#lithium mines

[reasonsforhope]

Green energy is in its heyday. 

Renewable energy sources now account for 22% of the nation’s electricity, and solar has skyrocketed eight times over in the last decade. This spring in California, wind, water, and solar power energy sources exceeded expectations, accounting for an average of 61.5 percent of the state's electricity demand across 52 days. 

But green energy has a lithium problem. Lithium batteries control more than 90% of the global grid battery storage market. 

That’s not just cell phones, laptops, electric toothbrushes, and tools. Scooters, e-bikes, hybrids, and electric vehicles all rely on rechargeable lithium batteries to get going. 

Fortunately, this past week, Natron Energy launched its first-ever commercial-scale production of sodium-ion batteries in the U.S. 

“Sodium-ion batteries offer a unique alternative to lithium-ion, with higher power, faster recharge, longer lifecycle and a completely safe and stable chemistry,” said Colin Wessells — Natron Founder and Co-CEO — at the kick-off event in Michigan. 

The new sodium-ion batteries charge and discharge at rates 10 times faster than lithium-ion, with an estimated lifespan of 50,000 cycles.

Wessells said that using sodium as a primary mineral alternative eliminates industry-wide issues of worker negligence, geopolitical disruption, and the “questionable environmental impacts” inextricably linked to lithium mining. 

“The electrification of our economy is dependent on the development and production of new, innovative energy storage solutions,” Wessells said. 

Why are sodium batteries a better alternative to lithium?

The birth and death cycle of lithium is shadowed in environmental destruction. The process of extracting lithium pollutes the water, air, and soil, and when it’s eventually discarded, the flammable batteries are prone to bursting into flames and burning out in landfills. 

There’s also a human cost. Lithium-ion materials like cobalt and nickel are not only harder to source and procure, but their supply chains are also overwhelmingly attributed to hazardous working conditions and child labor law violations. 

Sodium, on the other hand, is estimated to be 1,000 times more abundant in the earth’s crust than lithium. 

“Unlike lithium, sodium can be produced from an abundant material: salt,” engineer Casey Crownhart wrote ​​in the MIT Technology Review. “Because the raw ingredients are cheap and widely available, there’s potential for sodium-ion batteries to be significantly less expensive than their lithium-ion counterparts if more companies start making more of them.”

What will these batteries be used for?

Right now, Natron has its focus set on AI models and data storage centers, which consume hefty amounts of energy. In 2023, the MIT Technology Review reported that one AI model can emit more than 626,00 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent. 

“We expect our battery solutions will be used to power the explosive growth in data centers used for Artificial Intelligence,” said Wendell Brooks, co-CEO of Natron. 

“With the start of commercial-scale production here in Michigan, we are well-positioned to capitalize on the growing demand for efficient, safe, and reliable battery energy storage.”

The fast-charging energy alternative also has limitless potential on a consumer level, and Natron is eying telecommunications and EV fast-charging once it begins servicing AI data storage centers in June. 

On a larger scale, sodium-ion batteries could radically change the manufacturing and production sectors — from housing energy to lower electricity costs in warehouses, to charging backup stations and powering electric vehicles, trucks, forklifts, and so on. 

“I founded Natron because we saw climate change as the defining problem of our time,” Wessells said. “We believe batteries have a role to play.”

-via GoodGoodGood, May 3, 2024

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Note: I wanted to make sure this was legit (scientifically and in general), and I'm happy to report that it really is! x, x, x, x

[quixoticanarchy]

thought too hard about supply chains and resource extraction again. concluded industrialization was a mistake. once youre done reading this we should all throw our devices in a ditch

[youthincare]

Forced evictions, decimated villages, children can't attend school

Apple, Google, Tesla and Microsoft are among firms named in a lawsuit seeking damages over deaths and injuries of child miners in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

DR Congo produces 60% of the world's supply of cobalt.

The mineral is used to produce lithium-ion batteries used to power electric cars, laptops and smartphones.

