Showdown at Thacker Pass

Lithium: New Resource, Same Old Story

Daranda Hinkey, a Paiute-Shoshone tribal member and an organizer with People of Red Mountain, fights to stop the Thacker Pass lithium mine. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Humanity has a profound problem, a growth problem that has been realized by fossil fuels. From the days of coal which turned the skies of London from day to night in 1952, to the oil and gas industry of today that have raised global temperature to the point of melting the Arctic and the Greenland ice sheet, our explosive growth has only been possible with fossil fuels. The population around one billion in 1800 is nearly 7.8 billion today.

Now we are told electric vehicles (EVs) and renewable energy — solar installations and wind farms — are the path to a sustainable future and that lithium batteries which have long powered our laptop computers, phones, tablets and power tools are critical to that plan. Lithium’s unique properties, it’s greater energy density and lighter weight compared to conventional batteries (lithium metal floats on water), make EVs possible. A rare element, lithium is estimated to exist in just 20 to 70 parts per million in the Earth’s crust.

Equal, or of greater importance, lithium is thought to be a way to stabilize renewable energy by building massive grids of batteries that store energy on days the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow. This would theoretically, reduce our reliance on fossil fuels as we daily witness the results of catastrophic climate change around the world. California in part survived it’s recent record heatwave, barely, from new lithium battery storage.

Because current lithium mining and production is confined to Australia, South America and China, the United State’s dependency is serious and a national security concern. Consequently, finding domestic lithium has spurred intense exploration by mining companies.

One such company is Lithium Americas. Formed in 2007 and headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, Lithium Americas has interests in two operations in Argentina, one of three countries in South America known as the Lithium Triangle, comprised of Argentina, Bolivia and Chile. Their operation at Cauchari-Olaroz, located in the province of Jujuy, is scheduled to go online this year. A second operation is proposed at nearby Pastos Grandes in the province of Salta. Both will be brine operations, which pump millions of gallons of water to the surface to evaporate in “ponds” yielding lithium brine for industrial processing. You can get an idea of the size of these ponds from the photo below taken from Lithium America’s website.

Lithium “ponds” from Lithium Americas website

In the United States, Lithium Americas, is developing a major operation in Nevada, at Thacker Pass, located between the Montana and Double H Mountains 25 miles south of the Nevada-Oregon border. The region has been identified as rich in lithium deposits and two other mining companies are developing operations just across the border. Acme Lithium, Inc., is also headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, and Jindalee Resources Limited, is an Australian company.

The initial phase of Thacker Pass would cover over 3000 acres. Easing rights mean future expansions could increase the operation to nearly 18,000 acres.

Sounds good, right? We have identified domestic lithium deposits which will fuel a revolution in clean cars, clean, renewable energy and improve our national security. However, like most stories, the truth is far more complicated because it’s large scale mining with its’ traditional problems such as:

• Destruction of tens of thousands of acres of our earth
• Potential large scale contamination of precious groundwater
• Burning of massive amounts of fossil fuel, further warming the planet
• Loss of billions of gallons of water in a region stricken by historic drought
• Competition for drinking water and agricultural production
• Obliteration of irreplaceable ecosystems and wildlife
• Trampling the human rights of Native Americans, yet again

Nevada is Home to Thousands of Native Americans

When U.S. troops were busy exterminating Native Americans in the 1800s, the “lucky” ones got put on reservations. Nevada has many of them and two, the Duck Valley Reservation and the Fort McDermitt Reservation are located near Thacker Pass. The Northern Paiute and Western Shoshone tribes were placed on these reservations, at the time when it was considered barren, undesirable land. Consequently, the reservations are extremely poor. Per the 2020 census, Duck Valley’s per capita income was $19,353 with 32.2% living below the poverty line. Fort McDermitt’s was worse with a per capita income of $12,299 and 44.5% living below the poverty line. The combination of genocide, destruction of culture, and loss of sustaining natural resources created deplorable conditions for these people and scars that never healed.

Furthermore, Thacker Pass is a sacred site. Apparently, they weren’t considered human on September 12, 1865 when a brutal massacre was committed there by the U.S. Army, under cover of darkness, as the victims slept. At least thirty-one Paiute women, children and men were killed and their bodies are still buried in the land. The Shoshone and Paiute call Thacker Pass Peehee mu’huh, which means “rotten moon,” and visit the site in solemn remembrance. The attack shares striking similarities to an 1864 massacre of Cheyenne and Arapaho people, the Sand Creek Massacre, which has been set aside as a National Historic Site.

