EPA says it will declare a desert flower an ‘endangered species’ that could halt a mine necessary for electric vehicle batteries

American Thinker ^ | 06/04/2021 | Thomas Lifson

[SeekAndFind]

The idiotic and expensive plans to force electric vehicles down the throats of drivers has run into an obstacle created by an law that environmentalists demanded.  You can’t have electric vehicles without lithium ion batteries, and you can’t build all those car batteries without a supply of lithium, which some warn will be inadequate soon.

AP reports:

An extremely rare wildflower that grows only in Nevada’s high desert where an Australian mining company wants to dig for lithium should be protected under the Endangered Species Act, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Thursday.

The agency outlined its intention to propose listing Tiehm’s buckwheat as a threatened or endangered species as part of its belated, 12-month review of a listing petition conservationists filed in 2019. A federal judge said last month the finding was six months overdue and ordered the agency to render a decision within weeks.

The conclusion announced on Thursday that federal protection is warranted could jeopardize Ioneer Ltd.’s plans to build the mine halfway between Reno and Las Vegas.

It also ups the ante in an early test of the Biden administration’s ability to make good on promises to protect public lands and their native species while at the same time pursuing an ambitious clean energy agenda that includes bolstering production of lithium needed for electric car batteries.

Tiehm's buckwheat (Photo credit: Jim Moreland CC BY 2.0 License

“If the plant is so special that only the soils at the mine will do, it's already extinct, it just doesn't know it yet,” as one wag commented online.

[SeekAndFind]

MAJOR SOURCES OF LITHIUM TODAY...

[Tell It Right]

Demanding everybody drive a coal-powered EV while some states are doing controlled blackouts makes about as much sense as helping women avoid sexual assault by forcing them to share locker rooms and restrooms with sexual deviant men.

[Sacajaweau]

More business for China.

[butlerweave]

How much of a bribe did China/Russia give the EPA ?

[rktman]

For more commentary on this:

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3964777/posts

:-}

[PIF]

Its not really about China or any other country, its about shutting down US Natural Resource Harvesting albeit mining, timber, fishing, farming to conform with the wacko environmentalists idea of human perfection - its for your own good.

And sometimes its the really big industries paying those same wackos to attack in order to drive their industry commodity prices higher.

[DugwayDuke]

butlerweave wrote: “How much of a bribe did China/Russia give the EPA ?”

They didn’t have to bribe the EPA. Environmentalists do not want any type of increased energy consumption. They only solution they have is to use less. Think: living in a mud hut, brewing tea from leaves without fire.

[SeekAndFind]

This article actually peers behind the curtain of the issues involved and asks the right questions:

Lithium is far from the only problem that makes electric vehicle conversion plans a total fantasy.

Electricity production would have to vastly increase, and solar or wind just can’t provide that kind of power. So, how are we going to provide these increase power demand?

Burn more coal? Natural gas? Nuclear power?

How about those new factories to build those cars and batteries?

The whole program is a giant fraud that can never be accomplished. The environmental toll for all those mines, power stations, transmission lines and factories is so huge that they will never be permitted. Then, there is whole issue of disposing of those toxic batteries when they reach the end of the useful lives.

[bgill]

I don’t give a rat’s behind about electric vehicles.

[sniper63]

I guess AOC’s green weenie plan just hit a wall

[Brian Griffin]

“There is not enough electrical power in the United States to power the cars if everyone converts to EVs.”

https://www.eia.gov/electricity/gridmonitor/dashboard/electric_overview/US48/US48

Look at the graph U.S. electricity generation by energy source. Anything within and above the sinusoid curve for natural gas is potentially available for car recharging.

Let’s us underestimate at say 50,000 megawatts for eight hours, or 50,000,000khw for eight hours.

That’s somewhere around ~4kwh (~16 miles per day) for about 100 million cars.

It comes fairly close. It’s going to be decades to replace the gasoline car fleet. There’s time to build more natural gas power plants, and to install solar-based recharging systems in and around daytime workplaces.

[Brian Griffin]

Somewhere around LA in 2022:

Look at my new rare plants in my desert garden. Isn’t it beautiful?

Joyce and Mary also put some in their desert gardens.

[redangus]

Yep the energy policy of the Left has always been no energy. I told Mrs. Redangus years ago that once the Left shut down fossil fuels they’d find ways to stifle renewables.

[Vaduz]

Relocate endangered species problem solved.

[Thunder90]

There’s a bunch of lithium in Russia as well. But Russia keeps theirs for military purposes.

[rightwingcrazy]

[Harpotoo]

The Resident is just making for more J O B S! In China:-)

[fidelis]

"The agency outlined its intention to propose listing Tiehm’s buckwheat as a threatened or endangered species..."

[cp124]

Sounds like a liberal wet dream based on no reality.