[allthegeopolitics]

It could be a scene from centuries ago. In the Nevada desert, Native Americans are protesting over a mining project they say desecrates sacred land.  They are riding to Sentinel Mountain, which their ancestors once used as a lookout in times gone by. Here, they say, more than 30 of their people were massacred by US cavalry in 1865. Today, the land is at the heart of America's electric car revolution and Joe Biden's clean energy policy

Continue Reading.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from The Revelator:

The first time I visited Peehee Mu’huh, mining for lithium had already begun.

I was there in the fall of 2023 as part of my work with People of Red Mountain, descendants of the Fort McDermitt Paiute-Shoshone Tribe who lead the movement against extraction on this sacred landscape. We gathered at the valley in northern Nevada, known as Thacker Pass, to commemorate the massacre of 31 Paiute-Shoshone people there by the U.S. Cavalry on Sept. 12, 1865.

To dig up every pound of lithium, the mine will remove thousands of pounds of rock, soil, and other minerals, most of which will not be used and are considered waste.

That’s the secret of mining: It requires significant space to dump its byproducts.

Mine waste is no longer in the forefront for the environmental movement as it was when coal and nuclear power had their heyday, but it remains a key issue activists and scholars should be following. At Thacker Pass the 1,300 acres of wasteland will occupy the space indefinitely. Arsenic, antimony, and other hazards from the refining process to get lithium from the clay will pile up in this backfill pit and leach into the soils, watersheds, and air.

Historically miners have faced minimal oversight. Any individual could venture onto public lands and stake a claim to the minerals they contained — rights to occupy the land were established merely by proving a mineral’s presence and getting there first. Unlike loggers on public land, miners don’t pay any royalties; mine leases on public lands cost as little as $3 dollars per acre.

You might be forgiven for thinking this scenario sounds like something out of the 1800s prospector and ‘49ers era — and in fact, it is. Mining law was last meaningfully legislated under the 1872 General Mining Act.

Just as with the Black Hills gold rush in the Dakota Territory and those in Oregon and California, mine fervor during the gold and silver rushes that white settlers led on the red-colored mountains of Paiute-Shoshone lands in the 1850s-60s was violent and met by Indigenous resistance.

That resistance was crushed. Many noncombatants were killed and others forcibly displaced to Washington; the destruction continued for decades and hasn’t stopped yet.

Today the land base of the Paiute, Shoshone, and Bannock peoples of the area — collectively known as Atsawkoodakuh wyh Nuwu or Red Mountain Dwellers — is permeated by both abandoned and active mines. Gold and tungsten mining waned in the early to mid-1900s, but then companies started extracting uranium and mercury at the McDermitt and Cordero mines across the road from Fort McDermitt. According to Department of the Interior archives, this was the nation’s largest mercury mine from the 1930s to the 1970s. After the Cordero mine closed, crews spread arsenic-contaminated waste from the mine around the town and reservation as a fill dirt. The region was later declared a Superfund site, and the contaminants were removed between 2009 and 2013.

But the toxic waste caused decades of harm in the community before that removal. In a brazen environmental injustice, many Tribal members who worked there perished of cancer. Sunoco and Barrick Gold, the companies that exploited the quicksilver lode, simply “declined” the EPA’s order to clean up the area and escaped culpability.

Now the sacred landscape of Peehee Mu’huh will become the country’s largest lithium bounty.

A new bill before Congress aims to strip away even the baby-steps reform of Rosemont. The Mining Regulatory Clarity Act (HR2925) passed the House in May and awaits Senate approval (S1281). One would assume a bipartisan effort with such a name would offer progress, but the bill guts Rosemont by removing the requirement of claimants to prove minerals before using and dumping waste on public land.

A competing bill, the Green Energy Minerals Reform Act, would introduce requirements such as paying mineral royalties and funding cleanup — basic protections that should have already been in force. Congress held hearings about this proposed legislation in late 2023, but it has not moved forward since.

[not-poignant]

Hi Pia

I hope this question isn't too personal and please don't answer if it is. You have mentioned getting help for your adhd with medication. What medication has helped you or made the biggest difference?

I was diagnosed with adhd a year ago and was put on Elvanse but it hasn't helped and just makes me incredibly anxious and unable to focus.

I'm trying to research what other medication I could try but my doctor isn't being very helpful because according to them "adhd isn't a disability".

