US Pulls Authorization for Lithium Exploration Project in Southern Nevada, Citing Wildlife (apnews.com) 145
Tuesday North America's largest lithium mining operation cleared its last legal hurdle in federal appeals court, giving a green light to the mining of 6,000 acres in an 18,000-acre project site near Nevada's northern border.
But meanwhile, in Southern Nevada... Federal land managers have formally withdrawn their authorization of a Canadian mining company's lithium exploration project bordering a national wildlife refuge in southern Nevada after conservationists sought a court order to block it.
The Center for Biological Diversity and the Amargosa Conservancy said in a lawsuit filed July 7 that the project on the edge of the Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge outside Las Vegas posed an illegal risk to a dozen fish, snail and plant species currently protected under the Endangered Species Act. They filed an additional motion this week in federal court seeking a temporary injunction prohibiting Rover Metals from initiating the drilling of 30 bore sites in search of the highly sought-after metal used to manufacture batteries for electric vehicles.
But before a judge in Las Vegas could rule on the request, the Bureau of Land Management notified Rover Metals on Wednesday that its earlier acceptance of the company's notice of its intent to proceed "was in error... The agency has concluded that proposed operations are likely to result in disturbance to localized groundwaters that supply the connected surface waters associated with Threatened and Endangered species in local springs," said Angelita Bulletts, district manager of the bureau's southern Nevada district...
Conservationists said the reversal provides at least a temporary reprieve for the lush oasis in the Mojave Desert that is home to 25 species of fish, plants, insects and snails that are found nowhere else on Earth — one of the highest concentrations of endemic species in North America at one of the hottest, driest places on the planet.
The article ends with this quote from a director at the Center for Biological Diversity and the Amargosa Conservancy. "We need lithium for our renewable energy transition, but this episode sends a message loud and clear that some places are just too special to drill."
But meanwhile, in Southern Nevada... Federal land managers have formally withdrawn their authorization of a Canadian mining company's lithium exploration project bordering a national wildlife refuge in southern Nevada after conservationists sought a court order to block it.
The Center for Biological Diversity and the Amargosa Conservancy said in a lawsuit filed July 7 that the project on the edge of the Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge outside Las Vegas posed an illegal risk to a dozen fish, snail and plant species currently protected under the Endangered Species Act. They filed an additional motion this week in federal court seeking a temporary injunction prohibiting Rover Metals from initiating the drilling of 30 bore sites in search of the highly sought-after metal used to manufacture batteries for electric vehicles.
But before a judge in Las Vegas could rule on the request, the Bureau of Land Management notified Rover Metals on Wednesday that its earlier acceptance of the company's notice of its intent to proceed "was in error... The agency has concluded that proposed operations are likely to result in disturbance to localized groundwaters that supply the connected surface waters associated with Threatened and Endangered species in local springs," said Angelita Bulletts, district manager of the bureau's southern Nevada district...
Conservationists said the reversal provides at least a temporary reprieve for the lush oasis in the Mojave Desert that is home to 25 species of fish, plants, insects and snails that are found nowhere else on Earth — one of the highest concentrations of endemic species in North America at one of the hottest, driest places on the planet.
The article ends with this quote from a director at the Center for Biological Diversity and the Amargosa Conservancy. "We need lithium for our renewable energy transition, but this episode sends a message loud and clear that some places are just too special to drill."
Love those environmentalists... (Score:3, Insightful)
Ah, environmentalists. Ya gotta love 'em. They are blocking even exploration for possible lithium extraction, for a site that is not even part of the wildlife refuge.
"We want EVs, stop burning fossil fuels!" Ok, we need lithium, here's a mine. "No! Not like that!"
It's the same every time. "We want green power!". Ok, here's a spot for a wind farm, or here's a spot for hydroelectric, or whatever... "No! Not like that!"
