Patreon supporters, YouTube members, and Twitter subscribers, as well as RebellionAir.com. They specialize in helping investors manage concentrated positions. RebellionAir can help with covered calls, risk management, and creating a money master plan from your financial first principles. Let's start with a brief history of magnesium production. In the first video of the series, I showed that the first high productivity modern process for producing magnesium was developed around World War I by Dow Chemical. The process was initially geared towards producing magnesium from brines in Michigan where Dow Chemical was headquartered. Then, about 25 years later, World War II created a forcing function to rapidly scale production, and Dow adapted the process for extracting magnesium from brines to extracting magnesium from seawater.

在我们开始之前，特别感谢我的Patreon支持者，YouTube会员和Twitter订阅者，以及RebellionAir.com。他们专门帮助投资者管理集中头寸。RebellionAir可以帮助处理备查电话，风险管理，并从您的财务第一原则中制定一个金钱大师计划。让我们首先简要了解镁生产的历史。在这个系列的第一个视频中，我展示了第一个高生产率的现代镁生产工艺是在第一次世界大战期间由陶氏化学公司开发的。最初，该工艺主要用于在密歇根州的陶氏化学公司总部生产镁。然后，大约25年后，第二次世界大战迫使迅速扩大产量，并且陶氏公司将从卤水中提取镁的工艺改造为从海水中提取镁的工艺。

World War II also saw the invention and scaling of the pigeon process, which produces magnesium from sedimentary sources of magnesium carbonate. More on that later in the video. After World War II to the 1990s, most of the world's production of magnesium came from the Dow process. For example, on screen is the global production capacity for magnesium in 1970, which totaled about 287,000 tons per year. Of that 287 kilotons, 160 kilotons were produced by extracting magnesium from seawater. Which was about 55% of global capacity. The two major players in the space were Dow Chemical in the United States at about 120 kilotons and Norscht Hydro in Norway at 40 kilotons. Although Norscht Hydro and Dow Chemical used different processes, they were both extracting magnesium from seawater using electrolytic processes. And they were both profitable for decades until the late 1990s and early 2000s. That's because in the 1990s, China began dominating the market with cheap, dirty magnesium produced using the pigeon process that was developed during World War II. That put most other companies in the magnesium industry out of business. The question is, why is that? Is it because the pigeon process is fundamentally more efficient than, for example, producing magnesium from seawater using the Dow process? Or was it something else? Like the Chinese government putting their thumb on the scales in favor of their own manufacturers to push companies like Dow and Norscht Hydro out of the magnesium business.

二战期间还见证了鸽子法的发明和规模化，这种法方法从镁碳酸盐的沉积来源中生产镁。视频中稍后会详细介绍。二战后到1990年代，全球大部分镁的生产都来自道尔法。例如，屏幕上显示的1970年全球镁产能共计约287,000吨/年，其中约有160,000吨是从海水中提取镁而来的，占全球产能的约55%。这个领域的两大主要参与者是美国的陶氏化学公司，约为120,000吨，和挪威的挪科海德罗公司，约为40,000吨。尽管挪科海德罗公司和陶氏化学公司使用不同的工艺，但它们都是利用电解法从海水中提取镁。直到1990年代末和2000年初，它们都有利润。这是因为在1990年代，中国开始通过使用二战期间开发的鸽子法生产廉价且脏的镁，主导市场。这导致大多数其他镁行业公司倒闭。问题在于，为什么会这样？这是因为鸽子法基本上比使用道尔法从海水中生产镁更有效吗？还是有其他原因？比如，中国政府倾向于自己的制造商，推动陶氏和挪科海德罗这样的公司退出镁业务。