I'd love to be able to get some reprieve from this condition, it's destroying my life, so if you're willing to share info on what's helped you it would be hugely appreciated.

Thank you

Hiya anon,

(Medical chat and thoughts under the Read More and as I'm not a doctor and have no idea what I'm doing or talking about, I'm putting the rest under a thingo).

Unfortunately, while meds helped me work a bit better (although you know, I'm burnt out, and I'm writing the least I've written since I started writing, so actually I'm not sure that starting 'too many stories at the same time' is actually 'a bit better' than how it was before), mostly ADHD does run rampant over my life. I can't work conventional work hours, I forget important things, I have massive issues with executive dysfunction, and I zone in and out of conversations more often than I'd like.

I take Vyvanse, which - sounding from what you're taking - is probably the same thing. *googles quickly* Yep, it is.

ADHD meds are hard. It's definitely worth trying different ones, if you can, as well as different dosages (for example, a higher dose of Elvanse might work better for you, a lower dose might). There's also quick acting / fast release ADHD meds. And there's atypical meds like Atomoxetine (also known as Strattera) which some people find really good fortune with.

Finally, if you have no luck with any ADHD meds, it might be important to do a differential diagnosis with other conditions that might mimic ADHD symptoms (of which there are many mental illnesses that do this), because in those cases, you may find that the medication treatments for them help you WAY more.

Recently someone I know who has been on lithium all her life found out she was massively misdiagnosed, and actually had something else. Lithium doesn't suit almost any other condition, except for what she was diagnosed with, which explains why she never improved at all on it and actually got worse. She thought there was something wrong with her, the reality was that there was something wrong with her diagnosis. I'm not saying this is the case with you! BUT, when none of the meds work, and they all give you the opposite of what they're supposed to be doing, it is definitely worth chasing up other diagnoses. If you go to get an ADHD assessment, often those people don't look at the other potential culprits for the same symptoms, esp if they're ADHD specialists. (This is the same for just about any mental health or disorder - sometimes if you get a hammer than can only hit ADHD nails, it's going to miss the other nails.)

But yeah, it's very likely not the case for you anon, but after this other person's experience, I'd feel remiss if I don't point out that if - after a long time of trying / exhausting med options - you find you have no joy, sometimes it's because you're in the wrong 'family' of meds for what you have going on.

(I am not a doctor, just relating anecdotal stuff.)

I don't know if you'll have more luck asking your doc for specific meds. Unfortunately in Australia, ADHD is also not considered a disability, despite the fact that it is clearly disabling for hundreds of thousands of people here. I'm really sorry you're having to deal with those attitudes too, anon.

And finally, no ADHD med is perfect. It might help some things, and hinder others. But it definitely shouldn't be making things worse. It might be worth taking a bit of a holiday from the meds (if your doctor / therapist agrees) and mood tracking for a while before starting back on them, to see how bad of a difference it is.

There are unfortunately not a ton of meds specifically for ADHD. Most are variations of a similar kind of med (stimulants), and everyone has different experiences based off their chemical make-up and what they need. My sister gets really intense emotional blunting on Vyvanse, I get more emotional. We're related, and we still have pretty big differences with med responses on the same meds.

I wish I could be more help! My own life is a complete mess for the most part, I wouldn't say I'm someone who has this all figured out at all. I should be on a higher dose, but unfortunately I have other health stuff going on which means I can't be, so I'm just going to have to put up with a fair amount of disabling ADHD forever.

[starplushies]

lithium burger investigating my onigiri...

[thefreethoughtprojectcom]

According to our guest, Infowars alum David Knight, isolation is a key tactic used by the ruling class during any panic or emergency. He eloquently explains why in our recent podcast.

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/guest-david-knight-lithium-infowars-the-truth-about/id1439014279?i=1000672111218

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2ohjfsA1wwTtzKpeS9YOnd

[reasonsforhope]

"Clothing tags, travel cards, hotel room key cards, parcel labels … a whole host of components in supply chains of everything from cars to clothes. What do they have in common? RFID tags.  

Every RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tag contains a microchip and a tiny metal strip of an antenna. A cool 18bn of these are made – and disposed of – each year. And with demands for product traceability increasing, ironically in part because of concerns for the social and environmental health of the supply chain, that’s set to soar. 

