NASA Opposes Lithium Mining at Nevada Desert Site Used to Calibrate Satellites (apnews.com) 87
An ancient Nevada lakebed could become a vast source of the lithium used in electric car batteries, reports the Associated Press. But "NASA says the same site — flat as a tabletop and undisturbed like none other in the Western Hemisphere — is indispensable for calibrating the razor-sharp measurements of hundreds of satellites orbiting overhead."
At the space agency's request, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has agreed to withdraw 36 square miles (92 square kilometers) of the eastern Nevada terrain from its inventory of federal lands open to potential mineral exploration and mining. NASA says the long, flat piece of land above the untapped lithium deposit in Nevada's Railroad Valley has been used for nearly three decades to get measurements just right to keep satellites and their applications functioning properly. "No other location in the United States is suitable for this purpose," the Bureau of Land Management concluded in April after receiving NASA's input on the tract 250 miles (400 kilometers) northeast of Las Vegas...
In Railroad Valley, satellite calculations are critical to gathering information beamed from space with widespread applications from weather forecasting to national security, agricultural outlooks and natural disasters, according to NASA, which said the satellites "provide vital and often time-critical information touching every aspect of life on Earth." That increasingly includes certifying measurements related to climate change. Thus the Nevada desert paradox, critics say. Although lithium is the main ingredient in batteries for electric vehicles key to reducing greenhouse gases, in this case the metal is buried beneath land NASA says must remain undisturbed to certify the accuracy of satellites monitoring Earth's warming atmosphere...
The area's unchanged nature has allowed NASA to establish a long record of images of the undisturbed topography to assist precise measurement of distances using the travel time of radio signals and assure "absolute radiometric calibration" of sensors on board satellites. "Activities that stand to disrupt the surface integrity of Railroad Valley would risk making the site unusable," Jeremy Eggers, a spokesman for NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, told The Associated Press.
One company with most of the mining rights says the tract's withdrawal will put more than half the site's value out of reach, according to the article.
But the Associated Press got a supportive quote for the move from the satellite imaging company Planet Labs, which has relied on NASA's site to calibrate more than 250 of its satellites since 2016. "As our nation becomes ever more impacted by an evolving and changing environment, it is critical to have reliable and accurate data and imagery of our planet."
In Railroad Valley, satellite calculations are critical to gathering information beamed from space with widespread applications from weather forecasting to national security, agricultural outlooks and natural disasters, according to NASA, which said the satellites "provide vital and often time-critical information touching every aspect of life on Earth." That increasingly includes certifying measurements related to climate change. Thus the Nevada desert paradox, critics say. Although lithium is the main ingredient in batteries for electric vehicles key to reducing greenhouse gases, in this case the metal is buried beneath land NASA says must remain undisturbed to certify the accuracy of satellites monitoring Earth's warming atmosphere...
The area's unchanged nature has allowed NASA to establish a long record of images of the undisturbed topography to assist precise measurement of distances using the travel time of radio signals and assure "absolute radiometric calibration" of sensors on board satellites. "Activities that stand to disrupt the surface integrity of Railroad Valley would risk making the site unusable," Jeremy Eggers, a spokesman for NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, told The Associated Press.
One company with most of the mining rights says the tract's withdrawal will put more than half the site's value out of reach, according to the article.
But the Associated Press got a supportive quote for the move from the satellite imaging company Planet Labs, which has relied on NASA's site to calibrate more than 250 of its satellites since 2016. "As our nation becomes ever more impacted by an evolving and changing environment, it is critical to have reliable and accurate data and imagery of our planet."
Good (Score:5, Insightful)
I would rather see this area as protected are of national interest, than yet another open pit mine. While Lithium is important, we should be putting more energy into finding sustainable alternatives to Lithium or the amount necessary.
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I'd say we should look into getting it directly from seawater, just like table salt
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I'd say we should look into getting it directly from seawater, just like table salt
Even the table salt, which is much more ubiquitous in the sea water, is cheaper to dig from the ground, than to dry out from the sea water.
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Even the table salt, which is much more ubiquitous in the sea water, is cheaper to dig from the ground, than to dry out from the sea water.