The greenies apparently think that EVs magically grow on trees and electricity magically appears at the plug. Then their leadership flies in private jets to climate conferences [bbc.com]. Even the low-level leadership is full of hypocrites: Here, in Switzerland, the leader of the group that glues themselves to streets recently flew to Mexico for vacation [9gag.com], and also turns out to be a fan of Formula 1 racing.
“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” --George Carlin
Re:Love those environmentalists... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ordinarily I would be inclined to agree with you, but in this particular instance, the area is actually very unique, is a green oasis in the desert that literally has many species that exist nowhere else on the planet, and since there is already a suitable place in the northern area of the same state, it seems reasonable to block this.
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Wow, "one place" was approved, I guess that means that everyone's needs are now forever met. *eyeroll*
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If you don't understand that we need vastly more than one mine (of essentially every mass-market commodity), I don't know how to help you.
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If you don't understand that we need vastly more than one mine (of essentially every mass-market commodity), I don't know how to help you.
If you don't understand that a single denied approval still allows for multiple other approvals, I don't know how to help you.
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https://www.mainepublic.org/2021-10-25/a-1-5-billion-lithium-deposit-has-been-discovered-in-western-maine-but-mining-it-could-be-hard [mainepublic.org]
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/30/business/economy/electric-cars-us-nickel-mine.html [nytimes.com]
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Unfortunately, one denial also allows for multiple other denials.
Does it?
And pushback on attempts to gain approval on anything related seems to be the trend:
https://www.mainepublic.org/2021-10-25/a-1-5-billion-lithium-deposit-has-been-discovered-in-western-maine-but-mining-it-could-be-hard [mainepublic.org]
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/30/business/economy/electric-cars-us-nickel-mine.html [nytimes.com]
It may be true that some environmental regs (including the Maine ones) are too strict.
It's also true that extraction has side effects, and if given the choice you want to pursue extraction projects that have a lower environmental impact.
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If you don't understand that we need vastly more than one mine (of essentially every mass-market commodity), I don't know how to help you.
You don't seem to understand what the word "one" means (or at least you claim to understand it only for one side of the argument) and how incredibly stupid your argument looks.
Re:Love those environmentalists... (Score:5, Informative)
"Tuesday North America's largest lithium mining operation cleared its last legal hurdle in federal appeals court, giving a green light to the mining of 6,000 acres in an 18,000-acre project site near Nevada's northern border."
"Federal land managers have formally withdrawn their authorization of a Canadian mining company's lithium exploration project bordering a national wildlife refuge in southern Nevada"
If you'd bothered to actually read the summary, you would have seen that your environmentalist bogymen okayed a huge lithium mining operation in the same state. The difference is that it it's not right next to an environmental reserve and won't kill off a bunch of unique species.
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"Tuesday North America's largest lithium mining operation cleared its last legal hurdle in federal appeals court, giving a green light to the mining of 6,000 acres in an 18,000-acre project site near Nevada's northern border."
"Federal land managers have formally withdrawn their authorization of a Canadian mining company's lithium exploration project bordering a national wildlife refuge in southern Nevada"
If you'd bothered to actually read the summary, you would have seen that your environmentalist bogymen okayed a huge lithium mining operation in the same state. The difference is that it it's not right next to an environmental reserve and won't kill off a bunch of unique species.
The same people who jump to the standard positions of them damn environmentalists! and heaping derision on the "woke" - which now means anyone they disagree with - are simply using memes that allow them to have the simple standard enemy they need, so they don't need to think, just regurgitate pap.
There is a whole lot more than just tree huggers or whoever their hate target du jour their simple minds can grasp.
There is the strategic reserve issue. You don't go using all of your goodies up just because
Re:Love those environmentalists... (Score:5, Interesting)
"We want EVs, stop burning fossil fuels!" Ok, we need lithium, here's a mine. "No! Not like that!"
It's the same every time. "We want green power!". Ok, here's a spot for a wind farm, or here's a spot for hydroelectric, or whatever... "No! Not like that!"
The environmentalist solution isn't EVs, it's public transport. EVs is the "status quo" solution.
