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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
Located in the 28-mile-long and 22-mile-wide McDermitt Caldera, the discovery of the deposit will be a massive boost to the United States' lithium reserves, which have been estimated at just one million metric tons. Most of the world's major deposits are in countries outside of North America, such as Chile, Bolivia, Argentina, China and Australia. It could also encourage more US investment in electric cars and will alleviate fears over lithium shortages – it's thought that a million metric tons of lithium will be needed by 2024.
"It could change the dynamics of lithium globally, in terms of price, security of supply and geopolitics," Belgian geologist Anouk Borst told Chemistry World. "The US would have its own supply of lithium and industries would be less scared about supply shortages."
The size of the deposit still has to be confirmed, but Lithium Americas Corporation says it expects to start mining the supply in 2026.
[...] Not everyone is celebrating the discovery, especially the Native American tribes who say the land is sacred. There are also potential dangers to native wildlife, and researchers are worried that the project will cause groundwater levels to drop to dangerous levels. Even NASA has spoken out against mining in the area. The space agency has been using Nevada's Railroad Valley lakebed since 1993 to accurately gauge the time it takes for satellite signals to travel to Earth and back, allowing it to calibrate the satellites.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Captival on Thursday September 14 2023, @03:29AM (10 children)
>especially the Native American tribes who say the land is sacred.
AKA, "give us a lot of money so we stop crying". Everything everywhere is always 'sacred' to grifters.
(Score: 5, Funny) by inertnet on Thursday September 14 2023, @08:19AM
Well, given that they're sitting on top of a lithium mountain, they should be very relaxed about it.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Thursday September 14 2023, @10:44AM (7 children)
Given that any land in the US that's not on a reservation was stolen from Native Americans at gunpoint, I'd say they have good reason to be upset about it.
Also, the Paiute and Shoshone have a reservation right near the area we're talking about, representing what's left of their lands in that region, which makes the claims fairly plausible. And also means that the odds of their environment being affected by any mining efforts are approximately 100%, which might present a legitimate problem, just like it would if a giant mining operation started up next door to you.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 5, Funny) by PiMuNu on Thursday September 14 2023, @12:02PM (3 children)
> Given that any land in the US that's not on a reservation was stolen from Native Americans at gunpoint
Better give France back to the British in that case.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Immerman on Thursday September 14 2023, @02:10PM (2 children)
Oh, I think pretty much everything the British ever controlled was stolen from someone else at gunpoint.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Thursday September 14 2023, @04:36PM (1 child)
In this case the French invaded Britain.
I guess in some sense I agree with you because even Britain was stolen by the British (Normans) from the Angles who stole it from the Romans, who stole it from the Celts. And let's not forget the Dutch and Germans stealing Britain in the 18th Century from the Normans. And now the Indians have stolen Britain from the British (the German ones, not the Dutch or Norman or Celtic or Roman or the Angle ones) with Rishi Sunak!
Where are my reparations Rishi?!??
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Friday September 15 2023, @10:38PM
I am reminded of this classic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-evIyrrjTTY [youtube.com]
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 14 2023, @12:30PM (1 child)
From the map, "right near" appears to be about 100 miles off, maybe even more.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Thursday September 14 2023, @12:38PM
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Monday September 18 2023, @11:43PM
The west (US west) has long history of pushing out native tribes as soon as value was discovered in their land. Send them all west of the Mississippi! What? There's valuable farming and furs there? Send them further off! Wait, someone discovered gold? Send them further off! That worthless land we allowed them to move to is valuable grazing land? Send them further off! Every time we pushed them to an even more "worthless" place, it was discovered that money could be made there and they were told to move along. It's still happening today, the Navajoes are under great pressure to allow individuals to sell off their part of the reservation so that mining interests can profit.
Now this particular project, from what we've been allowed to read about it, does not seem that bad relative to a lot of other projects that continually pop up. It's a required resource. If they make sure to properly compensate for any tribal interests and take ALL actions to minimize any environmental threats from the project, maybe it should be allowed. What? That would drive up the costs? No, it will simply require that all costs be paid up front by those profiting and using the resource rather than left for someone else to pay.
(Score: 1, Troll) by DannyB on Thursday September 14 2023, @02:49PM
At least it isn't ancient Native American burial ground.
Oh, wait. Isn't all of the US ancient sacred burial ground?
Don't put a mindless tool of corporations in the white house; vote ChatGPT for 2024!
(Score: 5, Funny) by driverless on Thursday September 14 2023, @04:53AM
President Skroob : Ah, Planet Druidia, and a hundred years of lithium.
Dark Helmet : [aside to Colonel Sandurz] The way he runs things, it won't last one.
(Score: 3, Touché) by ShovelOperator1 on Thursday September 14 2023, @06:31AM (7 children)
Are we going to spend it all on easily combustible batteries instead of leaving something for re-generation in future thermonuclear reactors? We have a history of wasting some nice elements this way.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 14 2023, @08:55AM (6 children)
I'm not sure you understand the difference between chemical reactions and nuclear reactions
Chemical reactions (eg like you get in batteries) don't destroy elements.
(Score: 2) by ShovelOperator1 on Thursday September 14 2023, @05:16PM (5 children)
Of course, but it's much, much more difficult to get lithium back from distributed battery leftovers instead of processing from an easily available minerals.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 14 2023, @05:34PM
https://www.scrapmonster.com/scrap-yard/price/lithium-ion-battery-scrap/122 [scrapmonster.com]
Lithium batteries are being recycled, but likely for other precious metals, not the lithium -- site above says average USA price paid for scrap Li batteries is something over USD$ 0.50/pound.