You raised a fundamental idiocy of human nature. While we are exclusively focused on what is "cheaper" we won't ever solve any problems. Mining has a far larger ecological and carbon footprint than extracting salt from the sea, but externalities don't get passed on in the cost of the final product.
Re:Good (Score:5, Interesting)
Extracting and refining Lithium from the sea will require far more energy in the first place, because of its very low concentration, meaning the negative externalities of that process will unfortunately be far greater.
There are some development like that one for instance [sciencedirect.com] (oh look, China leading research on that field too), but when you scratch beneath the surface, we have no idea how to scale the proposed solutions. Most of them make use of rare minerals, that are themselves under tension.
While we are exclusively focused on what is "cheaper" we won't ever solve any problems.
I was on the verge of hitting the Submit button, then I re-read your comment. Aren't you the guy who likes to say that nuclear is too expensive? And here you argue that cheap or expensive shouldn't be a problem? You really want to have it both ways, don't you?
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Energy requirement isn't the issue. Energy can be greenly generated. There's no way to strip mine land non destructively. Additionally heavy machinery used for mining is not easily electrified. Evaporation ponds may use more energy, but the have a lower ecological footprint and can be setup to barely have a carbon footprint at all.
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and then you just end-up with the massive remixing that goes into any desalinization plant outlet (and if you have many concentrated, you make the slurry-effect worse!)
I'd say you could get more out of just improving lithium recycling infrastructure - better to save your seawater for something more-fitting
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One of these days I will see an opportunity to deploy "patella-expanding" and will seize it. It has the makings of a truly awful pun-ch line.
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I remember hearing of "Trader Joes" - which would be the US brand of Lidl, if there is an "Aldi US".
Aldi "US" - that is so hilarious a concept for such an idiosyncratic brand.
Cost (Score:5, Insightful)
Cost is how you know where to put resources. Something costing more means it requires more equipment, more energy, and more manpower.
It's the exact opposite of idiocy. It's why you have rampant shortages of basic supplies in command economies.
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What you say is true, if all externalities re included. However, leadership excludes as many externalities as possible in their cost estimates, leading to distortions, mid-incentives, and so many harms.
Good point (Score:2)
But externalities can be factored in relatively easily, especially for a known quantity like a lithium mine. We've had lithium mines, we know how much it costs to clean them up, and we can build-in cleanup costs into the land lease or license the mining company needs. This would be a fantastic incentive, as well. They can put the cleanup money into escrow and, if they can manage to *not* pollute, they can get that money back when they close the mine.
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Except that we have to take into account larger economic and societal externalities as well, which you can't get simply by looking at this particular salt flat as a lithium mine in potentia. Clearly, there is a very large economic benefit to having a satellite calibration site, and by devoting the salt flat to that purpose rather than a lithium mine, society benefits even if a particular lithium extraction company doesn't.
Re:Good point (Score:5, Insightful)
Externalities CAN be factored in, but historically they are almost always ignored. They are hard to quantify and our brains have trouble even processing them. We call them "regulations", and they become political fodder because people are stupid and the dumber they are the more they overestimate their understanding of such things.
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"Cost is how you know where to put resources." Pollution. Treating it as a cost means treating it after the damage has already occurred. This is why the dead hand of the free market continually gets behind the 8-ball on pollution and why government must step in to create different priorities.
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Mining salt from dry deposits is far less energy intensive than extracting it from the ocean. Doing it by simple/solar evaporation requires huge tracts of land, and boiling the water off to do it artificially requires enormous amounts of energy.
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Energy is not an issue as it can be generated greenly. You can't strip-mine a land greenly. So while evaporative extraction has a higher energy intensity it does not follow that it has a higher carbon intensity, and it definitely doesn't have as high of an ecological footprint.
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Lithium is estimated to be economical to recover from sea water at prices around where they peaked recently.
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Plus, do you know what goes into the ocean? Like, all of our waste. We probably shouldn't be eating anything that comes from there. Somehow the million year old salt seems much cleaner than the garbage they dried last week.
