TRIBES DO NOT CONSENT TO MEVADA'S 270K MINING CLAIMS
by Takota Iron Eyes, Lakota Law Project
Over the last year, we've been sharing with you insights and updates from the frontlines of the Paiute and Shoshone Peoples' resistance in #Nevada. As many of you know, the fight is on at the massive Thacker Pass lithium mine in the northwestern part of the state. Despite the legitimate need to transition to renewable energy, under the guise of "innovation" and, increasingly, "green technology,"
One would expect that mining technology has improved to minimize extractive projects' negative impacts on the earth, people, and our animal relatives. Unfortunately, this isn't so. The Thacker Pass mine is a perfect illustration: to extract lithium at the open-pit site, the mining company plans to pump the earth full of #SulfuricAcid, a process that leaches #lithium out of clay and stone. Sulfuric acid is highly #toxic to all living beings. ☣︎☢︎⚠︎⚡︎
The simple truth is this: the current narrative pushed by industry and government is that #lithium mining is "green" and that it is justified in the name of innovation.
However, we can't allow innovation to come on the backs of Indigenous Peoples and at the expense of #UnciMaka (Grandmother Earth). "Green" energy is not green if it entails #EnvironmentalInjustice.
I'm not and yes I think #Lithium batteries are also no option.
Granted, there are sufficient #PowerToX technologies that work, regardless if #Hydrogen or even better handleable and much more energy-dense and storeable: #Methanol.
Also #Solarthermal power exists and it's trivial as it uses the economies of scale you get from any thermal powerplant - nuclear or fossil or geothermal.
"Das Auto hier braucht kein Benzin, also auch kein Erdöl. (...) Man kann Strom auch aus Wasserkraft oder der Sonnenenergie gewinnen. Und eines Tages, wenn wir weiter erfinden, dann kriegen wir vielleicht all diese Benzin-Stinker von den Straßen."
Denn in Sachen Energiedichte und Langzeit-Speicherbarkeit rennt Methanol rundem um #Lithium|akkus die an sich schon ein #Umweltverbrechen sind und selbst #LiFePO4 sind nur granular weniger mies...
Gorgeous lepidolite specimen that friends bought from the recent Rocks & Minerals show here.
#Lepidolite is a lilac-gray/rose-colored member of the #mica group of #minerals . It's the most abundant #lithium bearing mineral & al secondary source of this metal. It's a major source of the alkali metal #rubidium too.
Nach Großbrand auf Autofrachter: Bergung der Ladung schwierig
Wie schnell die Fracht an Bord der "Fremantle Highway" geborgen werden kann, bleibt unklar. Der Chef des Bergungsunternehmens sagte, viele der Autos, die das Schiff geladen hat, seien komplett mit den Decks verschmolzen.
THACKER PASS AND THE UGLY TRADITION OF EXTRACTION WITHOUT INDIGENOUS PERMISSION
By Tokata Iron Eyes
Peehee mu'huh (or #ThackerPass, as it’s known in English), a sensitive wilderness area located in what is now called #HumboldtCounty, #Nevada, sits on the ancestral homelands of the #Paiute and #Shoshone peoples. Right now, these lands are threatened by a #lithium mining project being developed by a company called #LithiumNevada, a subsidiary of #LithiumAmericasCorp .
The EV revolution: The road ahead for critical raw materials demand.
There is a myth perpetrated by the car industry that #EV (electric vehicles) are a part of the global pollution solution. This isn't true. The lay person is being fed a heap of marketing and feel good propaganda by the industry. Academic research on the topic is revealing what may be insurmountable obstacles to a clean energy future. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261920305845 #Batteries#Lithium#PublicTransport
Energy-storing supercapacitor from #cement, water, black carbon
Date: July 31, 2023
Source: MIT
Summary:
Engineers have created a 'supercapacitor' made of ancient, abundant materials, that can store large amounts of energy. Made of just cement, water, and carbon black (which resembles powdered charcoal), the device could form the basis for inexpensive systems that store intermittently #renewable energy, such as #solar or #wind energy.
"'The material is fascinating,' Masic says, 'because you have the most-used human-made material in the world, cement, that is combined with carbon black, that is a well-known historical material -- the Dead Sea Scrolls were written with it. You have these at least two-millennia-old materials that when you combine them in a specific manner you come up with a conductive nanocomposite, and that's when things get really interesting.'
