6 ms·

It's the new oil, so I would be careful. Democracy and camaraderie and all those greater good things tend to come where the cheap resources are.

toomuchtodo 3y ago
Deposits appear sufficiently distributed to not cause geopolitical conflicts [1]. This is not oil. Lithium is relatively abundant, and a mineral to be reused, not energy to be consumed once through. To keep it conflict free, we must continue to discover reserves and drive down the value of the commodity. No one goes to war over say, salt, in the 21st century (at least not yet!). [1] https://lithiumfuture.org/map.html https://lithiumfuture.org/map.html
- latchkey 3y ago
  It won't cause conflict because China will just come in and take it. Look at what they've done with the silkroads through Laos/Cambodia. "Here, take a 'free' hydrodam on your river and we will just take some land and electricity."
  - TaylorAlexander 3y ago
    Sounds like a trade to me. Predatory tho if the country is very poor and easily exploited. But as someone from a country that loves to invade others for resources I’d take predatory trading over military force any day.
    - latchkey 3y ago
      You didn't dive deep enough into the literal eco/social catastrophe that the silkroad is. It isn't military because neither of those two countries have any sort of way to defend themselves against China, but it might as well be military, because China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative
  - iinnPP 3y ago
    That's a whole lot better than the deal from the US, frankly.
  - hnu234 3y ago
    > It won't cause conflict because China will just come in and take it... vs > "Here, take a 'free' hydrodam on your river and we will just take some land and electricity." So which is it? They will 'take it' or they will trade for it? That's the problem with anti-chinese propaganda. It makes no sense and is full of contradictions.
    - latchkey 3y ago
      What they take has been proven to be far greater value than what they gave. It isn't a fair "trade", at all. To be fair to China, corrupt locals allowed it to happen.
      - hnu234 3y ago
        > What they take has been proven to be far greater value than what they gave. It isn't a fair "trade", at all. Sure it is. As long as it wasn't coerced. > To be fair to China, corrupt locals allowed it to happen. I have a feeling that any trade with china or anything that helps poor countries progress is 'corrupt' to you. But then again, you push so much ant-china shilling, I recognize you just from your username. If china is taking so much for so little, why isn't europe or the US swooping in and offering a better deal? Perhpas because china is giving them the best deal?
        latchkey 3y ago
        > As long as it wasn't coerced. By definition, it was coerced.
- vlovich123 3y ago
  Can you clarify about reuse? At least as far as batteries go, right now once it's in a battery it gets used up & then ends up in the trash [2]. There's no efficient / cost-effective way to extract lithium from spent batteries for reuse in new batteries. We might in the future but it would require some scientific advances + expensive commercialization to scale up. Even if in the future we do develop a mechanism, it could remain very expensive & not be practical until mining costs have gone up enough. Similarly, all batteries that have been consumed until that point are likely irrecoverable as they're in the waste stream & finding & collecting those batteries is unlikely to ever be economical. [1] https://americanbatterytechnology.com/lithium-costs-a-lot-of-money/ https://americanbatterytechnology.com/lithium-costs-a-lot-of... [2] https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a42417327/lithium-supply-batteries-electric-vehicles/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a42417327/li...
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2023/11/02/redwood-materials-gears-up-to-recycle-first-big-wave-of-used-ev-batteries/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2023/11/02/redwood-... > In 2024, a quarter million aging electric vehicles will be ready for dismantling and recycling. That could be more than a 30% jump from 2023 — and Redwood Materials, which aims to be the country's leading EV battery recycler, is ramping up its operations to prepare for the coming onslaught. > The company created by Tesla cofounder JB Straubel, which also makes components for new batteries from materials it recovers from old ones, expects some 250,000 aging Tesla Model S sedans, Nissan Leaf hatchbacks, Toyota Priuses, Prius plug-ins and other hybrids, to turn up at dismantler lots in 2024 — with more coming every year