Wind farms are mainly opposed by people that are mad that they ruin their views, e.g. Trump, not environmentalists. There's hardly any unexploited hydroelectric locations and the dams do wreck the local environment so you can't just dismiss that.
COP attendees aren't really "greenies" unless you think Sunak or bin Salman count:
The leaders of some of historyâ(TM)s largest polluters are slated to speak, including the president of the European Union, Ursula Von der Leyen, and Britainâ(TM)s prime minister, Rishi Sunak. Both have ambitious targets to reduce emissions of planet-warming gases. Mohamed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, is also scheduled to make an address, though his kingdom has no plans to slow down the exploitation of fossil fuels.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/1... [nytimes.com]
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Here, in Switzerland, the leader of the group that glues themselves to streets recently flew to Mexico for vacation, and also turns out to be a fan of Formula 1 racing.
Damned if they do, damned if they don't.
"We need to reduce CO2 emissions."
"I won't accept any reduction in quality of life, I must be able to keep flying and racing fossil fuel cars."
"Okay, we aren't saying you have to stop doing those things, although they could reduce their emissions. In fact I enjoy both without compromising on the goal of net zero."
"Hypocrite!"
FWIW F1 is supposed to be going net zero. For flying the main focus is on business users who make a lot of flights, not individuals who maybe go
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Well, in this specific situation, we already have an agreement that a designated area is worth preservation as a refuge.
So outside that refuge, you want to do a project that is surface construction? Ok then. They probably would shrug at a solar farm, they might ask about avian life impact of windmills in an area, but less resistance. Hydroelectric would probably get a bigger objection, given just how much that changes the local environment (though that area is heavily hydro powered already). Or even som
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Except that they don't shrug at solar farms either [electrek.co].
It's just extreme NIMBYism.
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And for the record, there are solutions for dealing with groundwater.
The mine in question is clay, so they actually don't want to encounter groundwater. But even in cases where it's the groundwater that's desired (such as salar lithium brine), the standard solution is that of Los Flamencos Nature Reserve in Chile. Brine is not particularly useful to humans, but at Los Flamencos it feeds halophilic plants and microbes and creates a sort of oasis ecosystem. Albermale taps into the same brine for salar lithiu
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I mean, not to put too fine a point on it, but the endless expanses of deserts of southern Nevada are jam-packed with a patchwork of refuges and parks. It's only 8km from Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge to the Funeral Mountains Wilderness Area, which is itself part of Death Valley National Park, which can also be found stretching from 20km south to 11km W of Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, and beyond to the WNW. 24km SSE of Ash Meadows is the Nopah Range Wilderness Area. 19km ESE you're inside P
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In such a situation, the next step is for the extraction company to counter with information about why the groundwater is not threatened, in an updated notice to BLM.
We have to navigate nuance here, and even if they ultimately can proceed after clarifying the situation with respect to groundwater safety, then at least it's more likely they have explicit thought toward the groundwater situation in their final strategy.
Folks should at least be able to raise their concerns and have them be evaluated in the pro
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The question is whether it's the same "them". Judging from the article, it's likely not the same them. In that instance, yeah, they are absolutely unreasonable NIMBY folks, even blatantly admitting it in their commentary. Seemingly recognizing that there is a such thing as whiny empty NIMBY-ism but on the other hand it is 'their' backyard, so it's totally different... somehow?
Also that 'art' that they say is important to keep tourists interested in seeing is... a trench? Just... wow....
However, it seems
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Ah, environmentalists. Ya gotta love 'em. They are blocking even exploration for possible lithium extraction, for a site that is not even part of the wildlife refuge.
It's being left alone because it is not needed yet
Don't worry, if we find ourselves in a war situation, and the lithium is needed, they will eliminate the wildlife refuge, and you or I or anyone who gets in the way.
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What does Formula 1 racing have to do with anything? Optically they're a problem, but real emissions added up - everything from transport to events, the race itself, and the carbon footprint of all of the attendees and their related travel to and from the race - and the average touring musical band is a bigger problem per year than F1. There are less than 25 races per year.