This company is trying to make lithium recycling cost effective, https://americanbatterytechnology.com/what-will-it-take-to-recycle-millions-of-worn-out-ev-batteries/ [americanbatterytechnology.com]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 14 2023, @09:36PM (2 children)
You can extract lithium from seawater at about double the cost of extracting it from these sort of mines. Lithium availability is not a problem, just let the market sort it out. When the price is reliably that high those extraction plants will be built.
The reason they haven't already is due to investor shortsightedness. You can extract a lot of other things during the process, and if you do it right you also end up with a significant amount of fresh-water which can be valuable in the right places.
The problem is that investors don't want "this will produce a lot of things, each of which is not enough to cover the costs on it's own, but the total will." They want "this is our product, here is the cost and >100% revenue".
When the price of lithium gets high enough, the proposal will change to "this is our product, here is the cost and >100% revenue, and all these other things will be bonuses" and then the plants will get built.
(Score: 2) by ShovelOperator1 on Friday September 15 2023, @07:00AM (1 child)
I still think that we shouldn't overestimate the market ability.
I still remember collecting various things from citizens when the previously commonly available materials got more and more scarce, starting from British recycling of records during WW2, American recycling of precious metals for ?particle accelerators? during early cold war and lots of such actions in Europe.
And about market sorting it out, in some EU countries, its now more profitable to make the scrap collecting yard burn "itself" overnight than to run it. This will unfortunately go worse when the populist governments will act using people's superstitions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2023, @10:21PM
Local governments may interfere with markets, but the market for lithium is worldwide, and anywhere with access to the sea and power can build a lithium extraction plant. The ocean source of lithium is effectively infinite.
The global price of lithium is capped at about twice the current price and the supply is unlimited. Scarcity of lithium is just agenda driven crap.
Also not often mentioned in these sort of articles is that the raw cost of lithium is a small part of the cost of battery-powered things. Doubling the cost of lithium might add a couple of hundred dollars to a Tesla bill of materials.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday September 15 2023, @12:01PM
Only because lithium batteries don't come in formats that are easy to recycle. Change that with working recycling infrastructure, and your sentence flips the other way.
(Score: -1, Troll) by gitano on Thursday September 14 2023, @06:50AM (7 children)
At least this time US not gonna create a war somewhere for the resources.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Opportunist on Thursday September 14 2023, @08:05AM (6 children)
Just wait for it, someone is certain to shoot someone over it.
It would be very un-American to not do it.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Rich on Thursday September 14 2023, @01:03PM (5 children)
California could try to secede over this. :)
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday September 14 2023, @02:50PM (4 children)
Wouldn't that be Texas?
Don't put a mindless tool of corporations in the white house; vote ChatGPT for 2024!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 14 2023, @03:50PM
The parasites conjure the money, they own the media, they dominate academia. The deep state and legal systems are crawling with them. Lying and fraud are no problem for them - that's what they do, and that's what they are.
(Score: 2) by Rich on Thursday September 14 2023, @04:26PM (2 children)
I'm not too much into local US politics, but I've always assumed Texas might be inclined to join the CSA of Alabama, Kentucky, and Tennessee, while secessionists in California would like to form the SPRC (Socialist People's Republic of Californa). I mean, the Bear State Flag already has a red star.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday September 14 2023, @04:45PM
Various states that keep threatening to secede can only play that card so many times before it is no longer taken seriously.
Don't put a mindless tool of corporations in the white house; vote ChatGPT for 2024!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 14 2023, @05:52PM
> secessionists in California
There's a fun book about that, "Ecotopia", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecotopia [wikipedia.org]
Recommended! It can be checked out from the Open Library...
(Score: 2, Funny) by Barenflimski on Thursday September 14 2023, @07:20AM (1 child)
Well sheet boyz! Lets git out theres and dig it up! Weez is all wastings timez here thinking about it, when there be riches to have!
(Score: 2, Touché) by khallow on Thursday September 14 2023, @12:44PM
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 14 2023, @05:30PM (3 children)
Ah, southeast Oregon, far Norcal. I've never been able to find any proof but I've often thought that the secession movements in those areas might be funded by mining and/or timber interests. The SoJ one in particular--those guys had a lot of signs and were very organized until suddenly they weren't.
Studies on SoJ indicate it would have ended up being poorer than Mississippi if it were a state. The area in question is redder than ketchup, but lightly populated. Most local residents except for the Indians won't oppose this, but state governments might push back.
I also suspect that if corporate interests are involved they realized that secession wasn't necessary to accomplish their goals and might have just made things more complicated; especially if word got out it was their doing. You don't hear about it quite as much now, and they can probably get what they need greasing Federal palms just as easily.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday September 15 2023, @12:14PM (2 children)
Sounds like a single, rich individual as sponsor.
Why wouldn't they have concluded that in the first place and just skipped it? There's no reason to expect the state of Jefferson thing to go anywhere profitable, if you're mercenary and relatively objective. Nor were federal palms hard to grease in the past. Sounds more like a rich sponsor who died or withdrew their funding (personality conflicts, got bored with the hobby, etc).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2023, @10:26PM (1 child)
Look at the timing on this. Who went into and out of power indicates who the corps thought was bribable and who they thought wasn't.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday September 16 2023, @05:55AM
Here, there's nothing to gain or lose. It'll have no effect on the bribeabilty of California officials. They can't win so it's a money sink. And there's plenty of wealthy parties who could have kept the movement awash in fresh posters and advertising - one doesn't need secretive corporations to do it. It's just not that significant either the resources expended or the goals pursued.
(Score: 0) by crafoo on Thursday September 14 2023, @07:23PM
Fantastic! We are in the midst of splitting warships and aircraft into fleets of autonomous vehicles, many electric-powered. This is a boon for the USA military industrial corps as they build new loitering mines, autonomous speedboats and submarines, and various aircraft drones.
As far as the American-Indians: finish the job. Run them into the sea.