And guess where most of these tags end up? Yup, landfill – adding to the burgeoning volumes of e-waste polluting our soils, rivers and skies. It’s a sorry tale, but it’s one in which two young graduates of Imperial College London and Royal College of Art are putting a great big green twist. Under the name of PulpaTronics, Chloe So and Barna Soma Biro reckon they’ve hit on a beguilingly simple sounding solution: make the tags out of paper. No plastic, no chips, no metal strips. Just paper, pure and … simple … ? Well, not quite, as we shall see. 

The apparent simplicity is achieved by some pretty cutting-edge technical innovation, aimed at stripping away both the metal antennae and the chips. If you can get rid of those, as Biro explains, you solve the e-waste problem at a stroke. But getting rid of things isn’t the typical approach to technical solutions, he adds. “I read a paper in Nature that set out how humans have a bias for solving problems through addition – by adding something new, rather than removing complexity, even if that’s the best approach.”   

And adding stuff to a world already stuffed, as it were, can create more problems than it solves. “So that became one of the guiding principles of PulpaTronics”, he says: stripping things down “to the bare minimum, where they are still functional, but have as low an environmental impact as possible”.  

...how did they achieve this magical simplification? The answer lies in lasers: these turn the paper into a conductive material, Biro explains, printing a pattern on the surface that can be ‘read’ by a scanner, rather like a QR code. It sounds like frontier technology, but it works, and PulpaTronics have patents pending to protect it. 

The resulting tag comes in two forms: in one, there is still a microchip, so that it can be read by existing scanners of the sort common within retailers, for example. The more advanced version does away with the chip altogether. This will need a different kind of scanner, currently in development, which PulpaTronics envisages issuing licences for others to manufacture. 

Crucially, the cost of both versions is significantly cheaper than existing RFID kit – making this a highly viable proposition. Then there are the carbon savings: up to 70% for the chipless version – so a no-brainer from a sustainability viewpoint too. All the same, industry interest was slow to start with but when PulpaTronics won a coveted Dezeen magazine award in late 2023, it snowballed, says So. Big brands such as UPS, DHL, Marks & Spencer and Decathlon came calling. “We were just bombarded.” Brands were fascinated by the innovation, she says, but even more by the price point, “because, like any business, they knew that green products can’t come with a premium”."

-via Positive.News, April 29, 2024

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Note: I know it's still in the very early stages, but this is such a relief to see in the context of the environmental and human rights catastrophes associated with lithium mining and mining for rare earth metals, and the way that EVs and other green infrastructure are massively increasing the demand for those materials.

I'll take a future with paper-based, more humane alternatives for sure! Fingers crossed this keeps developing and develops well (and quickly).

[reasoningdaily]

Children still mining cobalt for gadget batteries in Congo

A CBS News investigation of child labor in cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo has revealed that tens of thousands of children are growing up without a childhood today – two years after a damning Amnesty report about human rights abuses in the cobalt trade was published. The Amnesty report first revealed that cobalt mined by children was ending up in products from prominent tech companies including Apple, Microsoft, Tesla and Samsung. 

There's such sensitivity around cobalt mining in the DRC that a CBS News team traveling there recently was stopped every few hundred feet while moving along dirt roads and seeing children digging for cobalt. From as young as 4 years old, children can pick cobalt out of a pile, and even those too young to work spend much of the day breathing in toxic fumes.

What's life like for kids mining cobalt for our gadgets?

So, what exactly is cobalt, and what are the health risks for those who work in the DRC's cobalt mining industry?

What is cobalt?

Cobalt – a naturally occurring element –  is a critical component in lithium-ion, rechargeable batteries. In recent years, the growing global market for portable electronic devices and rechargeable batteries has fueled demand for its extraction, Amnesty said in its 2016 report. In fact, many top electronic and electric vehicle companies need cobalt to help power their products.

The element is found in other products as well.

"Cobalt-containing products include corrosion and heat-resistant alloys, hard metal (cobalt-tungsten-carbide alloy), magnets, grinding and cutting tools, pigments, paints, colored glass, surgical implants, catalysts, batteries, and cobalt-coated metal (from electroplating)," says the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

More than half of the world's supply of cobalt comes from the DRC, and 20 percent of that is mined by hand, according to Darton Commodities Ltd., a London-based research company that specializes in cobalt.  