Let's first walk through the Dow process and then look at the pigeon process used in China. The basic steps for the Dow process were as follows. The first step was calcination. In calcination, oyster shells were dredged up from the Gulf of Mexico and heated to 1000 degrees Celsius, which created a calcium oxide powder. The second step of the process was precipitation of magnesium hydroxide, where the calcium oxide powder was mixed with seawater to create a magnesium hydroxide slurry, also known as milk of magnesium. The third step of the process was conversion, or neutralization, where the magnesium hydroxide was mixed with hydrochloric acid to create a magnesium chloride solution. The fourth step of the process was crystallization, where the magnesium chloride solution was then heated to evaporate the water, leaving magnesium chloride hydrate crystals. The fifth step of the process was electrolysis, where the magnesium chloride hydrate crystals were heated to their melting point. Combined with salts and electrolyzed to form pure magnesium metal that was cast into ingots and released chlorine gas. The sixth and final step was hydrochloric acid production, where the chlorine gas was combined with hydrogen gas and recycled back into hydrochloric acid for the conversion and neutralization step. For me, the Dow process for extracting magnesium from seawater is captivating, because it's cleaner than many other processes developed during America's industrialization, and it seems like it was so far ahead of its time. So much so that even now, it seems like a futuristic and visionary idea. Willard Dow, but at best when he said, there is an epic quality involved in taking a ladle of gleaming metal out of a curling, white-capped ocean wave, not even the old alchemists and their wildest fancies ever got that far. Willard Dow was clearly immensely proud of the process, and the advertising artwork that was commissioned to build hype around it during and after the war was epic. It was the pinnacle of American pride in industry and ingenuity, and as I've said in other videos, it's time we made a return to that, but with modern, lower cost and even cleaner technology. As a side note, in my first video of the series, there were some comments indicating that extracting magnesium from the ocean would have an impact on marine life. That might be the case in a hyper-local sense and to a small degree near the magnesium extraction plant, but overall, it underestimates the absolute vastness of the ocean. I did some back-of-the-napkin math shown on screen, and in order to change the salinity of the ocean by 6-100% percent, we would have to increase the total global production of magnesium by a thousand times and maintain that extraction rate for a thousand years. That is, until we plan on building a Dyson sphere, there's plenty of magnesium in the ocean for all potential future needs, and it won't have an impact on sea life.

让我们首先了解道尔(Dow)工艺流程，然后再看一下在中国使用的鸽子工艺。道尔工艺的基本步骤如下。第一步是焙烧。在焙烧过程中，从墨西哥湾挖掘出牡蛎壳，加热至1000摄氏度，制成一种氧化钙粉末。流程的第二步是镁水化生成，将氧化钙粉末与海水混合，形成镁水化合物浆，也称为镁水。流程的第三步是转化，或中和，将镁水化合物与盐酸混合，生成氯化镁溶液。流程的第四步是结晶，然后将氯化镁溶液加热蒸发水分，留下氯化镁水合物晶体。流程的第五步是电解，将氯化镁水合物晶体加热至熔点，与盐和电解形成纯镁金属，铸成锭块，并释放氯气。第六步和最后一步是盐酸生产，将氯气与氢气结合，再循环回转化和中和步骤中的盐酸。对我来说，从海水中提取镁的道尔工艺令人着迷，因为它比美国工业化时期开发的许多其他流程更清洁，似乎超前了很多。甚至现在，它看起来仍然像一个未来主义和有远见的想法。威拉德·道在最好的时候说过，从腾卷着白浪的海浪中取出一勺闪闪发光的金属在其中，甚至古老的炼金术士在他们最疯狂的幻想中也没有做到这一步。威拉德·道显然对该流程感到非常自豪，并且在战争期间和战后委托制作的宣传艺术品激起了人们的热情。这是美国工业和聪明才智的巅峰，正如我在其他视频中所说的，现在是时候重返那个时代，用现代、更低成本甚至更清洁的技术。另外，在这个系列的第一个视频中，有一些评论表明从海洋中提取镁可能会对海洋生物产生影响。这可能在超局部范围内，在镁提取工厂附近的一个小范围内会有影响，但总体来说，这低估了海洋的绝对广袤。我进行了一些估算，屏幕上显示了一些数据，为了使海洋盐度改变6-10%，我们需要将全球总产铣提高一千倍，并保持这种提取速率一千年。除非我们打算建造戴森球，否则海洋中有足够的镁来满足所有潜在未来的需求，并不会对海洋生物产生影响。

