“So many of us in the environmental movement understand taking a mountain top off for coal is bad. Well, taking a mountain apart for lithium is bad, as well.” — Will Falk
KTVN interviewed campers at Thacker Pass Blockade. Here is the story that aired:
Activists Camp At Thacker Pass To Prevent Lithium Mine From Opening
“So many of us in the environmental movement understand taking a mountain top off for coal is bad,” Falk said. “Well, taking a mountain apart for lithium is bad, as well.”
Indeed it is. Why is one perceived as “bad” and the other now perceived by most as “good”? Because of relentless “green” propaganda from corporations and the media they’ve captured. Because mining companies see the writing on the wall for fossil fuels and so are now shifting their profit hopes and dreams into false solutions like lithium.
The story also quotes an executive from Lithium Nevada, a subsidiary of Lithium Americas. He says: “They’re protesting the expansion of electric vehicles and lithium batteries for home energy storage. Those are two things that will profoundly bring down the country’s carbon footprint.”
Unfortunately the news organization doesn’t question the truth of this statement. As we know, the lithium mine will require massive amounts of fossil fuels to blast and dig up the lithium, and process it.
Later this same executive says: “We also know that every major car manufacturer is moving towards complete EV, electric vehicle production. That demand curve is expected to triple or more by 2025. That’s just around the corner.”
But we know that producing electric vehicles, like all cars, requires massive amounts of fossil fuels, not just for mining and producing the materials that go into the cars and batteries themselves, but also the roads the cars drive on and the lifestyles those cars enable.
No, EVs and lithium batteries will NOT bring down the country’s carbon footprint. It’s far more likely they will expand the country’s carbon footprint manyfold. For details on what it takes to mine and refine the materials that go into cars and batteries, as well as roads and the damage that roads do to ecosystems and life, please read Max’s new book Bright Green Lies.
400 feet is the length of a football field plus 100 feet deep. And the hole would cover two and a half miles by one half mile. Which is 10 lapse around that football field by two lapse around. That’s huge!
Lithium is most common in groundwater and hard rock. Thacker Pass is unique because it is concentrated in the clay near the earth’s surface so it WILL NOT REQUIRE MUCH BLASTING.
“It stayed intact and it stayed shallow, so we’re not going mine very deeply,” Crowley said. “At most, 400 feet.” 4 0 0 F*ing FEET
“Only” 400 feet. Of course, whether it’s 1 foot or 400 feet doesn’t matter for the soil. The soil is gone. Blasted. Meaning life is gone.
“Only” 400 feet also ignores that the deepest part of the mine will go lower than the groundwater in Thacker Pass, which means that they will need to constantly pump water out of the mining pit to prevent toxic contamination of the groundwater. If those pumps fail, or once the mine is done, the groundwater will be contaminated. I can’t imagine how the groundwater will NOT end up being contaminated.
“Only” 400 feet is the height of about 70 adults.
“Only” 400 feet also obscures the fact that the mine pit will be 2.5 miles wide and .5 miles long. That’s huge. It will be one of the largest mining projects in the United States if it is built.