Health risks of chronic exposure 

According to the CDC, "chronic exposure to cobalt-containing hard metal (dust or fume) can result in a serious lung disease called 'hard metal lung disease'" – a kind of pneumoconiosis, meaning a lung disease caused by inhaling dust particles. Inhalation of cobalt particles can cause respiratory sensitization, asthma, decreased pulmonary function and shortness of breath, the CDC says.

The health agency says skin contact is also a significant health concern "because dermal exposures to hard metal and cobalt salts can result in significant systemic uptake." 

"Sustained exposures can cause skin sensitization, which may result in eruptions of contact dermatitis," a red, itchy skin rash, the CDC says.

Despite the health risks, researchers with Amnesty International found that most cobalt miners in Congo lack basic protective equipment like face masks, work clothing and gloves. Many of the miners the organization spoke with for its 2016 report – 90 people in total who work, or worked, in the mines – complained of frequent coughing or lung problems. Cobalt mining's dangerous impact on workers and the environment

Some women complained about the physical nature of the work, with one describing hauling 110-pound sacks of cobalt ore. "We all have problems with our lungs, and pain all over our bodies," the woman said, according to Amnesty.

Moreover, miners said unsupported mining tunnels frequently give way, and that accidents are common.  

Miners know their work is dangerous, Todd C. Frankel wrote late last month in The Washington Post. 

"But what's less understood are the environmental health risks posed by the extensive mining," he reported. "Southern Congo holds not only vast deposits of cobalt and copper but also uranium. Scientists have recorded alarming radioactivity levels in some mining regions. Mining waste often pollutes rivers and drinking water. The dust from the pulverized rock is known to cause breathing problems. The mining industry's toxic fallout is only now being studied by researchers, mostly in Lubumbashi, the country's mining capital."

"These job are really desired"

Despite the dangers and risks of working as miners in the cobalt industry, at least of the some miners in the Congo "love their jobs," according to Frankel.

"When I talked to the miners there, none of them want to lose their jobs or give up their jobs. They love their jobs," Frankel said Tuesday, speaking on CBSN. "In a country like Congo, mining is one of the few decently paying jobs to be had there, and so they want to hold onto these jobs."

They also want fair treatment, decent pay, and some safety, "and they would love for their kids to not work in the mines," he said.

"It's a poverty problem," Frankel said. "These parents I talked to – they don't want their kids working in these mines. The problem is that their school fees – schools cost money, and you know, food costs money, and they sort of need their kids to work in there."

Poverty also drives children into the mines instead of school – an estimated 40,000 of them work in brutal conditions starting at very young ages.

The thousands of miners who work in tunnels searching for cobalt in the country "do it because they live in one of the poorest countries in the world, and cobalt is valuable," Frankel wrote in the Washington Post article.

"Not doing enough" 

CBS News spoke with some of the companies that use cobalt in their lithium-ion batteries. All of the companies acknowledged problems with the supply chain, but said they require suppliers to follow responsible sourcing guidelines. Apple, an industry leader in the fight for responsible sourcing, said walking away from the DRC "would do nothing to improve conditions for the people or the environment."

Read company responses here

Amnesty said in November, however, that "major electronics and electric vehicle companies are still not doing enough to stop human rights abuses entering their cobalt supply chains." 

"As demand for rechargeable batteries grows, companies have a responsibility to prove that they are not profiting from the misery of miners working in terrible conditions in the DRC," the organization said. "The energy solutions of the future must not be built on human rights abuses."

An estimated two-thirds of children in the region of the DRC that CBS News visited recently are not in school. They're working in mines instead. 

CBS News' Debora Patta spoke with an 11-year-old boy, Ziki Swaze, who has no idea how to read or write but is an expert in washing cobalt. Every evening, he returns home with a dollar or two to provide for his family.

"I have to go and work there," he told Patta, "because my grandma has a bad leg and she can't."

He said he dreams of going to school, but has always had to work instead.

