Lithium Deposit Valued At $1.5 Trillion Discovered In Oregon

Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from Earth.com: McDermitt Caldera in Oregon is attracting attention for what could be one of the largest lithium deposits ever identified in the United States. Many view it as a potential boost for domestic battery production, while local communities voice concern over the impact on wildlife and cultural sites. The excitement stems from estimates that value the deposit at about $1.5 trillion. Some geologists say these ancient volcanic sediments could contain between 20 and 40 million metric tons of lithium. The study is published in the journal Minerals.

saving the trees

[jabberjaw0]

Looks like in order to save the trees, the forests of oregon need to be strip mined

Forest?

[Gravis Zero]

Umm... the McDermitt Caldera is desert terrain as it's near the border with Nevada.

Re:

[jabberjaw0]

hm...yea...well, in my defense i went to oregon once 30+ years ago, from the eastern border to the pacific ocean and all i saw was trees.

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[Gravis Zero]

So you admit to being an ignoramus that posts without checking your own claims?

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[NotEmmanuelGoldstein]

... without checking ...

It's difficult to believe you've never made a similar assumption. He did check: His own hands-on experience said Oregon landscape was complete forest. At least, it's better than "some 'expert' on Fox News told me." Yes, he should have sought more details instead of assuming his own experience was relevant. (A failure, most of us have suffered.)

Plausibly so what

[locater16]

The amount of lithium available in a given deposit is much less important than how cheaply accessible the lithium is. Costly lithium isn't worth much right now, we've about as much lithium as nickel in the earth's crust, and we mined 3.5 million tonnes of nickel last year vs only 180,000 tonnes of lithium. I.E. we could expand production by 20x before starting to worry about one day some of this maybe getting more expensive like we are with nickel as we contemplate mining the sea floor for it. But until then the name of the game is the cheapest lithium first, so in the immediate future it only matters how cheap, or expensive, this deposit is to extract

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[Anonymous Coward]

LOL nickel is so cheap nickel mines are mothballed as they're uneconomical at these price levels.

A local source

[tudza]

Does this mean we won't have to invade Greenland now? Won't have to ship rare earth minerals through the American Canal? "Screw the trees. We want our trillion dollars!" - Head government officials

Re:A local source

[shilly]

Does this administration think it needs lots of Li, in the first place? It sure doesn’t want EVs to take off, so what’s the point? 87% of Li use is for batteries, and 80% of that is EVs.

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[hcs_$reboot]

so what’s the point?

Resell it?

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[shilly]

I’m not opposing anything, I’m pointing out the obvious contrast between finding large Li deposits and the administration’s push to crater demand for Li for EVs.

Re:A local source

[LordHighExecutioner]

Lots of Li is needed, but not for EVs, and not only for US administration. Li is used for stabilizing mood [wikipedia.org], and given the increasing madness among world leaders, I wonder if Oregon deposits will suffice.

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[shilly]

Ha!

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[Gravis Zero]

"Screw the trees. We want our trillion dollars!" - Head government officials

I was going to correct you by pointing out that it's a desert area but I think the comment accurately reflects the acumen of the current batch of government officials.

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[Mr. Dollar Ton]

Does this mean we won't have to invade Greenland now?

No. The "minerals" are only a part of the deal.

Greenland is needed as lebensraum, the dumber among rich and powerful plan to resettle there as the world is heated up by the "woke global warming hoax".

So the war is inevitable.

In related news ...

[fahrbot-bot]

... while local communities voice concern over the impact on wildlife and cultural sites.

Predicting the federal government won't care about that for another 3.75 years ...

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[hcs_$reboot]

Actually, 3.6988 years. Decimals matter here.

Extraction cost?

[backslashdot]

What's the extraction cost? The number is useless without that. Seawater contains $20 trillion worth of gold (1 gram in 100 million tons of seawater), but it costs many times that amount to extract.
.

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[Tailhook]

What's the extraction cost?

Infinite. This lithium deposit in the environment. There are plenty of lithium deposits outside the environment, so we don't need to permit mining of this for the foreseeable future.

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[Entrope]

plenty of lithium deposits outside the environment

Obligatory:

[Interviewer:] So what do you do to protect the environment in cases like this?
[Senator Collins:] Well, the ship was towed outside the environment.

[Interviewer:] Into another environment....
[Senator Collins:] No, no, no. it's been towed beyond the environment, it's not in the environment

[Interviewer:] Yeah, but from one environment to another environment.
[Senator Collins:] No, it's beyond the environment, it's not in an environment. It has been towed beyond the environment.

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[Canberra1]

Under Trump II, there is a new streamlined approval process that over-rides all. Pure snow mountain water runoff into the cleanest rivers - who cares. On extraction costs, South America will beat it hands down. Now if USA has a huge tariff on batteries, and GM, Ford, Toyota and more move out - demand and sheer project risk makes it unviable without taxpayer handouts. So saved, unless someone decides a nuclear power plant to replace Canada's electricity becomes a thought-bubble. However if an Aluminum plant

Great!

[Barny]

Now all you need to do is pay people below living wage to mine it and contaminate the local landscape with the tailings. Then you can make the big bucks!

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[mrbester]

Hidden stage on The Oregon Trail: You died due to lithium miners demanding a fair wage rising up and attacking your campsite. Also dysentery.

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[cascadingstylesheet]

Now all you need to do is pay people below living wage to mine it and contaminate the local landscape with the tailings. Then you can make the big bucks!

I know, right? That stuff should be outsourced to dusky foreigners, like nature intended! Sheesh!

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[Tailhook]

Or find some excuse to oppose mining in that place and/or for that mineral?

Of course. Sierra Club, Aspen Institute, and all the other pressure groups are — like all pressure groups — single minded. There is no commercial/economic activity they support. None. And there never will be.

Fortunately, that's not actually a problem. Such pressure groups are a natural and inevitable consequence of a free society, and they are free to adopt whatever irrational polices they wish. The problem is, nearly our entire ruling class lives in abject fear of any blemish on their S

Lithium

[OrangAsm]

I thought Nirvana was from Seattle.