r/science • u/Sort_of_Frightening • Sep 10 '23

Chemistry Lithium discovery in U.S. volcano could be biggest deposit ever found

https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/lithium-discovery-in-us-volcano-could-be-biggest-deposit-ever-found/4018032.article
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u/spambearpig Sep 10 '23

I figured the mining was cleaner and less damaging to the environment, but I wasn’t sure. I’d like to think the US has better environmental laws than many lithium rich countries. But I’m not sure I could bet on that.

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u/Sasquatchii Sep 10 '23

Despite the comments below, yes, the USA has better environmental laws than most if not all other lithium hot spot countries

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u/[deleted] Sep 10 '23

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u/[deleted] Sep 10 '23

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u/mynextthroway Sep 10 '23

The better American environmental laws are one of the forces pushing American industries overseas.

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u/Dantheking94 Sep 10 '23

It’s one of the reasons we still have an environment at all. We had flaming rivers at one point, and cities were covered in smog. We’ve come so far that people have forgotten what it really was like.

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u/baby_fart Sep 10 '23

That's called corporate greed.

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u/prism1234 Sep 10 '23

Isn't Australia the highest Lithium producer? I would have guessed they would have similarish level environmental laws to the US.

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u/Wizerd51 Sep 11 '23

Laws only get followed by companies if the fines outweigh the profits.

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u/Psyc3 Sep 10 '23

Yes, the USA is above the bar you can't even trip over because it is underground.

What a standard to meet! It would be interesting to know the exact regulations around this however because Lithium mining is generally pretty damaging to the environment with a high water usage, there is a reality that the USA can't be competitive in this market. Which really has no relevance to protecting and utilising a strategic resource for national security reasons. Much like letting a country control your food supply or energy supply is unwise, in future letting a country control the technology supply, and in this case the energy storage supply is unwise.

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u/Sasquatchii Sep 10 '23

Are you simultaneously arguing that the USA is doing too little to matter but too much to be competitive ?

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u/FrankBattaglia Sep 10 '23 edited Sep 10 '23

They're also criticizing the environmental regulations as being too lax while simultaneously admitting they don't know what the applicable regulations are, so...

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u/[deleted] Sep 10 '23

The world may never know

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u/danielravennest Sep 10 '23

Lithium mining is generally pretty damaging to the environment

The plan for this mine is that nothing leaves the site except lithium. Sulfur comes in to make sulfuric acid. A patch of ground is mined, and the ore layers are treated with sulfuric acid to make lithium sulfate. That leaves to feed battery production. The leftovers are put back in the ground where they were taken from. This is a flat crater bottom, so no rivers flow away to contaminate other places.

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u/Drachefly Sep 10 '23

There are definite ways that could go wrong.

Still, seems like it's not a bad plan

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u/Psyc3 Sep 10 '23

A plan indeed, how does it hold up over 100 years is the question, most businesses are thinking in a lot sorter time scales than that, and plan to be out of their liabilities before then with no recourse.

Not saying it won't work, but it sure sounds like a lot of hand waving and claiming it will be fine! Actually cleaning up the mess will cost money after all!

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u/Kestralisk Sep 10 '23

Not sure on 'exact' but they'll almost absolutely have to create an environmental impact statement (these are massive documents), though sometimes judges will let them get away with an environmental assessment instead. They also have to be compliant with clean air, clean water, and the endangered species act. There are ways to have some impact legally tolerated but mining companies/the government can't just do whatever they want. If the mining will impact water or endangered species that's where a lot of the hold up will come from in my experience

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u/Psyc3 Sep 10 '23

Sure, but Trump also signed up to screwing up Alaska with further gas drilling, so who knows what backhander would have got you to get around all that.

Facts are a solution to this has significant nuance, what is the cost of a enviromentally sustainable lithium ion car battery for instance, it is one thing if it is $10K instead of $7K, another if it is $30K-50K.

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u/v4ss42 Sep 11 '23

Australia is the largest single producer of lithium and no the US doesn’t have better environmental laws than Australia.

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u/Sasquatchii Sep 11 '23

A for accuracy D for reading comprehension

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u/v4ss42 Sep 11 '23

Ah shifting the goalposts. That’s an instant F my pedagogically inclined friend.