Want a high value target? Stop all large concerts. And I LOVE a good concert. But 100+ tour dates per year, say 20,000 attendees traveli
Re:Love those environmentalists... (Score:5, Funny)
I agree, anti-"wokism" is more of an emotional / quasi-religious movement than anything practical or reasonable. All that "woke" crap in Christianity about loving your fellow man? Ha, wokism run amok. Clearly Jesus was preaching gun-rights and the benefits of slavery.
Re:Love those environmentalists... (Score:4, Funny)
The Hebrews were really grateful for all the job training they received in Egypt!
Re:Love those environmentalists... (Score:4, Interesting)
I agree, anti-"wokism" is more of an emotional / quasi-religious movement than anything practical or reasonable. All that "woke" crap in Christianity about loving your fellow man? Ha, wokism run amok. Clearly Jesus was preaching gun-rights and the benefits of slavery.
If you are politically left leaning, "Woke" always has meant: "To be aware, especially of social problems such as racism and inequality" i.e. being aware of the fact that while the world is not fair and that in the USA, for example, it's substantially less fair if you are a member of a brown, yellow or red skinned minority or if you are Moslem, Mormon or Jewish for example than if you are white skinned and christian. I've asked a number of conservatives and right wing-nuts to define woke for me and I've gotten as many answers as there are people I've asked. None of them managed to regurgitate the actual dictionary definition of 'woke'. To the politically right leaning, 'woke' seems to means whatever pisses them off or hurts their delicate fee-fees at the moment'. This applies especially to the existence of people they don't like but also things as deranged as the sneaking suspicion that on elf the Teletubbies may be gay or trans because it carries a handbag.
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For the right (and the left) all the political talking points are designed to rile up the voters and get them to the polls. So proclaiming there's a new evil in the world is good politics, exaggerating about it is good politics, whereas having clear and thoughtful responses based upon the facts is shoddy politics that won't get you elected.
Remember, insurance companies pulling out of California is because of too much woke in California government. But insurance companies pulling out of Florida is because
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Thanks, yes. You might like this NPR article about the history of the term woke [npr.org]. It originally was used by black people as "stay woke", basically keep your eyes open for trouble.
Sure, it was originally used by black people but basically it describes any minority's awareness that in the USA they are never far from some from of violence at the hands of white christian-nationalists with a severe self-pity based victim complex. If you are black it's slavery, or worse a lynching If you are jewish it's a pogrom because those deluded morons are still blaming you for the death of Jesus. A man of peace who preached forgiveness, who fought for the enslaved and downtrodden of the Roman Empire
Re: Love those environmentalists... (Score:1)
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"Sure, it was originally used by black people but basically it describes any minority's awareness that in the USA they are never far from some from of violence at the hands of blacks with a severe self-pity based victim complex."
FTFY. Maybe try looking at stats, or talk to an Asian.
I have asked Asians, my girlfriend is Asian. I know that while Asians can be every bit as racist as black people, most people in both communities also think that those among their number that indulge in inter-minority racism are dumb as a brick because both these minority ethnic communities are in the same boat. No matter how you try to spin it, white people are still the biggest source of racist violence and oppression in the USA by any metric even if white christian nationalists like to pretend that they
Re: Love those environmentalists... (Score:1)
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Statistically, a black person has a greater chance of being killed by a white person than the reverse. Look up the stats of interracial violence and calculate the probability based on the fact that there are 7 times as many whites as blacks.
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You're showing just how crazy and delusional you are. Who's burning books? Who's claiming to be the master race? Do you even live in the real world? Or just get fringe soundbites from extremist leftists?
The vast majority of Conservatives could care less what color a person is. We just want everyone treated the same. We believe in merit and character. It's Leftist ideology that wants to see color before people. That wants everyone in buckets of oppressor and oppressed. That wants to pit people again
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No one ever uses Jesus's innumerable quotes on how much he liked shooting children either, Christians are so selective.
