While the auto industry keeps promoting its “going green” with electric vehicles, a Native American tribe, ranchers, and environmental groups have reportedly protested a new lithium mine being developed in Nevada, which is seen by some as the country’s misguided attempt to become less dependent on other counties for “white gold.”
The New York Times reported that the project, Lithium Americas, faces two lawsuits in federal courts that claim the mine – located on a dormant volcano in the northern region of the state – will have a negative environmental impact.
The report said the project got approved during the final days of the Trump administration, and its largest shareholder is the Chinese company Ganfeng Lithium.
“Blowing up a mountain isn’t green, no matter how much marketing spend people put on it,” Max Wilbert, who has been living in a tent near the volcano, told the paper.
The paper said green cars may not be as good for the environment as car companies would like you to believe.
The report stated these cars need raw materials such as cobalt, lithium, and nickel. The Nevada project can potentially infiltrate groundwater leading to contamination for 300 years, these critics say, according to the paper.
The Times reported countries are jockeying for the lead in the push to green-car technologies. Wall Street has taken notice, too. Bloomberg reported that these mines across the U.S. have raised $3.5 billion in the first months of 2021. The amount is seven times the amount raised in the last 36 months.
Aimee Boulanger, the executive director for the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance, told the paper, “Our new clean-energy demands could be creating greater harm, even though its intention is to do good. We can’t allow that to happen.”
GreenMatters.com reported that lithium-ion batteries are essential for many pieces of new technology, as they power the majority of the devices that use rechargeable batteries, the report said.
The report also said there is traditional mining or the process of drilling and pumping brine to the surface:
“That brine is then left to evaporate for months, which creates a chemical concoction containing manganese, potassium, borax, and salts, which is filtered and placed into another evaporation pool. The remaining mix will take another 12 and 18 months before it’s filtered enough for them to extract the lithium carbonate.”
The Times reported that lithium is valuable because it is considered lightweight, can store a lot of energy, and easily be recharged. The paper said analysts believe the demand for lithium may increase tenfold before 2030.
The paper reported the Biden administration sees China as playing an important role in the supply chain since it processes lithium for the U.S. that had been mined in Latin America and Australia.
U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, who recently endorsed a plan to produce 80 plutonium pits in the country per year to “modernize the nation’s nuclear arsenal,” said China wants to “be the go-to place for the guts of the batteries, yet we have these minerals in the United States.”
“We have not taken advantage of them, to mine them,” she said. The paper pointed out that in March, she said, “This is a race to the future that America is going to win.”
Ben Steinberg, who worked in the Obama administration and is now a lobbyist, told the paper that if China wanted to cut off the U.S., “We’re in trouble.”
The paper spoke to one rancher, Edward Bartell, who filed a lawsuit and has a ranch of about 500 cows and calves that roam his land in the area. The Times reported he is concerned about the fate of his cows due to expected daily water consumption at the mine (3,224 gallons per minute).
The Interior Department said that over 41 years, the mine would “degrade nearly 5,000 acres” of land used by antelope and sage grouse.
“It is real frustrating that it is being pitched as an environmentally friendly project when it is really a huge industrial site,” he told the paper.
TREND FORECAST: As we have long been reporting, given the battery’s 1800’s technology – and what it takes to make them – unless there is a new type of battery than the current ones being used, electric cars will not replace the combustion engine. (See our December 2017 article, “DRIVERLESS CAR CLIFF, THE ELECTRIC-CAR FANTASY.”)
While EVs continue to make the news as the autos of the 21st century, just 3 percent of car sales in 2020 were electric vehicles.
Also, electric vehicles require six times the mineral content of conventional cars and trucks, the International Energy Agency noted in an analysis earlier this month. The agency also noted there is not enough lithium, copper, or other rare earth metals available to make carmakers’ green ambitions a near-term reality.
Thus, we forecast the goals set by some auto industry leaders to go fully electric will not be met as they predict.