"As the mixture sets and cures, he says, 'The water is systematically consumed through cement hydration reactions, and this hydration fundamentally affects nanoparticles of carbon because they are hydrophobic (water repelling).' As the mixture evolves, 'the carbon black is self-assembling into a connected conductive wire,' he says. The process is easily reproducible, with materials that are inexpensive and readily available anywhere in the world. And the amount of carbon needed is very small -- as little as 3 percent by volume of the mix -- to achieve a percolated carbon network, Masic says.
"Supercapacitors made of this material have great potential to aid in the world's transition to renewable energy, Ulm says. The principal sources of emissions-free energy, wind, solar, and #tidal power, all produce their output at variable times that often do not correspond to the peaks in electricity usage, so ways of storing that power are essential. 'There is a huge need for big energy storage,' he says, and existing batteries are too expensive and mostly rely on materials such as #lithium, whose supply is limited, so cheaper alternatives are badly needed. 'That's where our technology is extremely promising, because cement is ubiquitous,' Ulm says.
"The team calculated that a block of nanocarbon-black-doped concrete that is 45 cubic meters (or yards) in size -- equivalent to a cube about 3.5 meters across -- would have enough capacity to store about 10 kilowatt-hours of energy, which is considered the average daily electricity usage for a household. Since the concrete would retain its strength, a house with a foundation made of this material could store a day's worth of energy produced by solar panels or windmills and allow it to be used whenever it's needed. And, supercapacitors can be charged and discharged much more rapidly than batteries.
"There is a tradeoff between the storage capacity of the material and its structural strength, they found. By adding more carbon black, the resulting supercapacitor can store more energy, but the concrete is slightly weaker, and this could be useful for applications where the concrete is not playing a structural role or where the full strength-potential of concrete is not required. For applications such as a foundation, or structural elements of the base of a wind turbine, the 'sweet spot' is around 10 percent carbon black in the mix, they found.
"Another potential application for carbon-cement supercapacitors is for building concrete roadways that could store energy produced by solar panels alongside the road and then deliver that energy to electric vehicles traveling along the road using the same kind of technology used for wirelessly rechargeable phones. A related type of car-recharging system is already being developed by companies in Germany and the Netherlands, but using standard batteries for storage.
"Initial uses of the technology might be for isolated homes or buildings or shelters far from grid power, which could be powered by solar panels attached to the cement supercapacitors, the researchers say."
The UK is building Europe’s first and largest lithium refinery to produce the much-sought-after material.
Demand for the ore metal has skyrocketed in recent years as the world doubles down on the transition to renewables. Lithium is a key component in the manufacturing of electric vehicle (EV) batteries.
As well as providing batteries for the rising numbers of EVs, the plant expects to cut lithium’s current carbon footprint by 80%.
Can someone explain how it makes sense that an #Opel#eVivaro / #Citroen#eJumpy Crew Cab #EV van (3 second rate seats in the rear) is more expensive, even with fewer features, than the equivalent #Zafira minibus / people carrier with lots of bells and whistles?
Not sure if that’s the case elsewhere, but certainly it is in Finland. It feels like the van versions are 10K more expensive than they should be.
@takeitev You need a source to know that Exxon Mobile is investing in #lithium? You can easily google this.
And the sheer absurdity of all of the conspiracies that need to exist in order to rationalize the BEV monoculture... It is the strongest argument against it. BEV fanatics will be remember as being part of a cult in due time.
Still looking for a good hashtag to file all these #LimitedResources stories under. It's the problem that is just mostly ignored via magical thinking. "The entire fleet needs to be #EVs" is met with hurrahs. Very few people realize what that means in terms of #resource#extraction, the hard limits on #lithium or #RareEarth reserves or refining capacity or GeoPolitics.
We can't consume our way out of something that is an #OverConsumption problem at its core.
@pezmico Also in terms of total CO² emissions and envoirmental impact both the current electrical mix [in Germany] and the production of #Lithium-#Cobalt#Batteries are potentially even far worse unless they last >250.000km.
Also there are no cheap electric cars for the same reason.
@theconversationau Great to see ‘Dutch Disease' return to the public vernacular. Manufacturing #Batteries in Australia represents a bridge too far at the moment, but we should certainly be investing in battery chemical plants. Shipping battery grade chemicals also has a much lower footprint that shipping #lithium ore (spodumene).
Of the 80 million acres of US corn, 45% of it is "fed" to ICE engines, so grossly inefficient that 2/3 of it gets wasted as heat.
"we sacrifice 36 million acres of prime farmland" to feed a fossil fuel addiction.
"Think about it: 2/3 of that good farm land is wasted. 2/3 of the water to irrigate the corn, thrown away. 2/3 of the fertiliser & the attendant runoff: for nothing. 2/3 of the fossil fuels burned for energy to work the land & process the ethanol: wasted"