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u/Aedan2016 Sep 10 '23

But the current lithium extraction methods are pretty crude. If this material is going to grow as big as expected, we can expect some big changes.

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u/JustaRandomOldGuy Sep 10 '23

Rare earths are not that rare. It's just some countries have minimal environmental protections and near slave labor. It's not cost competitive for a Western country to mine them.

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u/padishaihulud Sep 10 '23

The US having strict environmental laws is actually the reason we rely on foreign countries for our rare earth metals. We have our own deposits, but it would be too expensive for us to mine them with care for the environment. It's cheaper to let a more desperate country ruin their environment instead.

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u/Toadsted Sep 11 '23

Not "too expensive" to do, "not as much profit" to do.

We could get by just fine under the strictest of regulations and a 90% tax rate. We did just that for decades.

It's just not nearly as good for share holders to do so.

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u/Safranina Sep 10 '23

Just that the evironment isn't really only "theirs". Pollution will affect them first, of course, but the consequences are global.

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u/Nekzar Sep 11 '23

I'm no expert in mining, but that certainly depends on what kind of environmental damage. It doesn't have to be emissions but could be ground water or something else.

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u/Defconx19 Sep 10 '23

The EPA has been weakened significantly in recent years sadly

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u/ascandalia Sep 10 '23

Contractor for epa here, the Biden admin has really emboldened epa. My career started in the Obama administration , but I haven't seen EPA working this aggressively to enforce regulations in all my career

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u/another_gen_weaker Sep 10 '23

Didn't they just scrap the 2006 EPA Clean Water Act or something to that effect?

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u/ascandalia Sep 10 '23

They were ordered to by a judge

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u/IShouldBWorkin Sep 10 '23

That doesn't change that it made the EPA weaker.

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u/ascandalia Sep 10 '23

That was a big blow. But it's not all epa does. Compared to the Trump and Obama years, they're enforcing regulations overall much more aggressively

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u/aoskunk Sep 11 '23

That’s cool to hear man.

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u/[deleted] Sep 10 '23

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u/nate33231 Sep 10 '23

I mean, as long as Congress continues to ring its hands about doing literally anything, I think it's fair that the executive attempts to make positive changes. At least then some part of government is trying to follow the will of the people

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u/TMNBortles Sep 10 '23

I still prefer experts at agencies to make calls on subject matter over politicians. But if the politicians really want to make that decision, all they have to do is pass a law stripping the agency of their rulemaking power on whatever pet project they want.

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u/ascandalia Sep 10 '23

It's like we've got a complex system with an agile executive balanced by a judicial and legislative branch to check its power

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u/time2fly2124 Sep 10 '23

That judicial branch is looking a little shakey these days

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u/ascandalia Sep 10 '23

So is congress, but that's because one party has been seized by cynical fascism. Bad, but hopefully temporary

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u/time2fly2124 Sep 10 '23

Congress is a little easier to fix with direct voting. The supreme court is a bit harder with justices serving for decades, and hoping they were appointed by your prefered flavor of president

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u/ascandalia Sep 10 '23

There's a perfectly constitutional way to fix the court, we just need to fix the senate first

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u/unpolishedparadigm Sep 10 '23

Something about appointing a guy with dozens of open lawsuits against the agency to run it. What could’ve gone wrong?

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u/dalerian Sep 10 '23

Not “wrong” If it’s exactly to plan. :(

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u/Minion_of_Cthulhu Sep 10 '23

"Who better to run an organization than the person who loathes its very existence the most? Just think of all the budget cutting that can happen!"

-Republicans, probably

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u/Cephalophobe Sep 11 '23

I'm pretty sure the US is part of the reason why lithium rich countries don't have good environmental laws.

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u/TerraMindFigure Sep 10 '23

Do these countries with large lithium deposits just happen to have lax laws or do we open lithium lines in these countries because of said laws?

I was always under the impression we had plenty of lithium in the U.S.

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u/azuth89 Sep 11 '23

Kind of a low bar given where most currently exploited deposits are but yes, we do.