Talk:Thacker Pass lithium mine

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Does the environmental impact assessment assess the net environmental impact?

I had a quick look at the EIA https://eplanning.blm.gov/public_projects/1503166/200352542/20030633/250036832/Thacker%20Pass_FEIS_Chapters1-6_508.pdf but I could not figure out whether it took into account the environmental benefits of replacing fossil fuelled vehicles. Chidgk1 (talk) 14:42, 7 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not an expert in these (so I could be wrong) but I believe that in general, these EIA reports (whether federal or state) are meant to assess ONLY the LOCAL environmental impact (thereby consideration for LOCAL plants and animals, not the fauna and flora in Indonesia, for example, if those islands would be flooded with rising sea levels), so no, the benefit for helping transition the economy should be beyond the scope of these types of reports. ---Avatar317 ^(talk) 21:18, 7 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ah I have now found a quote which seems to explain their reasoning so I will add it. Chidgk1 (talk) 06:48, 8 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Having said that I cannot find Appx K of the EIS - if anyone knows where it is please could you link from the article thanks Chidgk1 (talk) 07:11, 8 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously there was a lot of uncertainty in 2020 when the EIS was written. But if the judge orders the EIS to be rewritten then presumably nowadays they could at least estimate the minimum number of gigafactories that will be built in the US. Chidgk1 (talk) 07:21, 8 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Chidgk1 the quote you included was about further detailed analysis of downstream GHG emissions from the end uses of lithium-based products (emphasis mine). I agree with Avatar317 that the EIS is meant to assess local impacts. Partly, the global impacts are too complex for this kind of study. Presumed CO2 savings from this mine would depend on a huge number of variables including consumer driving and charging patterns; grid profile of energy sources; model of vehicles produced; further downstream CO2 emissions (that this study didn't assess); CO2 emissions from mining of other critical minerals for the same batteries; and more. I'm sure people have attempted this sort of thing, but probably not specifically in relation to this mine and with lots of caveats about how speculative that study would be. There would not be consensus about it Larataguera (talk) 11:29, 8 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Possibly the scope of the EIS is what we call scope 1 and scope 2 not scope 3. From the article on US EIS it seems there ought to be a statement of the scope but I did not see it. I am not familiar with US environmental impact statements so feel free to revert my edits if I made a mistake Chidgk1 (talk) 11:46, 8 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Firstly, trying to tell the readers what we feel they might be interested in will often lead to disallowed WP:OR...we need to stick to sources about this mine and secondary sources WP:SECONDARY are far superior because they reduce the chance of misinterpreting or misunderstanding a primary source. WP:PRIMARY.

Secondly, on thinking about this more, I think it is IMPOSSIBLE FOR ANYONE to estimate the downstream global GHG reductions of this specific mine: if it doesn't get built, the price of lithium goes up and another mine will get built somewhere else, that might not get built if this one is built. If we don't drill for oil here in the US, and global oil use continues to increase, it will be drilled somewhere else. Demand is the driving force. (Yes, notaforum, sorry, but if the human population decreases and we have "enough" lithium than demand could go down, and we wouldn't need to mine every source of lithium on the planet. It is slightly caused an economy based on perpetual growth, but a far greater cause is that all 8 billion humans on the planet would like to live in the first world standards that 2 billion of us enjoy; almost no humans voluntarily choose to live in extreme poverty to save the planet.) ---Avatar317 ^(talk) 00:28, 10 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Litigation section(s)

Avatar317, is your intention to merge the litigation section (now 'tribes and litigation') with the regulatory approval section? That's fine with me. Right now, it's a little unclear why litigation is in two separate sections, because the lawsuits have all been consolidated. It just seems a little confusing to spread it between two different sections the way it is now. But it does make sense (because the lawsuits are essentially about permitting) to merge those sections if that's what you'd like to do.Larataguera (talk) 22:57, 10 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that's what I think would be a better structure for the article. I only moved two paragraphs because I thought that those looked good, but that the rest of the litigation section could benefit from some consolidation and trimming of what appears to be Original Research WP:OR: (for example: "The 320-acre colony (130 ha) has been the center of a decades-long fight..." appears to be OR beyond the scope of this article) but I did not have the time to work through that section. It could be moved first and trimmed/improved later as well. ---Avatar317 ^(talk) 00:04, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, it could use a lot of trimming. It's possible some of it could move to the background section if it isn't actually OR, but a lot of it needs to go. And there are too many primary sources. Hope you get a chance to move it sometime soon. Thanks. Larataguera (talk) 00:37, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Trucks (sulfuric acid plant)

Avatar317, how are the trucks delivering sulfur "not relevant to the process?" It's obviously part of the process. If these trucks don't happen, the lithium doesn't happen. On the other hand, delivering sulfuric acid (instead of manufacturing it on-site) is clearly NOT part of the process, because that's not what they're doing. I don't understand your reasoning at all. (But I do appreciate your work on this article generally) Larataguera (talk) 00:36, 12 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry my reversion explanation was not that good: after I thought about it some more, it seemed that the energy generation wasn't really related to the new sulfuric acid separation either, but then realized that it would probably be better to add more overall process information rather than reduce the entire section to one sentence.

As far as relevancy, I was planning to change the section name to "Mining and extraction process" (to broaden the scope) and had more content from that same source ready (hydraulic shovels, tailings backfill the mine as it progresses) but wanted to respond to this before adding that to that section.

(I searched for more sources containing "sulfuric acid" and "Thacker Pass Lithium Mine", but didn't find anything else which talked about this other than company press releases and EIR report, so there seem to be no other sources to compare here.) The Lightcap2021 source mentions the safety issue of trucking sulfuric acid, "Sulfuric acid can be transported by truck, but it’s very dangerous if spilled. So the mine plans include...." This implies that this choice was made for safety (but for a for-profit company, "safety" really means lower insurance costs and maybe lower costs associated with fighting community resistance which would be likely be higher from transport of more dangerous chemicals) but wasn't explicitly stated. Thank you for discussing. ---Avatar317 ^(talk) 01:32, 12 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There are other sources that talk about the sulfuric acid plant. It's in inside climate news and this academic study comparing Thacker Pass to extraction at Salton Sea (which I don't think we're using yet, but it's an interesting source). I think there's a few more, but I'd have to find them again. Larataguera (talk) 01:51, 12 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Source of the name?

Can I add a mention that the name "Thacker Pass" comes from "John Thacker", as mentioned in this article? [Quote: I look out across a landscape named after a man named John Thacker, a man who worked to protect mining industry profits for decades, and I cannot help but feel that not much has changed. Like in the 1850’s and 1860’s, men with explosives, backed by the armed power of the state, are coming to destroy the mountains, the sagebrush steppe, the grasslands, and the waters¬ of Thacker Pass.] Nicoadamo (talk) 23:53, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]