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Are you willing to guarantee some environmentalist won't bring up the fact that "depleting" the ocean of .00000000001% of its lithium can cause an inconvenience to some bacteria which in turn affects krill population which in turn affects whales? I mean, they don't like desalination plants what makes you think they'd be cool with lithium plants? Fact is, we need better statistics education in this country before we can talk about doing anything anymore.
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I mean, they don't like desalination plants
Source? I question your premise. I've never heard of environmental objections to the desal plants here.
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Desalination plants work by extracting fresh water from saline (sea) water by reverse osmosis, so a plant will typically take in a thousand cubic metres (1003 tonnes or so) of sea water, pumping them up to a pressure of
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Of course we can't guarantee that because there always will be (and should be) environmentalists who are going to act as a cehck on capital interests.
It's the goal of proper legislation to balance these things out. People concerned about the environment should have recourse to make sureindustry isn't trampling over nature as was highly common in the 19th and 20th centuries and industry should have clear and predictable rules concerning what they can and cannot do.
We definitely need reform to the environmen
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Then perhaps we should have a check done by people with actual technical training and scientific backgrounds. That isn't the environmental movement presently which is mostly dominated by tax lawyers (environmental trusts are a great tax shelter), tankies and general anti-technology types. When those types of people are involved, it isn't a real environmental review. It is a political stunt to get some faction more power and a way to redirect money in ways the rich want without pissing off the rest of soc
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sustainable alternatives to Lithium
Which sustainable alternatives to lithium? This element is already the lightest metal, which has one valence electron.
Re:Good (Score:4, Informative)
I suspect the GP meant lithium-battery-chemistry-and-structure.
Its certainly true that from a density to weight standpoint its going to be tough to come up with a chemistry and design that does not use lithium while meeting or exceeding the current state-of-the-art around optimizing for these properties. However there are possible ways to get there. Other chemistries offer better or at least more flexible thermal envelopes such that weight savings might be achieved in the overall design of the batter cell.
Its also true the li batteries are used in a lot of not-weight-critical applications today because of density/capacity/charge time/durability that might be met other ways. Who cares how much your power wall weights?
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sustainable alternatives to Lithium
Which sustainable alternatives to lithium? This element is already the lightest metal, which has one valence electron.
Thanks for saying that. People usually have trouble understanding that physics laws are pretty simple on that topic...
We already have alternatives to Lithium (in the sense that we can make batteries without Lithium). The problem is that there is no magic involved, all of them have disadvantages, the main being, as you say, that the batteries made with those alternatives are (a lot) heavier, and take more space for the same capacity.
Said differently, you can either have a fast EV with long-range, and a Li-io
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Said differently, you can either have a fast EV with long-range, and a Li-ion battery, or a slower EV with shorter range, and a battery with one of this alternative.
Why would it necessarily need to be both slower _and_ have shorter range? While the engineers designing it might trade off some speed and some range, they don't have to. They could focus entirely on just having shorter range, or on having lower speed. Or, in fact, with some of the other possible chemistries, they don't have to trade off speed _or_ range. They could use a metal air battery that has a higher specific energy than a lithium-ion battery. There are still some tradeoffs, but they're different ones
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Why would it necessarily need to be both slower _and_ have shorter range?
Because all the better battery chemistries we have have energy densities so high that if they are damaged they explode instead of just flaming off like Li does. Think a gasoline explosion instead of a torch. That might (might) be OK for a grid battery. It isn't OK for an EV. Sodium is just a very volatile element if it isn't in a salt and that is typical for more "experimental" battery chemistries. There is also Vanadium flow batteries but Vanadium is very very very rare so those batteries cost an extr
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sustainable alternatives to Lithium
Which sustainable alternatives to lithium? This element is already the lightest metal, which has one valence electron.
Right now there really isn’t, but that’s the aim of research. On the other hand there are other Lithum based compounds that may improve on things, but still in the research phase. Improving life spans a recycling are also important elements.
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I would rather see this area as protected are of national interest, than yet another open pit mine. While Lithium is important, we should be putting more energy into finding sustainable alternatives to Lithium or the amount necessary.
What you really mean is that as with rare earths, heavy industry, or any manufacturing, you would like to externalize the mining of Lithium and its negative externalities (yup, mining is not pretty environment-wise) to other countries, so thaty you can pretend being green.