Suddenly however, through the miracle that is capitalism, what was thought to be worthless is now incalculably valuable, and once again, the “savages” are in the way. A coalition of tribes in the area, The People of Red Mountain, are once again fighting for their lives and leading an effort to thwart the mine and preserve the graves of their murdered relatives.

Methods of Lithium Mining

To date lithium mining has has been conducted in two ways, depending on geography. All involve building massive infrastructure and use of enormous amounts of fossil fuel and water, undermining the “clean energy” label. Breaking ore down into a battery grade product also requires great quantities of sulphuric acid. There is nothing green about extracting lithium.

Australian lithium is mined from hard rock, and as such requires the most energy. Ore is dug and blasted from open pits, then extracted in a water-intensive, acid-based chemical process. Hard rock is the dirtiest method of mining lithium, but produces lithium hydroxide, the preferred compound for making high-performance EV batteries.

South American lithium as touched upon, is harvested in brine operations by pumping lithium-rich groundwater into collection ponds. The water evaporates, leaving a high concentration of lithium in the remaining solution. Brine operations use less chemicals and create less waste. However, they use astonishing amounts of water. Brine operations produce lithium carbonate, a slightly lower-quality compound that’s used in laptop computer and cellphone batteries.

Thacker Pass lithium would be the world’s first claystone mine. Lithium rich claystone would be dug from open pits. Then the lithium would be extracted the from the ore in a multistep, acid-based chemical process. Claystone requires less energy to mine than hard rock, being softer, but like hard rock, creates millions of tons of waste and uses millions of gallons of water. Shocking numbers on this below.

The Thacker Pass Mining Project

Thacker Pass received approval in January 2021, during the height of Covid, when people were coincidentally, isolating and avoiding contact, minimizing public participation on the proposal. Lithium Americas claimed Thacker Pass is a “world-class” project.

The result of an extinct super volcano formed 16 million years ago in the Miocene epoch, the McDermitt Caldera encompassed over 700 square miles. Eruptions caused water to percolate through the volcanic rocks, leaching lithium into the caldera basin, forming a lake. Mountains pushed up through the lakebed, leaving lithium rich clays five meters (about 16 feet) below. Lithium Americas estimates that Thacker Pass contains 13.7 million tons of lithium.

Lithium Nevada (the legal subsidiary of Lithium Americas) projects the mine to yield 30,000 tons of lithium per annum (TPA) in its first phase of production for 3.5 years starting in 2022. The second phase of production is expected to yield 60,000 TPA starting in 2026. The mine has a projected life of 46 years and is the largest lithium deposit found in the U.S. to date. Concentration of lithium runs as low as two-tenths of one percent, meaning producing one ton of lithium could require mining and processing up to 500 tons of earth. Lithium America’s projected estimate of producing 60,000 tons of lithium a year means mining 20 to 30 million tons of earth annually. The mine life is estimated at 46 years.

Astonishing Fossil Fuel and Water Use

The process of digging raw ore from the earth to produce battery grade lithium requires numerous steps relying on fossil fuels and water. A single surface miner and hauler tandem easily burns a thousand of gallons of diesel or more in a shift. Shifts will work around the clock with dozens of such tandems. Producing one metric ton of lithium requires up to 500,000 gallons of water. With Lithium Nevada’s own estimate of 60,000 TPA, the water requirement for one year of mining and creating commercial grade lithium comes to 30 billion gallons per year. Also per Lithium Nevada, the mine life is expected to be 46 years. 30 billion x 46 comes to an incomprehensible 1.38 trillion gallons of water. This, in a state like the rest of the west and southwest suffering from ever increasing, severe drought, and cuts to water supplies. This project is competing directly with drinking water and agriculture.

From the public hearing document presented by the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection (NDEP) December 1, 2021, phase one of the operation describes the project as a “disturbance” to the land totaling 3,144 acres:

Facilities and Proposed Land Disturbance (Phase I):

• Open pit lithium mine — 371 acres
• Waste rock storage facilities — 250 acres
• Sulfuric acid plant & processing plant — 36.5 acres
• Clay tailings storage facility — 364.6 acres
• Other facilities (roads, stockpiles, administrative buildings, power lines, water
supply etc.) — 2122.4 acres

As stated earlier, easing rights allow expansion to just under 18,000 acres. That’s an area over half the size of Las Vegas.