Now that we've covered the DOW process, let's move on to the Pigeon process that's been used to produce most of the magnesium in China from the 1990s to today. Before the production of magnesium can even begin with the Pigeon process, three precursor materials are required. The first two precursors are dolomite and coal. Dolomite is a similar mineral to limestone, but rather than just containing calcium carbonate, it also contains magnesium carbonate. China has an abundance of both dolomite and coal, and they're used raw in the Pigeon production process, so they don't require further processing and are therefore low cost. The third precursor, ferrosilicon, does require additional processing.

现在我们已经介绍了DOW工艺，让我们继续讨论鸽子工艺，这种工艺自上世纪90年代以来一直被用来生产中国大部分的镁。在使用鸽子工艺生产镁之前，需要三种原材料。前两种原材料是白云石和煤。白云石是一种类似于石灰石的矿物，但它不仅含有碳酸钙，还含有碳酸镁。中国有大量的白云石和煤，它们在鸽子生产过程中原材料使用，因此不需要进一步加工，成本较低。第三种前体原料硅铁需要额外加工。

To make ferrosilicon, quartz, iron ore, and coal are mined, transported to the smelting plant, and then combined in an arc furnace at high temperature to produce the ferrosilicon. With the precursors in place, let's look at the Pigeon process itself. The first step is calcination, where coal is again used, but this time to heat the dolomite to high temperatures to convert it from magnesium carbonate to magnesium oxide and carbon dioxide. The second step is to grind and mix the magnesium oxide with the ferrosilicon precursor, and then form the mixture into briquettes or pellets. The third step is where the magnesium metal is produced through a reduction process.

要制造硅铁，需要开采石英、铁矿石和煤炭，运送到冶炼厂，然后在高温下在电弧炉中结合，生产出硅铁。有了前体材料，让我们看看鸽子法本身。第一步是煅烧，这里再次使用煤炭，但这次是将白云石加热至高温，将其从碳酸镁转化为氧化镁和二氧化碳。第二步是将氧化镁与硅铁前体粉体研磨混合，然后将混合物制成砖块或颗粒。第三步是通过还原过程生产镁金属。

The briquettes of magnesium oxide and ferrosilicon are placed in a large metal tube called a retort, where they're heated and placed under vacuum. This causes the briquettes to release magnesium metal vapor that's cooled and condensed on the other side of the retort, where it solidifies into metal crystals. When the process is complete, the feed material that's left in the retort has turned to slag, or molten metal waste, and the magnesium crystals are stripped out of the retort by hand. Lastly, the magnesium crystals are remelted and then refined by adding some salt and skimming impurities off the top of the molten metal. Then, the molten metal is poured into molds to form the ingots.

氧化镁和硅铁的浇铸块被放置在一个称为回收炉的大型金属管中，它们在其中加热并放置在真空下。这导致浇铸块释放出镁金属蒸气，在回收炉的另一侧冷却并凝结成金属晶体。当过程完成时，留在回收炉中的原料已经变成了渣或熔融金属废料，而镁晶体则被人工从回收炉中取出。最后，镁晶体被重新熔化，然后通过添加一些盐并将熔融金属表面上的杂质撇去来进行精炼。然后，熔融金属被倒入模具中形成铸锭。

Now that we've looked at the dow process versus the pigeon process, let's do some analysis to compare the two. First, with the dow process, most of the raw materials that were needed were adjacent to the plant in the ocean. That's as opposed to the pigeon process where the raw materials have to be mined, refined, and shipped hundreds of kilometers over land to the processing plant. Second, on that note, if not done competently, mining is the most destructive and disruptive industrial process. Tens of tons of earth are moved, destroying ecosystems and often releasing toxic or aggravating compounds into the air, soil, and water.

