Lithium and Green Energy

I saw an article this morning about a lithium prospect in the Alvord desert of southeastern Oregon. The company that was exploring for the metal — used in batteries for electric vehicles, consumer electronics, and energy storage — has dropped their plans after discovering that the area was closed to mineral entry several years ago. Although a financial setback for the company (not to mention the loss of a potential source of lithium for the hungry global market), the move was cheered by many.

This is a tough one!

On one hand, very few of us want a producing mine anywhere close to where we live, work, or play. Since this pretty much covers nearly all of the United States, it would seem that any sort of exploration or mining would be frowned upon, and many would celebrate the disruption or termination of any project that could disturb the natural environment. We see this time and again as any venture that could lead to a surface impact is routinely challenged by organized (and often well-funded) groups.

On the other hand, I would imagine that nearly all of us have at least one electronic device that contains a lithium-ion battery. Probably several devices — it’s just about impossible to make any sort of re-chargeable battery-powered device that doesn’t rely on lithium to store the amps and volts. (I’ve been around long enough to remember the primitive Ni-Cad batteries of the 70s and how unreliable they were. I could go on and on…)

So it would seem like we need to mine lithium somewhere… just not in the United States where we can see it, hear it, and/or smell it.

And why should we? Lithium — and most everything else we need or want — is still readily available from foreign sources. This would seem to be a pretty good deal, at least for America: we get what we need, usually at a lower cost (few countries have the same environmental regulations and pay scales that we do), and we get it without having to muck up our landscape. Let the other nations rape and pillage their environment all they want — I can’t see the scars from my house (and did I mention that we get the metals at a lower price point anyway?).

But… consider the following:

If you truly love and respect the earth, it would seem that the environmental degradation that we so fervently want to hide offshore is just as disrespectful to the planet as a lithium mine in Oregon would be. If not more so! Few other countries have the same environmental safeguards that we have — when the mine is exhausted they generally just walk away. How rude!

But we don’t do that here. We may have in the past — and we’ve all seen and denounced the scars left from mines developed and abandoned in years gone by — but now we require stringent exploration, mining, and reclamation plans for nearly everything that impacts the surface; be it mining, logging, agriculture, or anything that requires water… which includes essentially everything.

Personally, I think that this is all for the good — nearly fifty years as an exploration field geologist have forced me to get “up close and personal” with far too many of these gaping wounds. I wish that all companies and nations would show the same respect for the surface as America does now, no matter how belated that respect may be.

But that isn’t gonna happen anytime soon!

So, if you truly love the earth (but accept the reality that humans need to get natural resources from somewhere), it could be argued that we want as many producing mines as possible in the United States. Along with paying our workers a living wage and helping us balance our ballooning foreign trade deficit, at the least we will do exploration and mining the right way, and clean up our mess when we’re done.

Sounds grand, but all of this costs money — lots and lots of money — so if you want to lessen the long-term impacts of mining and obtain the resources we need from domestic sources, the end products are gonna cost more — possibly a lot more.

You can probably say goodbye to a free cell phone with a two-year plan…

So it comes down to this: Do you love the earth and want to protect it, or just the part of the earth that you can see from your house?

Sorry. It may sound callous but like I said at the top, this is a tough one. No matter what, the younger generation has some critical decisions — and trade-offs — to make as they take control in the N-T-D future.

Hopefully they will do a better job of finding an equitable balance than past generations.