after. That’s up from between 150,000 to 200,000 this year. To ensure it gets as many of those old batteries as possible, it’s launched a web portal to quickly give auto dismantlers purchase offers and schedule trucks to haul them away for recycling. https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/redwood-inks-long-term-ev-battery-materials-supply-deal-with-toyota-2023-11-16/ https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/redwood-inks-long-term... ("Redwood inks long-term EV battery materials supply deal with Toyota") Redwood Materials is currently operational, processing the waste stream. Ford and Volvo are also partners. They'll also accept EV packs that are damaged, defective or recalled (DDR) on an ad hoc basis if you open a ticket with their team. https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/auto-recyclers-battery-portal/ https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/auto-recyclers-battery-port... (have shipped them old Leaf and Tesla packs)
- NERD_ALERT 3y ago
  The 2019 Bolivian political crisis [1] came right off the heels of Evo Morales negotiating lithium trade with Russia and China. Bolivia happens to have the largest lithium reserves of any nation. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Bolivian_political_crisis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Bolivian_political_cris...
  - m00x 3y ago
    Good context, but not a geopolitical crisis, it was an internal civil conflict.
    - NERD_ALERT 3y ago
      The US/CIA has a long history of inciting coups, rigging elections, and funding far right terror organizations across Latin America for matters similar or lesser than this [1]. I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss this as unprovoked internal conflict. Especially given that only a year after this event, another election was held in which Luis Arce won in a landslide [2]. Luis Arce was importantly the finance minister for the Evo Morales administration [3]. There’s no evidence that popular support had ever waned for the Movement for Socialism in Bolivia. Yet Jeanine Añez was able to win in 2019 and exile Evo Morales in an election that involved, “irregularities and serious human rights abuses by security forces,” according to independent human rights organizations [4]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change_in_Latin_America https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in... [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Bolivian_general_election https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Bolivian_general_electi... [3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Arce https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Arce [4] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/17/bolivia-government-tortured-executed-opponents-report https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/17/bolivia-govern...
      - astrange 3y ago
        > The US/CIA has a long history of inciting coups, rigging elections, and funding far right terror organizations across Latin America for matters similar or lesser than this [1]. More recently we've been supporting leftist elected candidates against right-wing coups. We don't care Bolivia has lithium. We get lithium from Australia. Third worldist leftists have many dumb ideas, but among them is the idea that wars are for resources or that we're exploiting third world countries by taking their resources. It's almost the opposite - they are poor because we aren't trading with them.
- dragonelite 3y ago
  But processing the lithium and making productive tools or products out if it isn't really distributed.
lainga 3y ago
Countries can suffer Dutch disease just fine without ever seeing a single Marine.
jldugger 3y ago
Well, it's not like Mynamar's democracy is particularly functional: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Myanmar_coup_d%27état https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Myanmar_coup_d%27état
cbsmith 3y ago
In the sense of "we'll bring Democracy to your country", yes. ;-)
- deepsun 3y ago
  Please do bring democracy to my country of birth, yes. And I mean it. Right now it pretty much is held occupied by brute force. 90% of population would welcome ANY change.
  - avgcorrection 3y ago
    The democracy is of the sarcastic kind by the way.
  - cbsmith 3y ago
    I was referring to the Resource Curse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse#Democracy_and_human_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse#Democracy_and_h...
deepsun 3y ago
So... Autocracy / tyranny are better?
kyawzazaw 3y ago
it's okay, we are already doing pretty bad