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This is a total shit take, which is consistent with your other comments in this discussion.
Open pit mining is the most environmentally destructive method of sourcing lithium.
You are cheerleading for it.
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You are the one cheerleading for more lithium extraction. Preferably far from you, so that you can keep destroying the world for future generations while doing as if you care.
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Our society is transitory at this level of development. I don't think anyone really expects things to keep going much longer anyway. When I was in my teens, things seemed hopeful (ala a StarTrek future) but when 50 rolls around you start to poke your head up a bit higher to get a look around. It's not going to end well. 200 years from now we'll be lucky to be at Rome's level of technology still. I don't think humans are going anywhere, but there won't be 8 billion of us anymore, that's for sure.
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You are the one cheerleading for more lithium extraction.
Right now it's that or something worse. We already have much cleaner methods of lithium extraction. Still more of them are on the horizon, if we simply develop them.
Preferably far from you
If it's clean, I don't care where it is. You're projecting.
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It is clean as long as you don't look too hard at the details.
If it's clean, I don't care where it is.
And if it's not, you prefer if it is extracted far from you. As long as you can avoid changing or adapting your lifestyle.
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Please feel free to ignore sfcat on the subject of science, he thinks it takes a supernova to make Lithium
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Someone has to do the math - there are a lot of competing priorities, and ultimately my gut (which I wouldn't legislate from without being backed up by an actual study) says it's better to have a local source under local environmental laws causing local damage while protecting the wider environment.
The entire world is negatively affected by excess CO2. If you can destroy a few square kilometres of US soil while saving millions more within the US and elsewhere, isn't that a good trade to make? More batteri
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Someone has to do the math - there are a lot of competing priorities, and ultimately my gut (which I wouldn't legislate from without being backed up by an actual study) says it's better to have a local source under local environmental laws causing local damage while protecting the wider environment.
The entire world is negatively affected by excess CO2. If you can destroy a few square kilometres of US soil while saving millions more within the US and elsewhere, isn't that a good trade to make? More batteries means less reliance on burning fossil fuels.
Some trades are good, but not all of them. The problem in this story is that there are other potential sources of Lithium, but no necessarily land as flat as NASA needs. In fact, we continually underestimate what our world would be like today without satellites. Consider: weather forecasts, communication, ground sensing, maps and navigation, amongst many applications.
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We should strip mine the place to save the environment.
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Not an open pit mine. They drill down, inject water, then recover a lithium-rich brine.
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
Cry me a river (Score:4, Interesting)
To the legislator(s) complaining about the BLM decision, claiming that this is hyporticial of the current presidential administration and making other complaints, I ask: Produce your history of bills proposed and voted on that would have substative effect on curtailing global warming. As global warming is a global phenomenon, show us that you are a champion of the health and wellbeing of the global population, and not just your constituants who happen to include the businesses holding mineral rights in the area affected by the BLM decision.
Further, stop portraying every legislative and regulatory decision as if though there are only two mutually exclusive options, and if you're not supporting one option then you must absolutely be against it. NASA's research and earth observation efforts, which in part depend on calibration of the sattelites that perform those observations, is one facet of combatting climate change. Mining minerals useful for clean(er) energy techologies is another facet. No one facet is the silver bullet in this fight.
To the businesses holding mineral rights in the area affected by the BLM decision, I ask: Stop being so greedy. It's telling that they complain that the (according to the AP article) 30% of land withdrawn contains 60% of the value. And it's telling that they hadn't (according to the AP article) submitted any plans to actually mine this area when NASA made the decision - now all of a sudden they're concerned. Why don't then go mine the 60% of the land they still have access to, and make some money, as opposed to sitting around complaining about the decision and making no money.
According to the AP article, BLM concluded "No other location in the United States is suitable for this purpose". As there are likely other places to mine lithium (or for that matter other minerals that are or may be useful in implementing technologies that reduce or even turn back the effects of climate change) within the US, I agree that the uniqueness of this land for the purpose NASA uses it should be given priority over other uses.
