Tesla Lithium Refining Process;
Inputs:
Soda Ash - Na2CO3
Lime - CaO
Spodumene - Lithium - Aluminium Silicates.
Water - H2O
Outputs -
Lithium Hydroxide - LiOH
Limestone - CaCO2 + Silicon - Si (Any residual aluminium also ends up in the mix)
The initial process is a Soda Ash leech - literally Soda Ash and water are added to the spodumene.
Sodium displaces some of the the lithium, and during this during this process, lime is turned into limestone.
We can see why the large water ponds are on the Corpus Christi site, water is needed to this initial step and perhaps some of the later steps.
After the leech the waste mix of sand and limestone exists, and the useful product for the next stage is a mixture of sodium hydroxide and lithium hydroxide in water.?
I originally added chlorine to the process here, but that was a mistake... there is no chlorine listed in the input ingredients The intermediate salts must be sodium hydroxide and lithium hydroxide?
The lithium clay extraction process consumes some sodium from the salt and the output is a mixture of sodium chloride and lithium chloride dissolved in water.
In a dry environment like Nevada it is important the capture the water for later reuse, so the salt mixture is probably dried out to just produce the mixed salts as an output product.
These mixed salts can be shipped to Corpus Christi for further refinement, if the salts need to be dissolved in water for further processing, that can be done at Corpus Christi.
Somehow the chlorine needs to be extracted from this chlorine salts produced by the clay process, I was initially wrong here, ,due to my incorrect assumption on chlorine being present in the spodumene process.
... but Rawlinson should be nervous). I'm thinking about the guy who allegedly committed fraud before he permanently scuttled Nissan? That guy! He'd be perfect! 
