Buried beneath an ancient volcanic crater on the Nevada Oregon border sits an enormous deposit of lithium rich clay. Scientists now think this quiet landscape may hold enough lithium to influence the global battery market for decades.
A new study argues that McDermitt caldera may host about 20 to 40 million metric tons of lithium, likely the largest deposit yet identified.
Using the recent United States’ average contract price for lithium carbonate, about 37,000 dollars per ton, that estimate comes out to be nearly $1.5 trillion.
Can’t wait to see them fuck this one up.
Every state is eyeballing if their current drilling infrastructure can reach it.
Hope not. Been low key investing in LAC for awhile.
You’ve been investing in the LA Clippers?
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Likely. Claiming to have resources is a new “get rich quick” scam meant to drive investments in one direction or another. Russia just claimed to have found a bajillion kajillion barrels of oil under antarctica, which is soooo convenient that they find it in an area with international claim and where it’s really, really hard to verify 🙄
Sure, go digging around the supervolcano, that can only end well …
The volcano now is about 400 miles away, in Yellowstone, so there shouldn’t be a problem with that. And no, the volcano did not move, the continent did.
I’ve played so many mining video games just give me an industrialized mega sized 3d printer, couple million dollars and I’ll be set for life with that mine untouched.
Well there goes the US’s chances of being a player in the sodium ion battery race. Our gov won’t support technological advancement while some rich fuck can milk an extant cash cow.
I mean we’ll still need lithium to transportation for its energy:weight properties but still. Hopefully this turns out to be a good thing.
Any bets on whether Musk or an oil company is gonna get the first subsidies to start a mine there?
Sorry for being a downer. I’ve been in a mood this year.
Great news for Americans’ mental health
Anyone who lived through the 90s knows that natural disaster movies were as prolific as super hero movies have been for the last 20 years… and Pierce Brosnan is too old to save us from another volcano
Linda Hamilton was kick-ass in the latest Terminator movie. I bet she can still get shit done.
Hey wait a second this is the plot of Project Wingman
So goodbye Yellowstone.
Gonna hafta blow it to get all the lithium out.
I have been to McDermitt a few times… It’s a very interesting place for amateur geologists bc of the abundance of different gemstones.
It is a beautiful desert biome as well.
Not for long. Capitalists about to do more stripping in that caldera than your mom does on Tuesday nights down at the Beaver Barn.
Apparently the lithium is very shallow and so I hope this means that we wouldn’t cause an active super volcano. They are worried about changes to the landscape but what about pollution? I guess that depends on where they process the lithium. Also why would anyone think they have claim to the deposit when the government wants it?
This is a super hero origin story in the making. Or villain. I’m going with villain.
Or the origins of the lost mines of Moria.
“There are older and fouler things than Orcs in the deep places of the world.”
–Gandalf the Grey