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Returning to the stone age would not appease them. That assumes that there is consistency in the demands. But there is not. If we went back to the stone age, the same people would be demanding, for example clean water, or free medical care.
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If we went back to the stone age fewer than one in a thousand humans would be alive. So hopefully the morons wouldn't make it. They certainly wouldn't last long once there.
Wokism is a not a thing. It's Right Wing fiction. (Score:2)
The most fanatic of the environmentalists cannot be appeased unless humanity was somehow transformed back to the stone age, at which point they *might* consider us "one with nature" as a species. So anything short of that is pretty much unacceptable.
Like wokeism and other recent trends, it is really more of an emotional / quasi-religious movement than anything practical or reasonable.
Eh, if it were real, perhaps. Wokism is not a thing. I challenge you, find something insanely "woke" from anyone who matters? What are some "woke" policies that had serious votes? Right Wing pundits go on and on about stupid woke shit done but woke people, but it's never an ACTUAL LEADER...just a FUCKING RANDO ON TWITTER. Yeah, congratulations, Jessie Watters, you've identified some mentally ill person on Twitter or some borough city counselman spouting insane "leftist" theories that support your narra
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Re: Love those environmentalists... (Score:2)
Re: Love those environmentalists... (Score:2)
Need justification. (Score:2)
My surprised face (Score:5, Insightful)
BANANA
Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything.
The governing principle of the Western world.
Re: My surprised face (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: My surprised face (Score:3)
While thatâ(TM)s true, clearing the land area involved in a mine doesnâ(TM)t produce anywhere near the amount of fossil fuels that the ICEs would. And you know what else causes extinctions? Rapidly heating the planet. Far more extinctions than this would.
Re: My surprised face (Score:5, Interesting)
An EV prevents the emission of about 50 tonnes of CO2 over its lifespan vs. an equivalent gasoline car, and uses maybe 12kg of lithium (which is recycled at end of life, not consumed). For a 100m deep lithium resource at 1000ppm-recoverable and density of 1600kg/m, that's 100kg/m, that's 416 tonnes of CO2 per square meter (again, ignoring recycling). Do you think that there's 416 tonnes of carbon in a square meter of desert plants? Let's entirely ignore that land use is entirely temporary**, and that ICE vehicles also are made of "stuff" that doesn't just appear from thin air (including actually rare minerals like platinum).
** Rover Metals is, like most companies in the new Nevada boom, looking at a clay project. The mining process is very simple:
1) Dig up clay.
2) Run the clay through a process to leach out the lithium.
3) Put the clay back in the hole.
If anything, they're probably improving soil fertility by decompacting it, bringing deep minerals to the surface, etc. This isn't hard rock mining. There's no acid mine ponds. No heavy metals (like the lead in your ICE car's lead-acid battery). It's just bloody clay.
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"proposed operations are likely to result in disturbance to localized groundwaters that supply the connected surface waters associated with Threatened and Endangered species in local springs"
So regardless of what they did with the clay, the mining would probably screw up the adjacent springs.
Re: My surprised face (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm sorry, but the notion that drilling 30 shallow boreholes (which are capped) is going to eliminate high-flow-rate springs that are fed by water that's flowed for at least many dozens of kilometers already through strata so deep that they're hard to reach even deliberately, before permeating to the surface at Ash Meadows because of its highly fractured carbonate strata [nanfa.org], is beyond absurd.
We're not talking about a permit for mining. We're talking a permit for drilling 30 capped holes in the ground.
Meanwhile, just west of the reserve, farmers already deliberately pump up water en masse to irrigate their fields [google.is] (yes, it's pumped up from wells [nv.gov]), but nobody seems to give a rat's arse about that.
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Where did you see that the proposed boreholes would be shallow? The concern is that the boreholes would penetrate and possibly connect multiple strata, which could result in draining away water that otherwise would make it to the surface.