现在我们已经看过了 dow 过程和鸽子过程，让我们进行一些分析来比较这两种方法。首先，对于 dow 过程，大部分所需的原材料都是在海洋中的工厂附近。这与鸽子过程不同，鸽子过程中原材料必须被开采、精炼，并且通过陆地运送数百公里到加工厂。其次，关于这一点，如果没有得到妥善处理，采矿是最具破坏性和破坏性的工业过程。数十吨土壤被移动，破坏生态系统，并经常释放有毒或恶化的化合物到空气、土壤和水中。

Third, for each kilogram of magnesium produced with the pigeon process, about 10 kilograms of coal is burned. So it releases large amounts of carbon dioxide, and that doesn't include the carbon dioxide that's released as a byproduct of the calcination reaction. Fourth, the pigeon process isn't a continuous chemical process. The retorts have to be filled, heated, cooled, scraped out by hand, and then the process repeated. And after a couple of hundred process cycles, the retorts have to be replaced. That's as opposed to the dow process which is mainly done with pumps and conveyor belts.

第三，使用鸽子法生产每公斤镁，需要燃烧大约10公斤煤。因此释放了大量二氧化碳，而且这还不包括钙化反应的副产品释放的二氧化碳。第四，鸽子法不是连续化学过程。反应釜必须手动填充、加热、冷却、清理，然后再重复整个过程。经过几百个周期后，反应釜必须被更换。而陶氏法主要通过泵和传送带来完成。

So for the most part, the materials are always simultaneously moving and being processed, which is typically more efficient and requires significantly less human labor. If the pigeon process is so dirty and inefficient, then why did China choose that process, and how were they able to produce magnesium so cheaply with that process to drive most everyone else out of business? First, China has an abundance of dolomide, coal, iron ore, and silicon that can be produced at low cost thanks to low cost labor, equipment, and energy. Furthermore, all of those raw materials are either directly or indirectly subsidized by China, which in turn subsidizes magnesium production. Coal plays an especially large role because it's the most heavily subsidized of the raw materials and because the pigeon process uses a lot of it.

因此，在大多数情况下，材料总是同时移动和加工的，这通常更高效，需要的人力较少。如果鸽子法工艺如此脏乱且低效，那么为什么中国选择了这种工艺，他们如何能够以如此低廉的价格生产镁，从而让大多数其他公司破产？首先，中国拥有丰富的白云石、煤、铁矿石和硅石等，这些原材料的生产成本低，得益于廉价的劳动力、设备和能源。此外，所有这些原材料都直接或间接受到中国的补贴，进而支持了镁的生产。煤炭发挥着特别重要的作用，因为它是这些原材料中得到最大补贴的，而鸽子法工艺使用了大量的煤炭。

Second, on that note, over the last few decades, China as a country was willing to accept the negative impacts of environmentally destructive processes. Just because for the Chinese Communist Party, for many years, the options were to stagnate economically and face revolt, or grow at all costs and deal with the consequences later. That is, China made deliberate environmental sacrifices with very real human costs that didn't show up in the price of magnesium. Third, despite seawater processes being fundamentally more efficient in terms of the complexity of their supply chains, energy intensity, vertical integration, and the transport of raw materials, they did contain inefficiencies.

其次，在过去的几十年里，中国作为一个国家，愿意接受环境破坏过程带来的负面影响。仅仅因为对于中国共产党来说，多年来的选择是经济停滞和面对暴动，或者不惜一切代价增长并在以后处理后果。也就是说，中国做出了有意的环境牺牲，导致了非常真实的人员伤亡，但这并未反映在镁的价格中。第三，尽管海水过程在供应链复杂性、能源密集度、垂直整合和原材料运输方面基本上更高效，但它们确实存在低效。

But for Dow and North-Cydro to address those inefficiencies and improve their competitiveness, it would have taken years of R&D and billions in investment, which, without government support or subsidies, wasn't going to happen in the face of a tidal wave of highly subsidized Chinese magnesium. The end result of the subsidies, acceptance of the environmental impacts, and the lack of innovation in the seawater processes, were that Chinese magnesium had much lower production costs than Dow and North-Cydro, making it difficult to remain profitable.