The two other mining companies Acme Lithium, Inc., also headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, and Australian company Jindalee Resources Limited, are working on lithium mining operations just over the border in Oregon, threatening to turn the entire region into a fully industrialized area with roads, mining pits, refineries and waste dumps. Truck and vehicle traffic will dramatically increase. New housing and/or man camps and other developments to support many hundreds and possibly thousands of workers will be required to mine the area.

A Day in Operation at the Thacker Pass

As an open-pit mine, Thacker Pass would rely on diesel-powered excavators and surface miners. The clayrock would be mined, loaded it into giant diesel haul trucks, then transported by overland conveyor near the pit limit, into the processing plant.

Surface miners and haul trucks burn thousands of gallons of diesel a day.

There, after being crushed and screened, the ore would be leached and treated with sulfuric acid to separate the lithium and create a solution. The solution would then be filtered and undergo a neutralization process using ground limestone and sustained with recycled alkaline solids from an upstream precipitation process in a separate plant.

The resulting lithium brine would then be evaporated and crystallized using steam and electricity from another sulfuric acid process to remove magnesium sulfate and extract water. Quicklime would be added to increase the pH value and precipitate magnesium hydroxide and calcium sulfate crystals.

This product would then be precipitated in lithium carbonate and turned into lithium carbonate solids using saturated soda ash. The solids would then be filtered, washed, dried, and packaged for sale, ready to be shipped for manufacturing batteries. Manufacturing batteries is its own industrial process and contribution to air, land and water pollution.

Where Will 1.38 Trillion Gallons of Water Come From?

We’ve established mining lithium requires unfathomable amounts of water. With the Colorado River drying up, and severe government mandated cuts in water usage, where will it come from?

The proposal relies on groundwater, already a threatened resource. Wells in the Quinn River Valley would be used by way of a 12km-long pipeline in competition with drinking water, a human right, and agriculture, food, another human right. The groundwater would be protected from mining pollution in theory by limiting digging to 15 feet above the water table, and buried channels to divert leaks to a reclamation pond. Monthly verification of compliance is stipulated in the NDEP permit. Fortunately, mining operations never have spills or leaks and inspectors are never paid to look the other way. I have complete confidence in this monthly verification plan. Besides, how much toxic chemicals could leak into the water supplies in just one month between inspections?

In California, pumping groundwater has become necessary to keep the state going. Consequently, as land sinks, bridges are being destroyed, irrigation canals are cracking, and highways are twisting. Buildings are sinking into the ground in mile-long sinkholes. That’s what pumping excessive groundwater does.

What About the Wildlife? Who Speaks for the Animals?

Nevada is full of mountains and beauty. The area around Thacker Pass is home to cougars and coyote, pronghorn antelope and bobcats, rabbits, deer and lizards, and birds such as golden eagles, hawks and falcons, quail and sage grouse. Biodiversity in general is under attack on earth. Extinction rates are hard to measure and subject to debate. However, there is no doubt human activity is causing mass extinction that threatens our own existence. Not only is this project a violation of our treatment of animals and environment, it’s a measure of our humanity and another crime against Native Americans. Continued destruction of the natural world will determine all of our fates, and soon.

Wildlife proliferates in Thacker Pass, a Dark Eyed Junco by Max Wilbert

A few Native Americans at Thacker Pass are in favor of the mine. I already touched on how hard these communities are struggling. Lithium Americas project in Jujuy is similar, inhabited by indigenous people. The Colla are descendants of tribes conquered by Spaniards in 1593. Their per capita income is $4,899, 40% below the national average. This is typical of predatory corporate culture, victimizing the most vulnerable. It’s an old story.

While the executives of Lithium Americas make millions, they will pay local Native Americans the stingiest wages possible and divide the community. They will ruin the environment and its beauty and leave these poor people who have already been profoundly wronged with even more damage. All this when, a lithium powered future is a lie. It’s the fossil fuel playbook all over again. This project is nothing more than greed. The truth is we have to downsize our lives. Technology is not going to save us. We need to get into the streets and protest. It’s the only way. Our elected leadership is owned by the industries destroying us.

Ironically, lithium has been used as a drug to treat mental health disorders since the 19th century. To think that electric cars and lithium battery arrays are going to save us is madness. It’s up to you and me to restore sanity to this world. Let’s get busy.