May 14, 2021
The sky was blue and I was driving a rural stretch of tarmac called Kings River Road, searching for the site of perhaps the nation’s next big environmental showdown.
A mammoth open-pit mine is slated to be carved out of an arid sweep of land at a place called Thacker Pass, that splits northern Nevada’s Montana and Double H Mountain ranges, just south of the Oregon border.
This time, Wall Street isn’t looking to extract gold or silver but another kind of mineral that complicates the battle lines and muddies the political talking points.
Lithium.
The element is a vital component of the batteries that power electric cars. And there’s not enough of it to meet demand, forcing the auto industry to import lithium from countries like China.
Now the federal government has given a Canadian-owned company the rights to lease federal land and blow up another piece of the American West on its grail toward profits.
Call it the little-known underbelly of the battle to make America Green.
Read the rest at John’s Blog
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