但是，要想解决这些效率低下问题并提高竞争力，对陶氏和北方赛德罗来说，需要进行多年的研发投入和数十亿美元的投资。在没有政府支持或补贴的情况下，面对大量得到高额补贴的中国镁的竞争，这是不太可能实现的。补贴的最终结果是，对环境影响的接受以及海水工艺缺乏创新，导致中国镁的生产成本远低于陶氏和北方赛德罗，使其难以维持盈利。

What all this means is that the primary reason why Western production of magnesium from Dow and North-Cydro was shuttered in the 1990s and early 2000s wasn't due to any fundamental disadvantages of using an electrolytic seawater-based process versus the pigeon process. But rather that the Chinese Communist Party had a clear agenda to build their own magnesium industry at all costs and wipe out Western competition. Meanwhile, Western governments didn't do enough to help companies like North-Cydro and Dow compete.

这一切的意思是，西方生产商道氏和北美氧化镁公司在1990年代和2000年代初关闭镁生产线的主要原因，并不是因为使用电解海水工艺与鸽子法相比具有根本性的劣势。而是因为中国共产党明确地制定了一个目标，即不惜一切代价建立他们自己的镁工业，并消灭西方的竞争。与此同时，西方政府没有为北美氧化镁公司和道氏等企业竞争提供足够的支持。

The result was that China now has a near monopoly on magnesium, producing about 87% of global output, and there's almost zero significant primary production of magnesium in all of NATO and the Western world. However, in my view, the tide is about to turn for three reasons. First, American and European companies are re-shoring their supply chains and or using China Plus 1 strategies that diversify their supply chains away from China to other countries. And that's for all the reasons you'd expect.

结果是中国现在几乎垄断了镁产业，全球产量约占87%，而北约和西方世界几乎没有任何重要的镁原产地。然而，在我看来，局势将会出现三大转变。首先，美国和欧洲企业正在重新调整供应链，或者采用“中国外加1”战略，将供应链多样化，远离中国转向其他国家。这一切都出于你所能想到的原因。

For example, the supply chain shocks created by Covid that left companies starting to prioritize supply chain security over cost and the geopolitical tension that's occurring between the US and China. Second, the changing economics within China. For example, between 2010 and 2020 wages in China more than doubled. As I said earlier, magnesium production with the pigeon process is labor intensive because, among other things, the magnesium is stripped out of the retort by hand, which has and will continue to increase the cost of magnesium production in China.

例如，由Covid引起的供应链震荡让公司开始将供应链安全置于成本之上，并且美中之间正在发生的地缘政治紧张局势。其次，中国内部经济的变化。例如，在2010年至2020年间，中国的工资翻了一番多。正如我之前所说，鸽子法生产的镁是劳动密集型的，因为镁需要手工从蒸馏器中取出，这将继续增加中国的镁生产成本。

Third, US government intervention. Besides the corporate strategies to re-shore and diversify supply chains, the US government has been taking actions to rebuild manufacturing in the US. One example of many is the Advanced Manufacturing Production Tax Credit in the Inflation Reduction Act, which provides a 10% tax credit to produce critical minerals in the US. And magnesium is on the list.

美国政府干预。除了企业重新组织和多样化供应链的策略外，美国政府一直在采取行动重建美国的制造业。其中一个例子是《通货膨胀削减法案》中的先进制造生产税收抵免，该法案为在美国生产关键矿产提供10%的税收抵免。镁是其中之一。

Hopefully, the combination of changing corporate priorities due to geopolitics, the increasing cost of production in China and the actions the US government is taking to rebuild US manufacturing will kick off a magnesium scaling and innovation boom that reinstates the US as the largest producer of magnesium in the world. If that happened, it could drive down the price of magnesium to the point where it's at parity or even cheaper than aluminum, which would mean cheaper and lighter weight vehicles.