To both legislator(s) and businesses opposing this move, I trot out one of my favorite quotes from a Heinlein work (The Past Through Tomorrow, 1967):
"There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back, for their private benefit."
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To the businesses holding mineral rights in the area affected by the BLM decision, I ask: Stop being so greedy. It's telling that they complain that the (according to the AP article) 30% of land withdrawn contains 60% of the value. And it's telling that they hadn't (according to the AP article) submitted any plans to actually mine this area when NASA made the decision - now all of a sudden they're concerned. Why don't then go mine the 60% of the land they still have access to, and make some money, as opposed to sitting around complaining about the decision and making no money.
And to make this perfectly clear to readers here - the mining company does not own the resources they are complaining about. The U.S. public owns that lithium. What the mining company has is a "staked claim" which gives them the exclusive rights to exploit the resource for profit, if they can.
A little of both? (Score:2)
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No, no, no, no and no.
Literally anything they do to recover the lithium will affect the surface.
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I'm a bit surprised that, in this day and age, there isn't another way to do this with a virtual measurement or something. Or by using very precise clocks on the ground and on the satellites and examining the time difference between them and figuring out altitude from relativistic time differences. Or just setting up some precisely located lasers or reflectors at known positions on the ground and triangulating with those. Of course, that may be no good for the many satellites that have been up in space for
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Or just setting up some precisely located lasers or reflectors at known positions on the ground and triangulating with those. Of course, that may be no good for the many satellites that have been up in space for ages and rely on these known geographical features to calibrate their altimeters.
I had the exact same line of thought you did. You could switch to something else going forwards, but it wouldn't be the same so none of the existing measurements would be useful with the new measurements.
I still think it's a good idea to change to something else in the future, which means implementing something else now and having new implementors switch over, and then being able to call the switch complete decades from now — but that beats never.
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Part of what makes this plot unique and useful is its consistency over time. This allows them to calibrate instruments against historical data. They could use any spot anywhere probably for new calibrations, but likely not recreate this area.
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Or, better yet, why can't they just flatten some big chunk of Alaskan tundra and use that for their calibrations? It not like the US has a shortage of unused land.
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Or, better yet, why can't they just flatten some big chunk of Alaskan tundra
The Alaskan tundra is melting, which is accompanied by subsidence [grist.org]. That's why.
Monday spleen venting (Score:3, Interesting)
how is it done elsewhere? do other countries get to use the spot to calibrate their own satellites? if not, they must have figured out another way, no?
is this really the only place/way to get that done? it might be a damn good spot and have many things going for it, but to portray it as "this place is the only place" seems a stretch
I'm not taking sides, but given the nature of federal-level politics, it probably has little to do with what we the plebs hear, and more to do with pandering, spin and backroom deals
and this gem: "As our nation becomes ever more impacted by an evolving and changing environment, it is critical to have reliable and accurate data and imagery of our planet."
wtf does that even mean? what a load of non-speak shite, served up in lieu of something meaningful
so there's my Monday spleen venting, now on to better things
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Few countries have a space program. Those which do often work closely with each other, including NASA. There may be other places on the planet this can be done but none which are in control of the US government, and there's complexity involved in changing a calibration standard.
Value proposition (Score:2)
Seems like both parties have valid, but not necessarily equally valid, claims on this same piece of land.
Then we either go with precedence, which means first to claim (NASA) wins in perpetuity. Or we devise a method to measure pros and cons of each side, and come up with the "best use of land". Or we can go hybrid, and "let the mining company buy out rights from NASA".
Still, the best question to ask is (if we assume mining on itself is a positive of course): Can't we find any alternative place in the USA, o
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The land is owned by the US Government (the public)
It's simply a matter of Government (the people's) policy as to whether the land is leased to private companies for mining, or left undisturbed for the Government's (NASA's) use.
This decision could change with the next administration. And then it could change back after that.
Absolute Radiometric Calibration (Score:5, Informative)
This is an excellent explanation on what absolute radiometric calibration is, how it is done,, and why it is important. It was written in 2020 and is specifically about the Railroad Valley, NV location.
