Posted on 03/02/2021 2:53:08 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
Last September, in the arid hills of northern Nevada, a cluster of flowers found nowhere else on earth died mysteriously overnight.
Conservationists were quick to suspect ioneer Ltd, an Australian firm that wants to mine the lithium that lies beneath the flowers for use in electric vehicle (EV) batteries.
The clash of environmental priorities underpinning the battle over Tiehm’s buckwheat - conservation vs. green energy - is a microcosm of a much larger political quandary for the new administration of President Joe Biden, who has made big promises to environmentalists as well as labor groups and others who stand to benefit by boosting mining.
“You can’t have green energy without mining,” Mark Senti, chief executive of Florida-based rare earth magnet company Advanced Magnet Lab Inc. “That’s just the reality.”
Biden has promised to convert the entire U.S. government fleet - about 640,000 vehicles - to EVs. That plan alone could require a 12-fold increase in U.S. lithium production by 2030, according to Benchmark Minerals Intelligence, as well as increases in output of domestic copper, nickel and cobalt. Federal land is teeming with many of these EV metals, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
“There is no way there’s enough raw materials being produced right now to start replacing millions of gasoline-powered motor vehicles with EVs,” said Lewis Black, CEO of Almonty Industries Inc, which mines the hardening metal tungsten in Portugal and South Korea.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
To go electric, America needs more nextgen thorium-based nuclear power plants. Can it build them?
Digging up the electrons.
SCHADENFREUD A political quandary for Joe Biden...he has made big promises to greenish environmentalists, promising
to convert the entire US govt fleet - about 640,000 vehicles - to E/Vs. That single plan could require a 12-fold increase
in US lithium production by 2030, as well as increases in output of domestic copper, nickel and cobalt.
“You can’t have green energy without mining. That’s just the reality,” says Mark Senti, CEO of Fla-based rare earth
magnet company Advanced Magnet Lab Inc. “There is no way there’s enough raw materials being produced right now to
start replacing millions of gasoline-powered motor vehicles with EVs,” added sLewis Black, CEO of Almonty Industries Inc,
which mines the hardening metal tungsten in Portugal and South Korea.
More mines??? I thought we were supposed to have people reclaim abandoned land mines.
“Mining For Gold” - Cowboy Junkies
Incredibly haunting 1:32
Margo Timmins (solo voice)
Recorded in Trinity Church (Toronto)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kugPD36y5YA
Gee, let me guess ... How much of a financial interest do Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, et al., have in mining companies?! /s
So America goes electric, ..................with the help of fossil fuel
America needs more nextgen thorium-based nuclear power plants. Can it build them?
—
Sure. But then where? Not in my back yard, everyone says. Nuke power is dead end because no one wants a plant near them - tell them how safe it is, but they stop listening after the word ‘nuclear’ - all because the left has completely brainwashed them.
Ever wonder what mineral resources are beneath all the farm land Gates bought?
What happens at 8am on Monday when 400 000 government cars park in DC and at the Pentagon, and plug in?
With any luck, the grid overheats and burns the whole damn city down.
The irony should not be lost. Midland alone has over 30,000 wells the Permian basin alone could and probably will supply all the lithium ever needed. I still salt water disposal wells as a development geologist the avg produced water to oil rate in the Midland basin is 6:1 as in six barrels of lithium loaded salt water to one barrel of oil. In the industry an oil well is nothing more than a brine production well that’s contaminated with oil. I have seen 100 to one or higher and never lower than 3 to one not even once. The Barnett shale and the woodbine also produce copious amounts of salt water flow back also absolutely loaded with lithium salts.
I wonder if the author got his degree in Journalism at K-Mart? Because the only times it is acceptable to use a "When" lead in a news story is if you're telling a fairly tale or creating the earth.
"Once upon a time ..." or "In the beginning, ..."
But apart those two exceptions, NO "When" leads! EVER. Who, what, where, why and sometimes How, but NEVER When. It's a rule, Journalism 101.
And mining is the least of their concerns. First we'll have to have create power generation significantly so we can go all EVs. A 50% switch to battery-only EVs would require about 100 new nuclear power plants (or ∞ % more wind and solar farms). We'll also have to grow the electric grid by the same percentage, and it will take decades for either of those to come to pass.
As is, statistically there is only one commercial EV charging station in about two American cities out of every three. So either a lot pf people are going to do a lot of driving (not to mention a lot of waiting in line) to get recharged or they're going to be limited to charging at home. Which dramatically reduces the practical range of their vehicle.
So if these idiots insist on switching to battery-only EVs before the infrastructure will support them all, they won't be selling cars as much as they'll be selling two-ton door stops, because there just won't be anywhere near enough electricity OR opportunities to recharge commercially to go around.
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