希望由于地缘政治变化导致企业重心转移、中国生产成本上升以及美国政府采取的重建美国制造业行动，会启动镁的生产规模和创新繁荣，重新确立美国为世界上最大的镁生产国地位。如果这种情况发生了，这可能会将镁的价格降至与铝相当甚至更便宜的程度，这意味着汽车会更便宜和更轻盈。

With that in mind, let's look at Magrithia's process for producing magnesium from seawater. First, it's worth noting that Magrithia is a startup and generally I avoid covering startups. That's because I prefer to work from patents, public or private research, and or tear downs to look at exactly how a technology works. Startups, on the other hand, are often promoting a technology that's at a lower technology readiness level where you have to rely more on marketing hype. Or the technology hasn't reached large-scale manufacturing, which is often the hardest part of commercialization. That means it may not even be worth covering the technology because it hasn't had any real impact on consumers and the odds of failing are 10 to 1.

考虑到这一点，让我们来看一下Magrithia从海水中生产镁的过程。首先，值得注意的是Magrithia是一家初创公司，通常我不喜欢报道初创公司。这是因为我更喜欢从专利、公开或私人研究、或技术拆解等方面来研究技术的具体运作方式。另一方面，初创公司往往推广的是技术成熟度较低的技术，这时你更多需要依赖于营销炒作。或者技术还没有达到大规模生产阶段，通常这也是商业化最困难的部分。这意味着可能值得报道这项技术，因为它还没有对消费者产生真正的影响，而失败的可能性是10比1。

With Magrithia, I'm making an exception because they're basing their processes off of the processes used for decades by Dow Chemical and Norse Hydro. Those processes were profitable and may have continued to be profitable if it weren't for the market distortions created by Chinese magnesium. So, although Magrithia hasn't yet published information on the technical details of how they're improving the process of extracting magnesium from seawater, I don't view Magrithia as a typical pie in the sky startup. That's because they're working from an established technology base from Dow and Norse Hydro, keeping and overhauling the parts that were inefficient, but introducing new technology to the core of the process to create a step change in efficiency.

对于Magrithia，我会做个例外，因为他们的工艺是基于陶氏化学和挪威赫德洛几十年来使用的工艺。这些工艺曾经非常盈利，并且如果不是中国镁市场扭曲的影响，可能仍然盈利。因此，尽管Magrithia尚未公布改进从海水中提取镁的技术细节的信息，但我不认为Magrithia是一个典型的空想初创公司。这是因为他们是在陶氏和挪威赫德洛的成熟技术基础上开展工作，保留和整修了效率低下的部分，同时在工艺的核心引入新技术，以实现效率的突破。

Let's use the Dow process as the baseline and take a look at Magrithia's general strategy. Note that most of the information I'm about to provide came from interviews of Alex Krant. Magrithia's CEO. However, I've known Alex for years and even interviewed him, and he was able to clarify some points for this video. First, rather than using oyster shells, Magrithia intends to use electrochemical techniques to extract the magnesium more directly from the seawater. That would mean they wouldn't have to dredge up tons of oyster shells, heat them, and then add them to seawater to precipitate out the magnesium. If that's the case, it would mean the first two steps, calcination and precipitation could become one electrochemical extraction step. Second, Magrithia claims their core technology innovation is a new approach for the processing of the magnesium salt before it gets electrolyzed into metal. I'm assuming what they're referring to here is the conversion and crystallization steps, but they haven't yet given any hints as to what that core technology innovation is. I'm guessing that whatever that innovation is, that it'll reduce the amount of hydrochloric acid used compared to the dow process. Third, at the molten electrolysis stage, the dow process required a lot of labor to keep the equipment clean. Magrithia's process is much less labor-intensive, and they've also found ways to make the electrolytic cells last longer than the electrolytic cells used by dow.

