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Posted on 05/07/2026 5:02:39 AM PDT by Red Badger
Long-standing regulations mean the United States may not be able to compete with Chinese critical mineral production despite the recent discovery of 328 years’ worth of lithium stretching across the Appalachian Mountains.
In April, the United States Geological Survey estimated 2.33 million metric tons of extractable lithium lay underneath multiple Appalachian states. Red tape and lacking infrastructure could thwart the find’s promised economic potential, analysts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Lithium is a critical resource essential for rechargeable batteries, including those used in electric vehicles, portable electronics such as laptops and phones, and electrical grid storage. Chinese companies presently account for two-thirds of worldwide lithium battery processing capacity.
“We have simply made it too difficult to permit a mine here in the United States and that must change. If China wants a new mine, they can open one tomorrow. But it takes 29 years to bring a mine online in the U.S. – the second longest timeline in the world; that’s not sustainable,” a National Mining Association (NMA) spokesperson told the DCNF when asked about mining prospects for the Appalachian deposits.
Only Zambia takes longer to permit mining projects, according to an S&P Global Analysis.
“It’s important to acknowledge how much has been done under this administration to support domestic mining projects, including lithium projects. It’s clear the administration wants to see shovels in the ground on new projects, they want to see job creation, they want real progress in addressing our supply chain challenges and mineral dependence on China,” the NMA spokesperson continued.
The Trump administration has used statutory revision to deregulate, notably rescinding the Obama-era endangerment finding that enabled federal regulation of carbon emissions, but these actions have not been codified by Congress. Though the House of Representatives passed the Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development Act in December 2025 to reform the National Environmental Policy Act, the legislation has stalled in the Senate.
“We have to move — and we have to move quickly — on a range of issues to make U.S. mining competitive and come up with permitting solutions,” NMA responded when asked what policies were needed to streamline mine permitting. “That means: addressing existing redundancies in the permitting process; setting firm timelines for reviews to be completed and transparency into the process; limiting litigation timelines that are being used to obstruct projects indefinitely; and more.”
Any company aiming to exploit the lithium resources will have to contend with varying state regulations and seek permits for multiple mines.
“While the USGS makes it sound like this stuff is all concentrated in a single discrete resource, the fact is that it is scattered across the entire Appalachian region, from South Carolina through Maine,” energy industry veteran David Blackmon told the DCNF. “That means you’d have to permit a whole series of mines to exploit the resource, and doing that would take decades. Once permitted, it can take 10-15 years before first production begins.”
Advancements in battery technology could also dramatically reduce lithium’s value by the time new Appalachian mines are operational.
“As a practical matter, it will be years before any of this is produced, if it ever is produced. In fact, the battery industry could be operating on a completely different kind of battery by the time any of this is even permitted to be mined,” Blackmon continued. “Lighting-ion tech is so limited and problematic that an array of alternatives are under development. Solid state, liquid metals, sodium ion, etc. Most folks think there will finally be a real breakthrough in the next decade.”
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Wasn’t this why the Biden admin wanted the people who lived in the area to leave after the floods?
Bummer. I had a lady friend on the stuff. Psycho.
Such an estimate is a wild-ass guess. It’ll takes years of drilling test bores to determine what’s down there….a mine is 20 years away.
Burn ‘em out, flood ‘em out, regulate ‘em out! Rawhide.
"Only Zambia takes longer to permit mining projects, according to an S&P Global Analysis."
About half the deposits in NH are in the White Mountain National Forest. The odds of that ever having a mine are probably ZERO.
The other spots are on private lands. There MAY be a chance with those at some point.
According to a Maine Freeper this is also the case in the Pine Tree state. Most of the deposits are either on public land or near lakes and major ski areas like Sunday River.
Most likely they will never be developed.
Even IF they can eventually dig the oar out of the ground. Where are they going to process it? Last I knew there was ONE lithium mine operating out in Nevada. The EPA has made it so hard to operate that no sane venture capitalist wants to invest in these type of operations in the USA.
This is also why so much of the COBALT comes from the Congo.
The government of the Congo does not give a SH#T IF half the native population dies of poisoning or ends up with BIRTH DEFECTS. So, they let the Chinese mine the Cobalt as long as the they pay off the right people in the Congo government.
I did an image search for ‘lithium mine’. There will be a lot of opposition because of how huge these strip mines tend to be. They looked like copper mines with all the different layers going down and down.
Ore vs oar
Ha ha
The left wanted this all along.
There’s lithium in coal waste. Some places a lot, other places minimal. Depends on the coal seam the waste came from.
“But it takes 29 years to bring a mine online in the U.S.”
I suspect that 28 of those years are dealing with the United Mineworkers Union.
Agree that mining lithium in the eastern U.S. is a likely 0% proposition. The moon has lithium, we could more likely to develop lunar lithium than U.S.
Arugh!
Man the OARS Matey!
Unchain #41 from his oar. Row well and live #41
That is pure hogwash.
Under demonRATs, maybe, but with Trump and Lee Zelden, a couple of years, but only red tape can slow these kind of projects.
Men have been mining for eons and with today's technology, drilling equipment, the range of 10-15 years is total nonsense.
Just think of that predicted range, five full years.
No real project can have a five year range, unless you are building a rail line in kalifornikator.
I lived in Spruce Pine North Carolina when I was a boy back in the 60’s. I remember the huge white gashes carved into the mountains from strip mining for mica during WWII. I hope they never do anything like that again.
Trump should use imminent domain to federally seize the entire area, then declare it a critical site to national security. Then build out the infrastructure and start extraction ASAP
we built the first atomic bomb in less time. All that is required is getting the government out of the way and it will be up and running in 6 months
My understanding of the Chinese monopoly on rare earth metals is that, while we probably do place unreasonably difficult barriers on mining and refinement, China has no hesitation about exposing its own or other countries’ people to extremely hazardous processes. Human life is just an expendable commodity to them. If we revise our process, we need to focus on reasonable care, not poisoning everything in sight, and not locking down any opportunity for any American to make a decent living. Needs more expertise than I have, and I’m not optimistic that it will get done properly.
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