Im a Canadian geologist so I obviously dont have any personal stake in this but I do want to share my thoughts.
I think anti-mining sentiment is understandable in most places but not always justifiable. Lithium mining is absolutely required to transition from fossil fuels. Unless the number of cars on the road is greatly reduced, replacing them with BEVs will require significant amounts of lithium or improvements to Na ion batteries. There is not enough lithium available to get by just on recycling.
The question then becomes: where should this lithium come from? If it is not mined in western countries like USA or Canada, it will be mined by China or developing countries. In this comparison, who has better environmental regulations? Which countries have more human rights abuse?
If we decide that we can mine these deposits in the west, there is still a question about where they are mined. Do we extract lithium from basinal brines? My understanding is that these are generally more environmentally risky than extraction from pegmatites (the deposit type in New England).
The final question becomes, which communities will have to accept this mining? In Canada, most of the time it is indigenous communities that suffer most of the negative impacts of mining. There are many benefits to the communities too (usually), but the indigenous communities do not have nearly as much political sway as say rich cottage owners might, so their preferences and desires often get steamrolled by government in the name of “progress”.
The unfortunate reality is that if we want to get rid of fossil fuels, we need to do a lot more mining and extraction or come up with some serious technological and societal innovation. In a globalized economy, saying that you dont want mining near your home means that you want some other people to deal with the potentially negative consequences of it. I am not saying that we need to allow all mining everywhere, but these are important ethical considerations that we have to make when talking about how we want society to progress.
Sorry for the rant.
This is a beautiful description of why the obvious move here is “fewer cars, way better public transit.”
Hard agree from me. Cars are such an inefficient use of resources its crazy. If I had it my way we would all get around by train, tram, or bike.
Sorry for the rant.
Nuanced point is not a rant!
Mining has always been allowed on national forest land, but it was heavily regulated and overseen. They recently changed the rules so that no permission is needed for mining operations on less than 5 acres. This will be an ecological disaster
Yep, they are going to strip mine the Appalachians. And the sad thing is that the people in the Appalachians are going to welcome this. Because it means jobs in their minds.
What exactly is 328 years of anything? Are they saying we consume X tons, and we have found 328×X tons? Or is there some sort of future consumption estimations or trend lines accounted for? Is this all functionally available, or can we only access 20 years worth of it economically and banking on future extraction improvements? With thay large of a supply I would expect economic viability of further extraction would diminish over time.
My interpretation of the image is, “we consume x per year, we estimate there is 328x in the Appalachian area.”
Most of those states are reliably blue, too, so for the current administration it’s an added bonus
I was referring to the picture used in the op
for anyone who doesn’t know what this is. the dark red is the Appalachian Bio-Region. the light red is the Appalachian Regional Commission’s mandated jurisdictional scope. the ARC is a federal-state joint partnership established in 1960 with the mandate to develop the appalachian region economically as part of America’s War on Poverty. HOWEVER, from the outset there were flaws with the commission’s outlook and approach to the region. namely, they sought to address poverty by setting up even more extractive economies in the region rather than de-esclating the institutional violence enacted against an internal colony. in the time since the foundation of the ARC, the disparity of economic incomes within and without the region has only increased.
there’s a littany of reasons for this, but core to all of them is that politicians look at a map and see economic wealth instead of people. no respect is given our needs or experiences by the oligarchs who control these so called united states of america. they think they can decide for us our futuoe, and because they have an economic and militaristic monopoly on violence, they roughly can. lumber has grven way to bituminous coal has given way to anthracite coal has given way to natural gas has given way to uranium and is now currently giving way to AI data centers and soon apparently lithium mines.
these are sad and frustrating times
Well, the Appalachia cryptids are going to be feasting it seems…
This was my first thought. Big Cryptid© is funding this to consume workers.
Aren’t Appalachians poisoned enough?
Does Trump own a golf course in the Appalachians?
Probably. Maybe more than one. It’s a massive mountain range stretching most of the East Coast, from Georgia to Maine.
Just like always USA fighting yesterday war. Lithium is already on the way out.
I would be extremely disappointed in the species if we’re still using lithium batteries in 328 years time. Not that I actually believe that estimate.
And China is moving from lithium to sodium
More options for batteries is always good. Doesn’t negate the demand for more storage in general.