"I feel very bad because I can see my friends going to school, and I am struggling," he said.

Amnesty says "it is widely recognized internationally that the involvement of children in mining constitutes one of the worst forms of child labour, which governments are required to prohibit and eliminate."

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Chemists invent a more efficient way to extract lithium from mining sites, oil fields, used batteries

Chemists at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have invented a more efficient way to extract lithium from waste liquids leached from mining sites, oil fields, and used batteries. They demonstrated that a common mineral can adsorb at least five times more lithium than can be collected using previously developed adsorbent materials. "It's a low-cost, high-lithium-uptake process," said Parans Paranthaman, an ORNL Corporate Fellow and National Academy of Inventors Fellow with 58 issued patents. He led the proof-of-concept experiment with Jayanthi Kumar, an ORNL materials chemist with expertise in the design, synthesis, and characterization of layered materials. "The key advantage is that it works in a wider pH range of 5 to 11 compared to other direct lithium extraction methods," Paranthaman said. The acid-free extraction process takes place at 140 degrees Celsius, compared to traditional methods that roast mined minerals at 250 degrees Celsius with acid or 800 to 1000 degrees Celsius without acid.

Read more.

[thoughtlessarse]

A government U-turn on a blocked lithium mining project immediately followed by an agreement to supply the EU with critical raw materials has triggered a wave of protest across Serbia Just days before signing a cooperation agreement with the EU on critical raw materials supply, Serbia gave the renewed go-ahead for Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto to develop what could be Europe’s largest lithium reserves — but further delay looks possible as a fresh wave of protests sweeps the country. The Jadar mining project had been on hold since 2022 when Belgrade withdrew approval for a spatial plan for the 250-hectare site amid widespread public opposition. But after a constitutional court ruled the move unlawful earlier this month, the government headed by President Aleksandar Vučić promptly adopted a decree on 16 July allowing the project to restart immediately. Three days later, European Commission Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič inked a "strategic partnership" at a summit in the Serbian capital attended by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, with both of them at pains to stress that environmental standards would be paramount — but this appears not to have assuaged the concerns of local environmental activists.

continue reading

[nuketowncryptid]

@sjweminem and i are officially attached at the hip... the gruesome twosome will never die!!!

[thoughtportal]

The Price of Paperless

Table of Contents

Here Everything is Poison

By J. Malcolm Garcia, Photography by Darren McCollester

Fall 2010

Cold winds carry lead-filled dust from a nearby slagheap, a hundred million tonnes of toxic tailings, and scatter it on clothes hanging from laundry lines, on open buckets of drinking water, on the dirt children play in, and on the feral dogs running down alleys in this former French army barracks housing about 250 displaced Roma men, women, and children.

Editor’s Desk

The Price of the Paperless Revolution

By Ted Genoways

Reporting

Jharia Burning

By Allison Joyce, Photography by Allison Joyce

The Pit

By Nathaniel Miller

Father Copper

By Annie Murphy, Photography by Rodrigo Llano

Mother of God, Child of Zeus

By Jessica Benko, Photography by Bear Guerra

Digging Out

By Elliott D. Woods, Photography by Elliott D. Woods

The Solution: Bolivia’s Lithium Dreams

By Matthew Power, Photography by Fabio Cuttica

Tin Fever

By Delphine Schrank, Photography by Mark Craemer

Here Everything is Poison

By J. Malcolm Garcia, Photography by Darren McCollester

Essays

The Devil’s Tail: Reading From the Lives of Authors

By Robert Boyers

Fiction

Favorite Son

By Jennifer Haigh

The Digger

By Samanta Schweblin, Translated by Daniel Alarcon

Poetry

The Man

By Patrick Phillips

Work-Clothes Quilt

By Patrick Phillips

Tailing Dam of Baotou Steel

By Qin Xiaoyu

The Book of Lost Railroad Photographs

By Amy Beeder

Criticism

The Age of Inequality

By Oscar Villalon

The Activist Novelist

By Jacob Silverman

The Triumph of Capitalism

By Brian Sholis

Multimedia

The Underground Giant: Life in the Hard Rock Mines of Quebec and Ontario

By Louie Palu, Photography by Louie Palu