From your article; "there is a general consensus that the water in the springs of Ash Meadows and Death Valley has travelled underground over large distances". Everything else about it "remain points of discussion and research".
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Because the mines are shallow. Nobody is drilling multi-kilometer deep boreholes to assess reserves for an open-pit mine. That would be nonsensical.
And I'll repeat: literally just 8km west from several of Ash Meadows' most notable springs, farmers are deliberately pumping up water en masse, yet nobody seems to give a rat's arse about that by comparison. Better focus on stopping the drilling of 30 tiny holes (a typical core sample is only a couple centimetres across). :P
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What makes you think "nobody seems to give a rat's arse about" water being pumped up by farmers?
https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publi... [usgs.gov]
But whatever, I am not seeing reports that it has damaged the springs. And your claim that the boreholes would be shallow and tiny appear to be sheer speculation.
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Also, since you apparently can't read, re: the depths in which water reaches Ash Meadows:
For the record, I've followed other open-pit mining projects working on lithium clays. They usually qualify th
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That may be "the depths in which water reaches Ash Meadows", but so what?
And since you ignored it I will repeat;
"The concern is that the boreholes would penetrate and possibly connect multiple strata, which could result in draining away water that otherwise would make it to the surface."
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Versus deliberately seeking out the water and mass pumping it to the surface for agriculture?
And the notion that tiny filled-in holes are going to drain water-bearing strata (where water flow rates might be on the order of 10-20 meters per day, relying instead rather on extensive area coverage), which feed high flow-rate springs, is hydrologically absurd. Ignoring the fact that we're talking about shallow boreholes vs. deep water.
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More speculation. You don't know how large or deep the bore holes would be and you don't know that they would be filled in.
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Also, most of the metals (not Li, but Cobalt, Steal, Copper, Zinc, Nickel, etc) used to build my EV are from hard rock mining, unlike the Li (which is in the 100s of lbs, not 12 kg as you claimed).
Actually, they were right. It's closer to 12 kg than 100. It takes about 850 grams of lithium carbonate per kWh of battery, but that's Li2CO3. Only about 160 grams out of that 850 grams is actually lithium. So if you have an 85 kWh battery, you have about 13.6 kg of lithium in it. That can vary depending on formula for the particular battery type and the actual capacity of the battery, etc. but it's really only a small portion of the battery mass. That makes a lot of sense. The atomic weight of a lithium at
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Well in this neck of the woods, you don't really have to worry about clearing land, it's all pre cleared. It's desert. Groundwater concerns are valid, but outside the refuge, there's negligible vegetation.
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You just don't appreciate that they understand that, in the face of impending global catastrophe and mass human-caused extinction where dozens or hundreds of species are going extinct each year because of our CO2 emissions, the really critical thing is to protect the Southern Nevada Striped Desert Slug from being startled during its mating season.
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But it would be perfectly acceptable to cover the same land with a zillion solar generation units, which would be no less destructive to habitat, and more broadly so than a mere hole in the ground.
Having lived downwind from such a facility in the desert, I found it caused a huge amount of hitherto-absent dust, and was such a large heat island that it completely prevented our summer nighttime cooling. Meaning no morning dew, which a lot of desert life depends on for water.
We wonâ(TM)t protect First Nations sacred lan (Score:3)
But end risk for a few species? You betcha! Iâ(TM)m a conservationist, and want to preserve biodiversity much more than the next guy. But this is a nasty double standard.
the real solution is to enforce more meticulous extraction. It can be done, but it does add cost. And this result should be reversed. American wealth stands on the gross exploitation of first people and certain Africans. The least we can do is protect some of their special places.
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This isn't saying "do it more carefully". This is saying "don't do it at all". They're not even trying to extract anything right now, they just want to drill boreholes to take samples. They're not even being allowed to do that.
The bigger picture (Score:2, Insightful)
IMO we need to recognize that our planet won't sustainably support a civilization of more than about a billion people - maybe much less - and take steps to reverse population growth. And if we do manage to shrink it to a billion or less, we should consider abandoning some continents to nature.
