There’s enough lithium in one year of U.S. mine waste to power 10 million electric vehicles.
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Each weekday, catch up on the 5 most pressing stories to start your morning in 3 minutes or less.The United States is home to dozens of active mines. Some extract copper, while others dig for iron. Whatever the resource, however, it usually makes up a small fraction of the rock pulled from the ground. The rest is typically ignored. Wasted., a professor of mining engineering at the Colorado School of Mines. “The question is: What else is in those rocks?”, Holley and her colleagues aimed to quantify what else is in those rocks. They found that, across 70 critical elements at 54 active mines, the potential for recovery is enormous. There is enough lithium in one year of U.S. mine waste, for example, to power 10 million electric vehicles. For manganese, it’s enough for 99 million. Those figures far surpass both U.S. import levels of those elements and current demand for them.Lyle Menendez has been denied parole just like his brother Erik. Here's where things stand Critical minerals are essential to the production of lithium-ion batteries, solar panels, and other low- or zero-carbon technologies powering the clean energy transition. Where the U.S. gets those minerals has long been a politically fraught topic. The vast majority of lithium comes from Australia, Chile, and China, for example, while cobalt predominantly comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. While securing a domestic supply of rare or critical materials has been a U.S. policy goal for decades, the push has intensified in recent years. Former president Joe Biden’s landmark climate legislation, the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, included incentives for domestic critical mineral production, and this year, President Donald Trump signed an “Our national and economic security are now acutely threatened by our reliance upon hostile foreign powers’ mineral production,” the order read. “It is imperative for our national security that the United States take immediate action to facilitate domestic mineral production to the maximum possible extent.”Holley’s research indicates that increased domestic byproduct recovery could address this instability. Even a 1 percent recovery rate, it found, would “substantially reduce” import reliance for most elements. Recovering 4 percent of lithium would completely offset current imports. “We could focus on mines that are already corporate and simply add additional circuits to their process,” said Holley. “It would be a really quick way of bringing a needed mineral into production.”This latest research is “very valuable,” said Hamidreza Samouei, a professor of petroleum engineering at Texas A&M University who wasn’t involved in the study. He sees it as a great starting point for a multipronged approach to tackling the byproduct problem and moving toward a zero-waste system. Other areas that will need attention, he said, include looking beyond discarded rock to the “huge” amounts of water that a mine uses. He also believes that the government should play a more aggressive policy and regulatory role in pushing for critical mineral recovery.$400 million stake in the operator of the country’s only rare-earth metal mine. At the same time, Congress recently repealed large chunks of the Inflation Reduction Act, which would have driven demand for critical minerals, and has slashed federal funding to the The general thrust of the Science study is “not new,” said Isabel Barton, a professor of geological engineering at the University of Arizona. “It is a very hot topic in mining these days.” The attention is contributing to a burgeoning shift in thinking, from an intense focus on the target mineral to consideration of what else could be produced, including critical minerals. “There are some that are probably relatively simple. There are others that are heinously difficult to get to,” said Barton, and whether a mineral is recovered will ultimately come down to cost. “Mining companies are there to make a profit.” Figuring out the most economically viable way forward is exactly the next step Holley hopes this research will inform. Byproduct potential varies considerably by mine, and the analysis, she said, can help pinpoint where to potentially find which minerals. For instance, the Red Dog mine in Alaska appears to have the largest germanium potential in the country, while nickel could be found at the Stillwater and East Boulder mines in Montana. “The funding on critical minerals has been a little bit of a scattershot,” she said. “Our paper allows the development of a strategy.” Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more atAs Editor-in-Chief of our newsroom, I’m extremely proud of the work our top-notch journalists are doing here at LAist. We’re doing more hard-hitting watchdog journalism than ever before — powerful reporting on the economy, elections, climate and the homelessness crisis that is making a difference in your lives. At the same time, it’s never been more difficult to maintain a paywall-free, independent news source that informs, inspires, and engages everyone. Simply put, we cannot do this essential work without your help. Federal funding for public media has been clawed back by Congress and that means LAist has lost $3.4 million in federal funding over the next two years. So we’re asking for your help. LAist has been there for you and we’re asking you to be here for us. We rely on donations from readers like you to stay independent, which keeps our nonprofit newsroom strong and accountable to you. No matter where you stand on the political spectrum, press freedom is at the core of keeping our nation free and fair. And as the landscape of free press changes, LAist will remain a voice you know and trust, but the amount of reader support we receive will help determine how strong of a newsroom we are going forward to cover the important news from our community. Please take action today to support your trusted source for local news with a donation that makes sense for your budget.The decision follows a years-long effort to free Erik and his brother Lyle who are both serving life sentences for the 1989 shotgun slayings of their parents. Lyle Menendez has his hearing Friday.Unite Here Local 11 is already fighting for a $30 minimum wage. Now it's asking Olympics organizers to give $5 billion to new housing and ditch Airbnb.LA moves forward with plan to allow fewer stairs in many apartment buildings Some City Council members had questions about fire safety but agreed to draft new rules on single staircases to space for apartments in mid-sized buildings.There’s a ‘lake’ of oil under LA’s soon-to-close refinery. Who’s going to clean it up?LA City Council narrowly votes to oppose state bill allowing more housing near public transit A slim majority said Senate Bill 79 would take away the city’s control over housing growth. Other council members said the city is failing to confront the crisis.Critics say the cash-strapped system misspent millions of dollars getting upgraded accounts for all students. CSU leaders insist they're needed to meet a changing economy.Which schools get to have crossing guards? Here’s how LA is changing the system LA’s legal cannabis owners say multi-million dollar program to give them a hand up, instead left ‘complete debt and devastation’
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