There's even a deeper technical explanation on the "hows" linked as a whitepaper at the bottom of the article.
https://blog.maxar.com/tech-and-tradecraft/2020/absolute-radiometric-calibration-is-an-essential-tool-to-imagery-science-but-what-is-it [maxar.com]
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It's a very good article (and a reminder of why /. is worthwhile). Though I didn't see it being written "specifically about the Railroad Valley, NV location" as they mention using calibration tarps as well as other sites around the world. I had to RTFA to determine that the RR Valley location was unique because it represented a calibration source that has been constant over a long time period. Also that it's not just a radiometric calibration source but an altitude calibration source as well.
Consistency ove
Re: Absolute Radiometric Calibration (Score:2)
You are right, I was sloppy and writing that. More accurate would be that there are five official sites in the world for doing satellite calibration, and Railroad Valley, NV is the one located at the US. This is coordinated internationally by the non-profit Committee on Earth Observing Satellites (CEOS). More information can be found at the link here:
https://ceos.org/home-2/wgcv-radcalnet/ [ceos.org]
"In the Western Hemisphere" (Score:2)
What about in the eastern one? Who cares which hemisphere is used for this...
Everybody has an axe to grind (Score:2)
It's not enough to say "Don't do this thing here." You have to provide an alternative that's cost effective. (And cost isn't just measured in money)
No alternative required (Score:2)
It's not enough to say "Don't do this thing here." You have to provide an alternative that's cost effective. (And cost isn't just measured in money)
Not in this case, it's just 36 square miles of land, it belongs to the US government and they're choosing not to sell it. You might not like it but it's their property. Yes Lithium is useful, but it's not like this is the only supply there's plenty of lake beds which won't mess up the nations satellites.
I mean like boo hoo, someone doesn't get to make some money because it will cost the rest of us money. The politicos in this scenario really don't seem to understand how important satellites are to the US ec
So satellite companies need to pay for this usage (Score:2)
TANSTAAFL
If NASA and satellite companies want it pristine, then they need to establish ownership. Hint - the US government needs the money... ;)
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NASA is a US government agency. The land in question is owned by the US federal government. They already own it.
Opportunity cost (Score:2)
In foregoing the mineral wealth that is present in the land, the US government is depriving their taxpayers of a source of income. Whilst this may be the right thing to do, it is important to recognise that this is cost which is transferring money from US taxpayers to satellite users from around the world. How do we decide and who decides are questions to which the theoretical answer is the US Congress... cue giggling...
Bonneville Salt Flats (Score:2)
Standard dishonesty (Score:3)
EVERY Democrat administration of the past 60 years has used various agencies of the federal government as cover for environmental policies, asserting claims that this or that narrow vital interest requires that another swath of land be taken off the list of land available for drilling, mining, logging or other activities. The Clinton administration famously used wild horses and owls for these purposes.
To be clear: I am not asserting that either [a] there is no value in satellite calibration or [b] that Republican administrations do not similarly abuse the bloated federal regulatory machine for other agendas, THIS article, however, is about a Democrat admin using the satellite calibration canard.
There's NOTHING about any patch of land that makes it better as a calibration target for remote imagery than very well-defined, man-made, precisely positioned targets. NASA could jolly well design and create targets at Edwards, KSC, etc. The simple truth is that satellite image sensors are now so good and with such high resolution that large targets are no longer needed, except as a fig leaf for political choices. I will admit that my direct personal experience does not include satellite imagery, but I have worked on high altitude sensors, and there are simply no actual unknowns in these technologies anymore. We can build sensors on the ground, calibrate them on the ground, fly them, and verify their performance by targeting ANY known ground target (and see that, actually this is more of a verification than a calibration).
NASA land squatting (Score:1)
Did NASA ask Nevada if they could use the Railroad Valley for this?
What if NASA had used the surface parking lot at Disneyland? Would that prevent Disney from erecting parking structures, thus freeing up space for California Adventure Park?
What if they used Mission Beach in San Diego. Would that prevent Big Olaf's ice cream stand from being repainted? FBI: "Put down that paint brush! NASA's orders!"
Re: NASA land squatting (Score:1)
Ooh, a "can't read" flame. You should try syndication.