toomuchtodo 3y ago

Deposits appear sufficiently distributed to not cause geopolitical conflicts [1]. This is not oil. Lithium is relatively abundant, and a mineral to be reused, not energy to be consumed once through. To keep it conflict free, we must continue to discover reserves and drive down the value of the commodity. No one goes to war over say, salt, in the 21st century (at least not yet!). [1] https://lithiumfuture.org/map.html https://lithiumfuture.org/map.html

latchkey 3y ago
It won't cause conflict because China will just come in and take it. Look at what they've done with the silkroads through Laos/Cambodia. "Here, take a 'free' hydrodam on your river and we will just take some land and electricity."
- TaylorAlexander 3y ago
  Sounds like a trade to me. Predatory tho if the country is very poor and easily exploited. But as someone from a country that loves to invade others for resources I’d take predatory trading over military force any day.
  - latchkey 3y ago
    You didn't dive deep enough into the literal eco/social catastrophe that the silkroad is. It isn't military because neither of those two countries have any sort of way to defend themselves against China, but it might as well be military, because China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative
- iinnPP 3y ago
  That's a whole lot better than the deal from the US, frankly.
- hnu234 3y ago
  > It won't cause conflict because China will just come in and take it... vs > "Here, take a 'free' hydrodam on your river and we will just take some land and electricity." So which is it? They will 'take it' or they will trade for it? That's the problem with anti-chinese propaganda. It makes no sense and is full of contradictions.
  - latchkey 3y ago
    What they take has been proven to be far greater value than what they gave. It isn't a fair "trade", at all. To be fair to China, corrupt locals allowed it to happen.
    - hnu234 3y ago
      > What they take has been proven to be far greater value than what they gave. It isn't a fair "trade", at all. Sure it is. As long as it wasn't coerced. > To be fair to China, corrupt locals allowed it to happen. I have a feeling that any trade with china or anything that helps poor countries progress is 'corrupt' to you. But then again, you push so much ant-china shilling, I recognize you just from your username. If china is taking so much for so little, why isn't europe or the US swooping in and offering a better deal? Perhpas because china is giving them the best deal?
      - latchkey 3y ago
        > As long as it wasn't coerced. By definition, it was coerced.
vlovich123 3y ago
Can you clarify about reuse? At least as far as batteries go, right now once it's in a battery it gets used up & then ends up in the trash [2]. There's no efficient / cost-effective way to extract lithium from spent batteries for reuse in new batteries. We might in the future but it would require some scientific advances + expensive commercialization to scale up. Even if in the future we do develop a mechanism, it could remain very expensive & not be practical until mining costs have gone up enough. Similarly, all batteries that have been consumed until that point are likely irrecoverable as they're in the waste stream & finding & collecting those batteries is unlikely to ever be economical. [1] https://americanbatterytechnology.com/lithium-costs-a-lot-of-money/ https://americanbatterytechnology.com/lithium-costs-a-lot-of... [2] https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a42417327/lithium-supply-batteries-electric-vehicles/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a42417327/li...
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2023/11/02/redwood-materials-gears-up-to-recycle-first-big-wave-of-used-ev-batteries/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2023/11/02/redwood-... > In 2024, a quarter million aging electric vehicles will be ready for dismantling and recycling. That could be more than a 30% jump from 2023 — and Redwood Materials, which aims to be the country's leading EV battery recycler, is ramping up its operations to prepare for the coming onslaught. > The company created by Tesla cofounder JB Straubel, which also makes components for new batteries from materials it recovers from old ones, expects some 250,000 aging Tesla Model S sedans, Nissan Leaf hatchbacks, Toyota Priuses, Prius plug-ins and other hybrids, to turn up at dismantler lots in 2024 — with more coming every year after. That’s up from between 150,000 to 200,000 this year. To ensure it gets as many of those old batteries as possible, it’s launched a web portal to quickly give auto dismantlers purchase offers and schedule trucks to haul them away for recycling. https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/redwood-inks-long-term-ev-battery-materials-supply-deal-with-toyota-2023-11-16/ https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/redwood-inks-long-term... ("Redwood inks long-term EV battery materials supply deal with Toyota") Redwood Materials is currently operational, processing the waste stream. Ford and Volvo are also partners. They'll also accept EV packs that are damaged, defective or recalled (DDR) on an ad hoc basis if you open a ticket with their team. https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/auto-recyclers-battery-portal/ https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/auto-recyclers-battery-port... (have shipped them old Leaf and Tesla packs)
NERD_ALERT 3y ago
The 2019 Bolivian political crisis [1] came right off the heels of Evo Morales negotiating lithium trade with Russia and China. Bolivia happens to have the largest lithium reserves of any nation. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Bolivian_political_crisis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Bolivian_political_cris...
- m00x 3y ago
  Good context, but not a geopolitical crisis, it was an internal civil conflict.
  - NERD_ALERT 3y ago
    The US/CIA has a long history of inciting coups, rigging elections, and funding far right terror organizations across Latin America for matters similar or lesser than this [1]. I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss this as unprovoked internal conflict. Especially given that only a year after this event, another election was held in which Luis Arce won in a landslide [2]. Luis Arce was importantly the finance minister for the Evo Morales administration [3]. There’s no evidence that popular support had ever waned for the Movement for Socialism in Bolivia. Yet Jeanine Añez was able to win in 2019 and exile Evo Morales in an election that involved, “irregularities and serious human rights abuses by security forces,” according to independent human rights organizations [4]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change_in_Latin_America https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in... [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Bolivian_general_election https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Bolivian_general_electi... [3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Arce https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Arce [4] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/17/bolivia-government-tortured-executed-opponents-report https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/17/bolivia-govern...
    - astrange 3y ago
      > The US/CIA has a long history of inciting coups, rigging elections, and funding far right terror organizations across Latin America for matters similar or lesser than this [1]. More recently we've been supporting leftist elected candidates against right-wing coups. We don't care Bolivia has lithium. We get lithium from Australia. Third worldist leftists have many dumb ideas, but among them is the idea that wars are for resources or that we're exploiting third world countries by taking their resources. It's almost the opposite - they are poor because we aren't trading with them.
dragonelite 3y ago
But processing the lithium and making productive tools or products out if it isn't really distributed.

lainga 3y ago

Countries can suffer Dutch disease just fine without ever seeing a single Marine.

jldugger 3y ago

Well, it's not like Mynamar's democracy is particularly functional: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Myanmar_coup_d%27état https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Myanmar_coup_d%27état

cbsmith 3y ago

In the sense of "we'll bring Democracy to your country", yes. ;-)

deepsun 3y ago
Please do bring democracy to my country of birth, yes. And I mean it. Right now it pretty much is held occupied by brute force. 90% of population would welcome ANY change.
- avgcorrection 3y ago
  The democracy is of the sarcastic kind by the way.
- cbsmith 3y ago
  I was referring to the Resource Curse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse#Democracy_and_human_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse#Democracy_and_h...

deepsun 3y ago

So... Autocracy / tyranny are better?

kyawzazaw 3y ago

it's okay, we are already doing pretty bad