让我们以道氏法作为基准，看一下Magrithia的一般策略。请注意，我即将提供的大部分信息来自Magrithia的首席执行官Alex Krant的采访。然而，我认识Alex已经多年，甚至曾对他进行过采访，并且他能为这个视频澄清一些问题。 首先，Magrithia打算使用电化学技术直接从海水中提取镁，而不是使用牡蛎壳。这意味着他们不需要挖掘大量牡蛎壳，加热它们，然后将它们添加到海水中以沉淀出镁。如果是这样的话，那么第一和第二步，即煅烧和沉淀，可能会成为一个电化学提取步骤。 其次，Magrithia声称他们的核心技术创新是在将镁盐电解成金属之前处理镁盐的一种新方法。我认为他们指的是转化和结晶步骤，但他们还没有透露出这种核心技术创新是什么。我猜想，无论那项创新是什么，它都会减少与道氏法相比使用的盐酸量。 第三，在熔融电解阶段，道氏法需要大量的人工劳动来保持设备清洁。Magrithia的工艺要求的劳动强度要低得多，他们还找到了一些方法让电解槽比道氏法使用的电解槽更持久。

Fourth, also at the molten electrolysis stage, Magrithia has found ways to reduce total energy usage. For example, their molten electrolysis process has about 100 degrees Celsius of headroom, which means there's 100 degree temperature range where they can produce magnesium. That in turn means they can adjust the temperature and speed of the process when electricity rates are higher or lower to make it more cost-efficient. Fifth, molten electrolysis is energy intensive. Magrithia can reduce their electricity costs and the CO2 emissions of their magnesium by investing in their own solar and wind farms and grid-scale battery storage solutions. Those power sources are now some of the cheapest options on the market, and by the time Magrithia starts building full-scale magnesium plants, those renewable energy options will be even cheaper. So where does Magrithia currently stand and what are their production plants? As with the process information, there isn't detailed information available publicly at this point, because Magrithia is still privately held.

第四，同样在熔融电解阶段，玛格瑞萨找到了减少总能源使用的方法。例如，他们的熔融电解过程有大约100摄氏度的余地，这意味着有100度的温度范围可以制造镁。这反过来意味着他们可以调整过程的温度和速度，以使其在电价较高或较低时更具成本效益。第五，熔融电解是耗能的。玛格瑞萨可以通过投资自己的太阳能和风电场以及电网规模的电池存储解决方案来降低其电费和镁的二氧化碳排放量。这些电源现在是市场上最便宜的选项之一，而当玛格瑞萨开始建造全尺寸镁厂时，这些可再生能源选项也将变得更加便宜。那么玛格瑞萨目前处于什么地位，他们的生产工厂在哪里？与流程信息一样，目前还没有公开可用的详细信息，因为玛格瑞萨仍然是私人持有的。

But what I do know is that Magrithia is currently setting up a low-volume pilot in California, which is nearly complete, and their long-term goal in the next 5 to 10 years is to become one of the largest producers of magnesium in the world. In my view, that means progressing from a low-volume pilot plant to a demonstration-scale plant in the next few years, then to a full-scale commercial plant by the end of the decade. However, that's just a guess on my part, and I'm looking forward to more information in the years to come. For example, if they go public and or publish patents, then I can provide more in-depth information and analysis. In summary, for several decades, seawater was the primary source for global magnesium production. Looking back, Dow chemicals massive plant in the Gulf of Mexico was ahead of its time, and a gem of American ingenuity. It produced huge amounts of relatively clean magnesium from raw materials that were available in abundance on-site, and it didn't require any mining. The only reason why magnesium production from seawater by Dow and North's Hydro shut down was because the Chinese Communist Party heavily subsidized their own domestic magnesium production from the early 1990s onwards. Those Chinese producers dumped their low-cost magnesium on western markets, which soon put Dow and North's Hydro out of business.

