Mark Trahant
ICT
This is a story about competing narratives. Stories told over and over and are used to frame a debate to try and find consensus. Yet in this case the stories lead down different paths.
One story is about a sacred, historic place, Peehee Mu’huh in Paiute, or Thacker Pass in English. The site is “a sacred place where our ancestors lived and died,” said Michon Eben, the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony’s tribal historic preservation officer in a recent news release. “We still go there to pray, gather food and medicine, hunt and teach our youth about the history of our people.”
The other story is about conflict, actually several conflicts. Peehee Mu’huh is home to critical minerals that could power a transition into renewable energy. But these new technologies require more minerals to build than the fossil fuel technologies.
As the world seeks ways to transition into renewable tech, once again, Indigenous lands are at the center of sacrifice and mining controversies. The Thacker Pass project is just one of many.
The tribe said mining on the pass would be like mining on a site as important as Pearl Harbor.
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“As tribal leaders, it’s our responsibility to protect and honor our sacred places,” said Arlan Melendez, chairman of the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony, and a US Marine Corps veteran.
There is a race to mine and bring to market critical minerals and lithium is at the top of that list. Lithium, cobalt, and other minerals are used to make batteries for electric cars tying the story of mining to that of climate change.
A year ago the White House announced major investments to “Expand Domestic Critical Minerals Supply Chain, Breaking Dependence on China and Boosting Sustainable Practices.” Thacker Pass got a green light for construction during the Trump administration and has its permits. There is a challenge now in federal courts and the U.S. District Judge Miranda Du said in a January hearing that ruling could come in the next couple of months.
“Throughout U.S. history, tribes have always been set up to lose in the U.S. legal system against the Bureau of Land Management,” Melendez said. “This lithium mine stands in the way of our roots and it’s violating the religious freedoms of our elders, our people.”
Yet the White House policy brief says tribes will be included. “The reports recommended expanding domestic mining, production, processing, and recycling of critical minerals and materials — all with a laser focus on boosting strong labor, environmental and environmental justice, community engagement, and Tribal consultation standards.”
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And supporters of the mine point to support from the Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone Tribe. A community benefit agreement, signed last October, establishes a framework for “continued collaboration and defines the long-term benefits for the Tribe, the largest Native American community within the vicinity of the Project.”
The company says it’s acting as a good neighbor, promising to construct a community center, creating jobs, adding training programs, and preparing tribal members for “long-term, family-supporting careers critical to developing a North American battery supply chain.”
The story of climate change is linked to the rapid expansion of mining for critical minerals. This is an old story, though, the sacrifice of Indigenous lands. And adding climate change to the text does not make it new.
“The data shows a looming mismatch between the world’s strengthened climate ambitions and the availability of critical minerals that are essential to realizing those ambitions,” said Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency.
A May 2021 report found that clean energy is “profoundly” different from a technological perspective. For instance, it generally requires more minerals to build solar photovoltaic plants, wind farms and electric vehicles than fossil fuel-based systems, the report states.
“A typical electric car requires six times the mineral inputs of a conventional car, and an onshore wind plant requires nine times more mineral resources than a gas-fired power plant,” according to the report. “Since 2010, the average amount of minerals needed for a new unit of power generation capacity has increased by 50% as the share of renewables has risen.”
The IEA says lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese and graphite are all crucial to battery performance, longevity and energy density. The agency says minerals are “vital” for wind turbines, electric vehicle motors and electric networks including “a huge amount of copper and aluminum, with copper being a cornerstone for all electricity-related technologies.”
Then there is another way of telling the same story with the same data.
“The climate crisis is the product of a gross imbalance between historical industrialization and the natural world,” wrote J.R. Owen and five scholars in the peer-reviewed journal, Nature Sustainability.
The report states that it would require a 70 percent reduction of carbon-dioxide emissions by 2050 in order to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius. This would require the global energy system to rapidly transition from fossil fuels to renewables, however mining for the minerals and resources could have problematic impacts on local communities.
“The social and environmental crisis associated with climate change tends to over-shadow the fact that climate mitigation solutions will introduce new impacts and dynamics as resources are extracted to support the transition,” the report states.
The problem here is that Indigenous communities are viewed as sacrifice zones, development to solve one problem while papering over the dark impact. In the Nature Sustainability paper the scholars did a global inventory of critical mineral projects and found that of 5,097 projects, 54 percent, are located on or nearby Indigenous peoples’ lands and 29 percent are on lands where “Indigenous peoples are recognized as managing or exercising some form of control or influence over land for the purposes of conservation.”
