Thacker Pass, Quinn River NV

[Foy]

But one of my concerns is when projects are labeled "green", such as the Bishop example, which encourages people who do not have the time or desire to look any closer to just say, "oh, okay".

I believe you hit the nail squarely on the head. Only I suggest that most people have the time to do their own homework, just not the desire or gumption to do so. It's so much easier to drink the nice, sweet Kool-Aid offered up on social media and traditional media platforms, pat oneself on the back, and feel great about being green while sticking it to those awful mining and oil and gas companies.

Rare earths come from China for the most part. Lithium comes from open-pit mining in the East and from brine extraction in the West. Due largely to extraordinary advances in extraction technology (hydraulic fracturing) the US is literally awash in clean(er) natural gas, and there are still billions of tons of hard and soft coal readily convertible to clean(er) liquid fuels, along with vast quantities of oil shale. We are truly energy independent, something unthnkable when I was a mineral exploration geologist in the 1970s/early 1980s. Production of power from wind and solar have costs rarely discussed.

The reality is quite simple: you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. Each and every aspect of human endeavor alters the surface of the planet, most often in a permanent way. There's no way around it so long as the Earth's population continues to grow. The smart money is on figuring out how to adapt to a changing Earth, because there's no stopping it.

Foy

 

[AWG_Pics]

The reality is quite simple: you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. Each and every aspect of human endeavor alters the surface of the planet, most often in a permanent way. There's no way around it so long as the Earth's population continues to grow. The smart money is on figuring out how to adapt to a changing Earth, because there's no stopping it.

Foy

All of this is true. Energy demanding people in an ever growing population can only have one outcome. Change is here and more is on the way.

 

[teledork]

I don't have the source at hand so I won't give a percentage but my recollection is that most of the energy used is in manufacturing. Some of this is necessary. I think a lot of it is not. So how much "stuff" do we really need?

 

[Stray Dog]

Do you really want someone else to decide what you need?

 

[teledork]

Do you really want someone else to decide what you need?

That is not what I have said.

but I think this is a fine place for a quote from Steve Jobs:

"People don't know what they want until you show it to them."

so who is doing the "deciding"?

 

[ski3pin]

Another story from Thursday 18 February -


Nevada rancher sues to block lithium mine

 

[Casa Escarlata Robles Too]

Just read a newspaper story this morning about the tech co. Blockchains.
They want the state of Nevada to grant them the power to form a government
on land they own in Storey 12 miles east of Reno.

They want to build a huge "smart city"15K homes and 33M square feet of commerical
space in the next 75 years.

Well so much for rural Nevada.
Frank

 

[craig333]

I know some people think bill is the devil but what it he's right about nuclear power?

https://www.inverse.com/innovation/bill-gates-thinks-nuclear-energy-is-the-future#:~:text=Bill%20Gates%20thinks%20he's%20found,stations%20across%20the%20United%20States.&text=That's%20because%20they%20rely%20on,energy%3A%20a%20traveling%20wave%20reactor.

 

[Espresso]

This is today. Cryptocurrency is still in it's infancy.

"They’re claiming a SINGLE transaction consumes 306 kWh of electricity, which is roughly enough to power 10.35 U.S. households for an entire day. To give more perspective, total annual Bitcoin energy consumption is currently at almost 37 TWh…or about the same as a small country such as Denmark or Bulgaria. Data Centers are springing up all over the place to mine bitcoin."

 

[ski3pin]

Here's a report from April 13th -

Native Americans Converge At Proposed Thacker Pass Lithium Mine Site

 

[AWG_Pics]

Mining - "Some vast destructive "Suck" had been at work here; and a visitor, had he returned after one hundred years, would have been compelled to note the ruin of the change. It was evident that a huge compulsive greed had been at work; the whole region had been sucked and gutted, milked dry, denuded of its rich primeval treasures: something blind and ruthless had been here, grasped, and gone."
Thomas Clayton Wolf, The Hills Beyond, 1941.

 

[Foy]

In the news over the last couple of days is a story about GM building a battery manufacturing facility adjacent to its Spring Hill (Nashville area) Tennessee assembly plant. One might imagine lithium can be supplied in part from a new surface mine in the latter stages of permitting and development in the NC "Tin-Spodumene Belt" around 50 miles west of Charlotte, a mineralized trend where I cut my exploration teeth prospecting for gold in the late 1970s, and where a latter-day Appalachian State geology graduate leads the exploration and development team at the new prospect.

The same story mentioned Tesla's vertical integration of battery production, something which GM acknowledges they're duplicating. Both Tesla and GM are expected to need batteries from other manufacturers, however.

With global demand for lithium for battery manufacture, it seems to this old mining geologist that development and completion of any world-class lithium orebody on public land in the Lower 48 is inevitable. And Thacker Pass is, by every description I've read about in the mining professional literature, a world-class orebody.

That same literature, and P/R materials released by the mining company itself, show the planned development of a 1,000 acre open pit as much as 400' deep at the highwall. Seems to be planned as a deep cut into the flank of the valley. I have little doubt that my personal opinion is not shared by all, but I see no inherent faults within a plan to mine lithium on 1,000 acres of Nevada's nearly 71 million acres of surface area. My own personal assumption is that lithium will be produced somewhere in the Lower 48, so the hardrock target here in NC and the lithium-in-soft clay target in NV are as good, or no worse, of locations to produce it as any others are.

Foy

Foy

 

[AWG_Pics]

Agree the need for lithium is growing. The crucial step will be post production site reclamation and restoration.

 

[Espresso]

This may be controversial, but if you look at the worldwide environmental "footprint" associated with oil, (the drilling, fracking, transporting by ship, rail, pipeline and truck, the refining, distributing, burning, etc.), is a thousand acre open pit mine really that bad of an option?