Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Today, Indigenous people find themselves increasingly under a new threat, which has become the latest excuse for land grabs, cultural desecration, and contamination of Native American communities. The Biden-Harris Administration’s energy and climate policies have incentivized solar and wind installations, electrical vehicles, and other technologies that depend on the mining of rare earth minerals found on Native American lands.
The largest lithium mine in the U.S. opened last spring in a remote and fragile desert caldera in North-Central Nevada called Thacker Pass. Situated on public land administered by the Bureau of Land Management where Paiute-Shoshone tribes have lived since time immemorial, the mine received a federal permit to begin construction despite the objections of local tribal members, environmental advocates, and other residents.
Near Thacker Pass, an encampment of Paiute families were massacred by the 1st Nevada Cavalry soldiers in the early morning hours of September 12, 1865. Tribal members visit this area to offer prayers for the dead, conduct ceremonies, and honor the connection with their history. For them Thacker Pass is a sacred site.
But the lithium deposit at Thacker Pass is potentially the largest in the world. And, unfortunately, green energy runs on lithium, an essential component of batteries that are used primarily for electric and hybrid vehicles, as well as wind and solar power storage. Lithium is now a $1.5 trillion industry.
Only one mine in the U.S. currently produces lithium and three more, including Thacker Pass, are under construction. More than 21,000 lithium mining claims have been filed in Nevada. Seventy-four more mines are in the exploration or permitting process. Scientists project demand from these minerals to increase 40 times over by 2040.
We have entered a “Green Rush,” reminiscent of the Gold Rush of the 19th century, in which we are determined to mine our resources as fast as possible, regardless of the longer-term consequences.
The Thacker Pass Mine is operated by Lithium Americas, a Canadian corporation which has a long relationship with the Chinese conglomerate Ganfeng, the largest lithium corporation in the world. The largest shareholder of Lithium Americas is General Motors and other large shareholders include Bank of America, Vanguard, and other banks and mutual funds.
The Thacker Pass mine complex will cover roughly 6,000 acres of public land and will impact an estimated 300 square mile area. New roads will be built, pristine water sources will be contaminated, and endangered and threatened species will perish.
The mine will cost $2.2 billion to build. Operations necessitate digging an open pit 400-feet deep into the parched desert, destroying fragile and rare wetlands, covering 1,300 acres with waste rock, creating toxic tailings piles, and maintaining a sulfur refinery.
According to its own environmental impact statement, the mine will produce 5,800 tons of sulfuric acid per day, requiring the daily import of 1,896 tons of sulfur, brought in on dozens of diesel-fueled semi-trucks. Each truck will carry 3,800 gallons of molten sulfur, coming primarily from the Alberta tar sands, which is an environmental disaster in itself. The mine will burn at least 11,300 gallons of diesel oil daily for on-site operations and consume nearly the same amount for off-site operations. It will use 1.7 billion gallons of water annually—in the most arid state in the country.
None of this is “green.” As Paiute activist Michon Eben says: “You can’t mine your way out of a climate crisis. You can’t destroy the Earth to save the Earth.”
It’s not that the climate crisis isn’t real. It is. But we cannot allow “green” energy to become the new frontier for the same old game of corporate-controlled government and taxpayer-subsidized exploitation of land, water, air, and communities. Thacker Pass is a harbinger of what is coming on a much bigger scale if government policy moves forward on the assumption that “green” energy will solve all of our environmental problems.
We can’t just rely on a new frontier of minerals to get us out of the environmental mess we’re in. As we transition to less carbon-intensive sources of energy—a goal I support—we must take into account the environmental damage these new sources of energy cause. We must invest in storage technologies, such as sodium batteries, that don’t depend nearly as much on destructive rare-earth mining. And we must listen to Indigenous peoples who have a longstanding relationship with the land and a broad understanding of the total ecological impacts of industrial activities.
Creating a truly sustainable future means considering the next seven generations in all the decisions we make. This ingrained wisdom in Native American culture is part of what is being lost at Thacker Pass, and will continue to be lost as Biden-Harris’s highly-touted climate and energy plans exploit and destroy more Indigenous land and culture.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is an independent candidate for president of the United States.
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