One immediate risk is water. The authors of the study in Nature Sustainability said the global mining industry produces several billion tons of liquid and solid waste every year and “the volume of mine waste has increased exponentially. At the surface, mine waste prevents other land uses, including conservation, farming, forestry, and for cultural and religious purposes. Mine waste also drives large-scale industrial disasters.”
The study looks at how the mines being developed impact water globally and “water stress” is present in 59 percent of these projects.
The study cites Resolution Copper in Arizona – also known as Oak Flats – as an example. That project could require as much as 250 billion gallons of water.
Nearly two-thirds of the projects identified in the Nature Sustainability report show high levels of risk across two or more metrics, which include water, conflict and food insecurity.
“The present threat to planetary limits caused by over-industrialization is indeed alarming,” the report states. “Re-balancing these limits through the prism of energy and new technology creates further conditions of imbalance and erodes important sustainability objectives that are necessary for the protection and preservation of the world’s ecosystems and universally agreed human rights of historically marginalized peoples.”
And that’s where the competing story comes into play: What if the premise is false? What if the story begins with an assumption that’s not true, the one told about critical minerals?
Researchers at the University of California Davis raised that very question and found that mining – even a lot more mining – won’t work. The authors’ math is that global lithium resources total 89 million tons and there are another 22 million tons in reserves. But a switch to electric vehicles would require a tripling of current global lithium production.
Related:
— Green energy’s hidden costs spark opposition
— US seeks new lithium sources as battery demand grows
— Native people rally outside federal courthouse against lithium mine
“Large scale mining entails social and environmental harm, in many cases irreversibly damaging landscapes without the consent of affected communities. As societies undertake the urgent and transformative task of building new, zero-emissions energy systems, some level of mining is necessary. But the volume of extraction is not a given. Neither is where mining takes place, who bears the social and environmental burdens, or how mining is governed,” states the report, Achieving Zero Emissions with More Mobility and Less Mining.
The scientists say a better path forward is to focus on transportation policy, including accessible public transportation, because that represents the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming.
“The United States can achieve zero-emissions transportation while limiting the amount of lithium mining necessary by reducing the car dependence of the transportation system, decreasing the size of EV batteries, and maximizing lithium recycling,” the report found. “Reordering the US transportation system through policy and spending shifts to prioritize public and active transit while reducing car dependency can also ensure transit equity, protect ecosystems, respect Indigenous rights, and meet the demands of global justice.”
The scientists looked at lithium mining in Argentina, Chile, Portugal and the United States.
“In each of these cases, proposed or ongoing lithium mining has concerning implications for drought intensity, ecosystem biodiversity, and Indigenous sovereignty and/or community participation in projects that threaten cultural landscapes and economic livelihoods,” the report states. “Reducing the lithium intensity of electrified transportation would in turn mitigate a key driver of these harms.”
The report said mining at Thacker Pass is problematic for several reasons, beginning with the underlying legal framework of the 1872 General Mining Act because it is outdated and has no environmental, water or even climate provisions.
Thacker Pass is the site of a large soft clay lithium deposit, according to the report. Lithium Nevada, the corporation developing the project and a subsidiary of Lithium Americas, claims that it can produce 30,000 metric tons of lithium per year, which would make the Thacker Pass project the second largest producer of lithium in the world.
“That project would be a massive open pit, impacting some 5,695 acres for more than 40 years and would require 5,200 acre-feet of water per year (equal to 15,000 households),” the report states.
The UC Davis report looks at alternatives to a major expansion of mining, including rethinking transportation policy because it’s the largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.
“Increasing mass and active transit as well as keeping passenger vehicles smaller makes for safer communities. Reducing the size of passenger vehicles also can make the roads far safer because smaller cars have fewer and less severe crashes. Making bus routes, metros, and electric bikes faster, safer, and more convenient will disproportionately support low-income and non-white community members — who are more likely to live near high-traffic areas and bear the environmental health burdens of relatively poorer air quality compared to higher-income and white counterparts.”
The climate shifts ahead require a different way of thinking. A few clues to watch: How many urban transit systems have abandoned fare collection? Or opened up licensing for golf-cart sized vehicles? Or transformed the tax code to promote walking? Electric vehicles and more mining might be the easy answer, only it’s not a new story.
Mark Trahant, Shoshone-Bannock, is editor-at-large for Indian Country Today. On Twitter: @TrahantReports Trahant is based in Phoenix. The Indigenous Economics Project is funded with a major grant from the Bay and Paul Foundations.