Of course, no one will agree to either of those. Or maybe a lot of people would support them both, provided someone else had to make the sacrifices.
See also: tragedy of the commons.
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Nope, this is way outdated thinking from like the 70's with the "population bomb" book that has been pretty much entirely discredited and considered absolute junk science. The world population is set to level off soon and frankly we could (and probably should) support close to billion people just in the USA.
Degrowth in general is for losers on the extreme ends of both political spectrums. The far far left wants it because they think it will bring some socialist utopia where we all farm and work off mutual
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You know what is for losers? Too many people. We aren't rabbits so stop acting like them.
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You do know quite a lot of people in this world didn't grow up across the street from farmland right? They grow up in cities or suburbs? Don't drag your personal and/or imaginary scenarios into this like it proves anything, at all.
Save your emotional sleight-of-hand for the next guy. Just becuase you have zero imagination and hate everything, especially yourself doesn't make the convincing argument you think it does. It's just boring.
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This is definitely more accurate but also does not really apply to large urban areas either. What this is really speaking to is a definite lack of community today.
The internet has played a large role in this as our connections to other people in the last 20 years have shifted from people in our local areas to silo'd groups online.
The rapid falloff in religion and church has also played a part. Not that we are going back to religion as it were but churches served as community centers for a long time and we
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hey pal, i don't come to your job and knock the mop outta your hands!
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70 percent of the land mass is covered with grass. The only thing you can do with that without using huge amounts of fertilizer is grazers. I posit that the greatest loss of life, health, money and resources in the last 60 years is the high carb, unsaturated fats "healthy diet" that has produced half a billion diabetics alone and is wreaking the medical systems everywhere.
Now, imagine if USA's medical expenses dropped by half...medical research and manufacturing is extremely costly. What would that do to th
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We claim to be superior to the common animal, but we keep ignoring that we are already at an unsustainable population given our current treatment of the planet's resources.
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Just saying it's "unsustainable" doesn't make it so, you have to demonstrate it.
Silly analogies like a houseguest are just emotional distractions. This is like when people compare the finances of a nation-state to a single family home. It's nonsense fodder for simpletons who refuse to contemplate the complexity of how these massive systems operate.
The fact we can actually consider these things *at all* is what makes us the superior animal.
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The only simpletons here are the ones that are incapable of seeing it. The current weather events and general trend of our climate is already demonstrating sustainability is limited under our current consumption.
You probably lived your entire life in a city. The rest of us can see change happening, and not for the good.
Bribing the Bidens comes with certain conditions (Score:2, Offtopic)
https://www.mediaite.com/biden... [mediaite.com]
Expect the Arkansas lithium operation [slashdot.org] to be shut down too.
I get the sentiment (Score:2)
We need lithium for our renewable energy transition, but this episode sends a message loud and clear that some places are just too special to drill.
And with this mentality, we are all going to die. And the "too special" moniker will die with us. This is literally what happened to nuclear and look at what we've done. At some point, we've got to get past the sentimental value of all this bullshit and start acting like we're all going to fucking die. Because we're all going to fucking die if we keep just saying "oh no! that's too precious to do something to save us!"
What wild life? (Score:2)
Once we hit +4C, I'm pretty sure we won't have to worry about wildlife anymore, let alone human life.
Re: What wild life? (Score:1)
Re:To save the planet (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:To save the planet (Score:5, Interesting)
Nothing can ever be done at anytime, anywhere!
Strategic reserves, my good Slashdotter!.
Strategic banking of useful and uncommon materials is allowing the other guy to use up his own stuff first.
So any Lithium assets with issues like potential disruption to wildlife refuges are just banked, only to be exploited at great need.
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To quantify reserves and determine what would take to mine something vs. what you'd get out of it, you first have to drill boreholes.
Which was just prohibited.
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To quantify reserves and determine what would take to mine something vs. what you'd get out of it, you first have to drill boreholes.
