Cobalt, EVs and Unicorns

My apologies in advance for not extracting the pertinent information from the many links in this post. Blame it on Latter Day Luddite computer skills.

Electric vehicles are the coming thing according to the (P)regressives and evironazis.  Not so fast Bucky. Buried in Xiben’s master plan is a smoke and mirrors “tax Incentive”. Those vehicles require batteries of which 40% must include minerals sourced in the USA. Those quantities don’t exist!

https://www.eenews.net/articles/climate-bill-would-create-roadblock-for-full-ev-tax-credit/

Key point. The climate deal struck yesterday by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Joe Manchin would significantly expand consumer tax credits for electric vehicles by offering a $7,500 tax credit to people buying an EV made with a certain percentage of minerals mined or processed in nations with U.S. free trade agreements, or recycled in North America.

But there’s a catch: The EV supply chain required for the tax credit doesn’t exist.

Minerals required to make market-ready EV batteries — lithium, cobalt, graphite and nickel — are primarily mined, refined and processed in China and Russia or in less adversarial nations like the Democratic Republic of Congo and Indonesia that aren’t parties to U.S. free trade agreements (Greenwire, Feb. 24).

Should your stomach tolerate it, here is the official White House bill of goods.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/09/14/fact-sheet-president-bidens-economic-plan-drives-americas-electric-vehicle-manufacturing-boom

One of several key materials needed for the batteries is cobalt. While batteries can be made without cobalt, they then operate at higher temperatures which decreases efficiency (and increase the risk of fires).

Go EV and support child slavery.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcJ8me22NVs&ab_channel=SkyNews

Develop our own sources? Not that easy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXEjBXp0lPY&ab_channel=ABCNews

Another metal needed is lithium. We have a potential domestic source. From an older blog.

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/5926528617816553064/2737377660155309278

Why would we want to exploit this source? The existing infrastructure (highways, railroad) are nearby. A skilled labor pool of experienced workers doing similar work is in place. The raw materials needed for the extraction process is nearby in large quantities from mining operations operating for decades.

To answer my own question, too many rice bowls will be broken and the owners of those bowls wield vast influence.

Enter now a key player, the Environment Protection Agency. While some estimates place the number of lawyers in the agency at 1,000, the agency officially acknowledges 185. How many mining engineers?  One clue is a letter from 2015 in response to the Gold King Mine mitigation disaster.

https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2015-12/documents/gkmaddendumattachment3.pdf

This is our reality. The regulatory oversight is so burdensome ten years is the expected time for securing all the required sign offs. Large sums must be invested by the private sector with payback measured in decades. At anytime the political winds may change and the projects halted.

“If you build it, they will come” might work for baseball. That is no guarantee for anything else. My take is the environazis pushing this agenda believe, if there is no other choice, people will make it happen. Personally, I can envision other outcomes.

As many other bloggers have pointed out, the generating capacity needed to charge all those batteries doesn’t exist and will take decades to create. Even if enough electricity is available to individual house (people will want to charge overnight) those homes were never wired to handle the amperes need. How many people will sit for an hour at some charging station? There are many charging stations I drive by and I seldom see any in use.

As always, YMMV

Ash to Cash

A WSF rant concludes this post. You have been warned!

What may become a new job source for Wyoming, and a blow to China’s economy, was recently announced.

eetwaternow.com/rare-earth-elements-project-in-wyoming-receives-federal-funding/

The project sounds like results may be years out, but it is a start. For sure, this project wouldn’t happen under a Democrat Administration. Wyoming is the largest coal producer in the USA.

Lithium.

80% that we use is imported, mainly from South America.

This extracted from Lithium today.

Rock Springs deposits (Wyoming)

The latest Lithium development in US comes from researchers at the University of Wyoming. They’ve found lithium in Rock Springs Uplift, a geological feature in southwest Wyoming. Data so far suggests that brines from a 25-square-mile area could contain 228,000 tons of lithium. That’s enough to meet annual U.S. demand.

Production of lithium from brines requires soda ash (sodium carbonate), and importation of soda ash to lithium production facilities often represents a large expense. However, the Rock Springs Uplift CO2 storage site is located within 20 to 30 miles of the world’s largest industrial soda ash supplies, so the costs of soda ash delivery (by rail, truck or pipeline) would be minimal.

Magnesium must be also removed from brines before they can be used for lithium recovery, which makes the entire lithium recovery process more expensive. Fortunately, the brines from the Rock Springs Uplift reservoirs contain much less magnesium than brines at existing, currently profitable lithium mining operations.

As a last step brines must be heated and pressurized before lithium can be extracted from them. However, because the Rock Springs Uplift brines lie so far underground, they are already at a higher pressure and temperature than brines at existing lithium operations. This would allow operators to essentially eliminate this step in the process, resulting in significant cost savings.

When I let my conspiracy theories run amok, I speculate much of the earth hugger activity is funded by foreign interests focused on two separate goals. Always in first place, one world assholes. Second, eliminate or curtail domestic USA production to enhance imports from the producers.

Say your country has a mineral that the USA needs but you are barely competitive price wise. Spend a quarter million or so funding domestic saboteurs (excuse me, concerned citizens), kill or cripple your competition, and reap a bonanza.

Cobalt

The irony of social justice warriors driving hybrid cars is lost on them. Most of the 60 lbs. of cobalt in their car’s batteries was mined by child slaves in Congo mines owned and operated by the Chinese.  

In spite of all the regulatory roadblocks, our country’s needs for this critical element may be, partially, coming home. Information two years old – most current I can find.

https://www.streetwisereports.com/article/2018/05/29/the-only-us-based-primary-cobalt-mine-is-nearing-production.html

Perhaps the biggest problem with mining is this; it is ugly. Undisturbed land is suddenly torn asunder. Then, having scooped up the profits, the operators cut and run.  That needs to stop.

Land reclamation is feasible. I would direct people’s attention to coal strip mining in the Yampa River drainage in Northwest Colorado where the land is reclaimed. It may not be Ansel Adams pristine, but the land isn’t ugly, and provides forage for the local fauna.

Personal

Years ago, Steamboat Springs, CO had a sawmill that burned their scrap (common practice at the time). The smoke sometimes drifted into town. One day, my father was stopped by a resident who said,

“Bob, isn’t this smoke terrible!”

My father paused, sniffed the air, and said,

“I smell a payroll”.

This is where I come in hard. Jobs! Much of my extended family is involved in mining, oil, or associated businesses. The same can be said for many of my friends. Keep, and bring back, these jobs. Keep the rural areas economically viable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cQNkIrg-Tk

A welfare state needs cities to corral and control the population, IMO. I will defer to those readers from Appalachia because I don’t know how things work there, but I suspect, not too well.

Come November, we will find out if progress will continue, or our way of life will be gone.

As always, YMMV