但我知道的是Magrithia目前正在加利福尼亚建立一个低产量试点，这个项目几乎已经完成，他们在未来5到10年的长期目标是成为世界上最大的镁生产商之一。在我看来，这意味着在未来几年内从一个低产量试点工厂发展到一个示范规模工厂，然后在本十年末发展到一个全面商业化规模的工厂。然而，这只是我的猜测，我期待着未来几年里有更多的信息。例如，如果他们上市或者公开专利，那么我可以提供更深入的信息和分析。总的来说，几十年来，海水一直是全球镁生产的主要来源。回顾过去，附近墨西哥湾的陶氏化学巨大工厂是超前的，是美国创造力的瑰宝。它从现场丰富的原材料中生产了大量相对干净的镁，而且完全没有需要采矿。从海水中生产镁的陶氏和诺斯特水公司关闭的唯一原因是，从上世纪90年代初起，中国共产党大力资助了他们自己国内的镁生产。这些中国生产商将低成本的镁产品倾销到西方市场，很快就使陶氏和诺斯特水破产。

Now, the tide is turning. Outside of China, the world is shifting away from the global perspective of the last few decades that emphasized offshoring to reduce costs to a stance that emphasizes supply chain security, trade with allies, and strong industrial policies. Furthermore, inside of China, among other factors, the cost of producing magnesium is increasing because the pigeon process is labor-intensive, and wages are rising. Those global and local factors mean that we may see a revival of magnesium production in America and Europe. Magrathia is in an excellent position to lead that revival by resurrecting and improving upon the electrolytic processes used by Dow and North's Hydro. If they're successful, they should be able to dramatically reduce the cost of production for magnesium to add or below the cost of aluminum. If that happens, magnesium will begin to displace aluminum as the primary structural metal for lightweight applications, which is a vast opportunity.

现在，潮水正在转变。在中国以外，世界正在从过去几十年强调海外外包以降低成本的全球视角转向强调供应链安全、与盟友贸易和强有力的工业政策的立场。此外，在中国国内，除其他因素外，由于镁生产的成本正在增加，因为鸽子法过程需要大量劳动力，而工资正在上涨。这些全球和本地因素意味着我们可能会看到镁在美国和欧洲的产量复苏。麦加利亚处于领导这一复苏的绝佳位置，通过复兴和改进多和诺北冶的电解过程。如果他们成功，他们应该能够大幅降低镁的生产成本，使其增加到或低于铝的成本。如果发生这种情况，镁将开始取代铝成为轻量应用的主要结构金属，这是一个巨大的机遇。

As a final note for the icing on the cake, Magrathia plans to make their magnesium the first structural metal that's inherently carbon neutral. The Dow process was a relatively clean process, but by simplifying that process and shifting to renewable energy, Magrathia could give us the sci-fi ideal of clean, cheap, and abundant lightweight structural metal.

作为锦上添花的最后一点，玛格瑞西亚计划将他们的镁金属打造成第一种天然碳中和的结构金属。道尔过程是相对清洁的过程，但通过简化该过程并转向可再生能源，玛格瑞西亚能够为我们带来科幻理想中的清洁、廉价和丰富的轻型结构金属。

If you enjoyed this video, please consider supporting the channel by using the links in the description. Also, consider following me on X. I often use X as a testbed for sharing ideas, and X subscribers like my Patreon supporters generally get access to my videos a week early.

如果你喜欢这个视频，请考虑通过描述中的链接支持该频道。另外，请考虑关注我在X上的账号。我经常在X上尝试分享想法，而X的订阅者例如我的Patreon支持者通常可以提前一周查看我的视频。

On that note, a special thanks to my YouTube members, X subscribers, and all the other patrons listed in the credits. I appreciate all of your support, and thanks for tuning in.

在此，特别感谢我的YouTube会员、X位订阅者以及所有在片尾名单中列出的赞助者。我感激大家的支持，谢谢你们的关注。