Which was just prohibited.
You don't just randomly drill. They know what is there - perhaps not to the last gram
Indeed, Lithium as with other elements, is generally found in specific locations based on other elements and minerals found in those locations.
And the US Geological survey shows that we know where da stuff is. https://www.sciencebase.gov/ca... [sciencebase.gov]
You can even get a Google Earth .kml file. https://www.sciencebase.gov/ca... [sciencebase.gov]
What is more, Lithium will likely have it's market collapse. There are safer alternatives out ther
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We don't need strategic reserves of Lithium. Once we have about 300TWh of batteries we'll have enough to decarbonize and production will need to only be slightly higher than steady state maintenance, and the vast majority of the lithium will come from recycling.
Re: To save the planet (Score:3)
Energy and labor intensive recycling. Fuel needed to haul heavy EOL batteries around to break down and reuse. Youre not going to get 100 percent yield - that would violate the laws of thermodynamics. Some new lithium, rare earths, etc will be needed on an ongoing basis.
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So any Lithium assets with issues like potential disruption to wildlife refuges are just banked, only to be exploited at great need.
So when there is great need, it will still take another 10 years to set up the infrastructure to exploit it.
Great plan...
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So any Lithium assets with issues like potential disruption to wildlife refuges are just banked, only to be exploited at great need.
So when there is great need, it will still take another 10 years to set up the infrastructure to exploit it.
Great plan...
Well, if there is a WW2 type situation, all rules go away. Shit gets done quickly.
One of the dictums of strategic resource management is use your potential enemies resources first if you possibly can.
Drill, Baby, Drill (Score:1)
Drill, Baby, Drill
For oil, of course, not for Lithium !
F--k Yeah.
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On the contrary, the perfect place to "drill" and mine lithium is China!
Re: To save the planet (Score:2)
Re: To save the planet (Score:3)
The mine in northern Nevada cleared legal hurdles and got the go ahead. The exploration of a mime site in southern Nevada was nixed.
Re: To save the planet (Score:5, Funny)
The exploration of a mime site
No one was heard complaining, but they did seem to be trapped in invisible boxes...
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Lol I usually try and proofread, but that went right past me on the phone screen.
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It's just like free speech zones, but without the speech.
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Do you think one mine is going to supply enough lithium to build all the EVs and grid back up batteries needed for renewable power to be viable?
Do you think foreign countries will buy enough comic book movies so we can buy their lithium?
Or do you want to cut to the chase and roll the tanks and forcibly strip mine a foreign country or two so you can have your renewable power and also high quality vacations for the urban elite?
As an aside, recycling won't work until the metal has been dug up the first time.
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Good thing there are multiple mine sites going up all over the world and the US, just a couple days ago there was a story here about an even larger deposit in Arkansas.
Firstly, that is not how global trade works. "Have some Marvel movies for your lithium sir?" is actually just silliness. People will sell their lithium to whoever wants to buy it.
Also those foreign countries will continue to buy thos emovies because culture is one of the USA's greatest exports. There a reason in Civ games the USA can usual
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"People will sell their lithium to whoever wants to buy it."
Sure, that's how the petroleum industry works. Oil embargoes of the '70's were a hoax.
Or maybe America should ensure that it has enough AMERICAN lithium to prevent some foreign asshats from doing a 70's oil thing...
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Do you think one mine is going to supply enough lithium to build all the EVs and grid back up batteries needed for renewable power to be viable?
Well, we don't need the grid backup batteries because we can build gravity batteries consisting of a weight raised to a height to "charge" it and allowing the weight to fall and spin a generator while "discharging" it. America has about 500,000 abandoned hard-rock mines, most of which have vertical shafts for their access, which could be converted. We could then use the lithium just for where it is the only thing that will work.
Re: To save the planet (Score:1)
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Actually, I did do the math, and it seems a plausible thing to explore.
Re: To save the planet (Score:1)
Re: To save the planet (Score:1)