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?
Wouldn’t this influx of lithium dilute your investments?
Never said I was smart.
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.
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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.
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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.
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I have a bunch in my house
Great news for Americans’ mental health
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 gives me an idea.
- Buy a ton of lithium
- Buy a plot of land with no good use
- Bury a ton of lithium in spots that look like they would be good sample sites
- Wait 5-10 years for nature to erase any previous digging activities
- Find some company to survey the land and then sell the land to someone for a ton of profit
Wasn’t that the basic plot of a Gilligan’s Island episode (except with oil)?
Is it? I haven’t watched all of the Gilligan’s island episodes, I don’t think I have seen more than a couple.
Which episode was it?
There was one where Mr. Howell gives Gilligan some land, then they hear on the radio there is oil there, Howell takes it back, only to find out it was just a buried tanker. Hilarity ensues. That is all I remember. I don’t think I have watched any episodes in about… um, so many years.
There’s I think at least two dollops about guys who did this.
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You forgot the step after the government seizing the land… They sell it for pennies to a mega corporation.
And after the pre plays out, the land is abandoned back to the government, is listed as a superfund site so the government is in the hook to clean up the pollution
But they just erect a fence around it.
There is almost nothing we could do short of apocalyptic nuclear demolition charges in very strategic places that could possibly trigger a supervolcano, and even then I doubt we could do more than create some kind of vent that would reduce the chances of a supervolcano.
This is exactly what somebody would say before they anger a volcano god and get Pompei’d
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.
So goodbye Yellowstone.
Gonna hafta blow it to get all the lithium out.
Hey wait a second this is the plot of Project Wingman
Damn, Nvidia could buy 3.
That’s not how market cap works.
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