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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: 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.