It’s better than that even, switching to sodium for grid scale storage means more available lithium and cobalt for instances where battery size and weight actually matter. And could even lower prices on lithium
I have a running joke I tell my friends that one day, the rich will flatten mountains, so the only way to see their natural wonder will be in VR. That’s when they will become mainstream. Not because they offer some new technological advancement, but because they’ve managed to capture the spaces we use to get away.
There’s a video clip of a song in French with a similar concept from 2003. A child is frolicking and playing in nature until we discover that it’s all synthetic, her time is up, and other children are lining up for their time in “nature” too. Mickey 3D - Respire on YouTube.
From a description of the song on Wikipedia:
The text of the song addresses a “kid” to alert him about the state of the world that adults will leave to him. The first part of the song deals with the story of humans’ arrival on Earth and their disturbance of the whole balance of nature. The second part imagines the future of people if they continue to do so (referring to the disappearance of natural resources, animals and even genetic modification because of pollution) and how the “kid” will try to explain to his grandchildren why he did nothing to prevent it. The third part speaks about the state of slavery, misery, and shame of the human species as well as the unpredictability of its future.
They already take the tops off mountains in Appalachia because it’s more efficient to just straight up delete a mountain to get coal than to dig into it for it
this style of mining also requires fewer operators than a deep mine. it has had deeply devestating consequences to me and my neighbors
Well here in america we already have flattened mountains. And also maybe bombed our own citizens who felt some sorta way about it.
Wild, but this is already happening - Tuvalu is being “preserved” in vr as it’s going to be one of the first island nations wiped out by climate change.
Original information source, not the tweet: https://www.usgs.gov/news/national-news-release/lithium-eastern-states-could-replace-imports-a-century-or-more
There is a very important sentence all the way at the end:
The USGS did not assess what amount would be economically recoverable.
By the time any of these mines or refineries come online, lithium ion batteries will be being replaced by sodium ion for the larger EV and storage batteries. Besides that, America hardly manufactures phones or laptops.
Well, they could always rely on their good friend and partner China to never gate keep the minerals they possess 🤔…oh wait.
It’s also why the Department of Energy department EERE (Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy) was just renamed to CMEI (Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation)
At the same time the DoE lab NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory) was renamed to NLR (National Lab of the Rockies)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Energy_Efficiency_and_Renewable_Energy
National Lab of the Rockets…? An acronym that sounds like it was made by a grade schooler. Which checks out, if we’re being honest.
Rockies. As in the Rocky Mountains.
Still stupid.
Surely it’s more economical to just recycle batteries
Ridiculous, we need to dig up Appalachia to make 500 billion cellphones
the war against the land must continue until all our stories of resistance are forgotten
Yes, but how will that completely fuck up the countryside? Destruction for quick profit is the key part!!!
Also you need a jobs program for people who insist on living in mountains, refuse to leave or consolidate, and get mad at the idea of government handouts.
I’m sympathetic to Appalachians, most of the women I’ve dated have been Appalachian actually. There’s a lot to love about their culture and history. But as a political block they can be really frustrating as the region is just really inefficient for anything but mining, tourism, and subsistence farming, and the mining is killing them and everyone else.
Require the ability that anything with a battery has the ability to have it removed for recycling. And force ban on single use batteries from vapes and like products that are frequently difficult in design to not be recycled.
We do an amazing job with lead acid batteries. You don’t even have to throw them in the ocean anymore because you get money back.
I think the batteries in everyone’s car are basically ore for the next generation.
I think this is where we’ll start to see some innovation, large pita batteries supplimenting the crumbling infrastructure that people trade out every few years.
With the deregulation of wireless Internet, wired Internet is basically a liability now. I know that where I’m located the electric grid hasn’t been updated in years, the pipes are rotting out around us as well.
Just make a vape deposit system. And resell the batteries back to the vape manufacturers. They are good for hundreds of charges.
Vapes shouldn’t be disposable in the first place.
Would probably also be expensive to validate that the used batteries are still safe.
They’d just crush them up for the precious metals.
I do think about disposable vapes with 20w USB c charging and three inch LCDs.
Like those components are so cheap or old that they’re basically free. People are just throwing these bells and whistles on like we use packaging cause why not
