r/technology • u/ourlifeintoronto • Sep 10 '23

Transportation Lithium discovery in US volcano could be biggest deposit ever found

https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/lithium-discovery-in-us-volcano-could-be-biggest-deposit-ever-found/4018032.article
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u/El_Chairman_Dennis Sep 11 '23

The main supplier of lithium for the US is China. The US military will figure out a way to mine this, even if it involves starting the mine on the opposite side of the globe and digging all the way through the earth

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u/rshorning Sep 11 '23

There are plenty of other potential sources of Lithium for the USA. The only reason why China is a major supplier is simply because the People's Republic insists upon subsidizing their domestic mining operations and they sell the refined metals at prices and at sufficient quantities to undercut the prices from most other places.

As to if that makes sense in the long run to ordinary Chinese people who will need to deal with environmental damage to their country for decades and centuries to come including the toxic waste produced as a byproduct of the mining and refining processes is something to question, but hey...that isn't our problem right now and only future Chinese people will need to worry about that. And of course pollution from China doesn't leave its borders impacting anybody else in the world?

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u/DoorHingesKill Sep 11 '23

Damn, I don't wanna know what Australia looks like considering they're producing three times as much as China.

From prison Island to toxic wasteland, these people down there really are all out of luck.

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u/khoabear Sep 11 '23

It's not a problem for Australia because they have a huge desert between their mine and their big cities.

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u/quintus_horatius Sep 11 '23

I hear you saying that they've been towed outside of the environment

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u/[deleted] Sep 11 '23

Also see: Australian asbestos mines

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u/RHGrey Sep 11 '23

Most of Australia is already a toxic wasteland hell bent on killing you so eeeh

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u/onebadmouse Sep 11 '23

List of Countries/Regions by particulate matter (PM2.5) in µg/m³ (lower is better)

Australia scores 4.2, which places it in the top 10 countries in the world with the best air quality.

For comparison, the US scores 8.9, which means it has more than double the average number of particulates.

America air is twice as polluted as Australian air.

source: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/List_of_countries_by_air_pollution

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u/NimbleNibbler Sep 11 '23

Australia actually mines the most lithium of any country, but then it mostly goes through china anyways because they do most of the refining.

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u/Langsamkoenig Sep 11 '23

Yeah, nearly all lithium is mined in Australia and Chile. China just refined it. That could be done just as well in any other country. The west just was asleep at the wheel.

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u/Firewolf06 Sep 11 '23

to be fair we bought titanium from the ussr to build the a-12/sr-71 to spy on the ussr

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u/DoorHingesKill Sep 11 '23

The military? What does the US military have to do with mining a mineral needed to manufacture batteries lmao.

Are you confusing this with a resource you need for semiconductors?

Well either way the military is not equipped for large scale mining operations.

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u/rshorning Sep 11 '23

It is a "green tech resource". There are several elements that are held in strategic reserves and developed for the potential that if a war happens that sufficient resources can be found.

That started in WWI and has continued since.

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u/Langsamkoenig Sep 11 '23

That's because nearly 100% of lithium refining is in China. China doesn't mine much lithium at all. Most lithium is mined in Chile and Australia. Giving China all the world's refining capacity was a choice by the west, not born out of necessity.

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u/Hungry-Western9191 Sep 11 '23

China sells it cheaply so that's why the US buys from them. They are the worlds 3rd largest producer but their production is dwarfed by Australia and Chile which produce 5 times their output.

There is zero strategic risk because of this.