Chantel Dunbar Jones remembers when there seemed to be oil wells on every street corner in her hometown of Louisville, Arkansas. This small town in the southwestern part of the state sits atop the Smackover oil formation, one of the largest oil fields in the United States. For a long time, almost all of them worked in the oil industry. Dunbar-Jones' father started at Phillips 66, but as oil wells began shutting down in the late 1990s and the industry moved to Texas, it drifted into smaller and smaller companies. Since then, the town has seen residents and businesses leave in search of a brighter future.
The region's fortunes started to pick up late last year when ExxonMobil, along with several other companies, announced its intention to begin producing lithium in the region by 2027.The company has opened a testing site in the Smackover layer that spans three states and supplies 15% of the world's lithium. People in Louisville are cautiously hopeful that the changes could turn things around.
„We're very excited and we're trying to accomplish all of our goals and take advantage of what's coming,“ said Dunbar Jones, who served on the city council for seven years.
ExxonMobil joins the rush to provide the natural resources needed to power the green transition. Oil producers and coal companies like Ramaco Resources are working with the Department of Energy to mine them and, in some cases, squeeze more money from the land they already own.
Minerals such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, and silicon are essential for making the batteries that power solar panels, wind turbines, and electric vehicles. At present, most of these important minerals are Argentina, Australia, Chile, China, Democratic Republic of the Congo.The United States has only one rare earth element and lithium mine, and the Biden administration Over $407 million Available for domestic exploration and production through the Inflation Control Act. This inflow will amplify the impact of other investments in various links of the domestic clean energy supply chain. These subsidies are making the returns from the green transition more attractive to fossil fuel companies, many of which have access to potentially productive land and the experience and equipment to mine it. Masu. In places known for their oil and coal reserves, such as Wyoming's Powder River Basin and southern Arkansas, fossil fuel companies are eyeing newly discovered reservoirs of important minerals. So while some people are excited about the promise of economic revitalization, others are worried that the worst social and environmental impacts of fossil fuel extraction will be revisited.
Dunbar-Jones believes there is little reason for concern for now. Exxon's announcement, along with similar announcements by companies like Standard Lithium, feels like the perfect excuse to dress up Louisville and work with surrounding towns to open up the area for business. She has been told that hundreds of new jobs could be created in the area. „People are being lost due to lack of decent housing and lack of decent employment,“ she said. “Now that lithium is coming out, everyone is trying to get back on track.”
Land traces surrounding the Smackover oil formation Wounded Years of intense and often haphazard oil extraction have contaminated the river with oil and brine. Dunbar-Jones said Exxon and other companies looking for lithium have attended public meetings to allay environmental concerns and declare their methods safe and environmentally friendly. But she still has doubts.
„How do we actually know before they arrive and start working?“ she asked.
ExxonMobil did not respond to a request for comment, but in a statement announcing the lithium project said the process of mining lithium is safe, produces fewer carbon emissions than hard rock mining, and requires significantly less land. .
Marco Tedesco, a climate scientist at Columbia University who studies extraction around the world, said extraction of critical minerals is subject to a relatively loose regulatory framework and could be highly destructive. He said that there is a sex. To use the Smack Over Formation, Exxon plans to use It uses lithium-rich brine from 10,000 feet underground using a process called lithium deep extraction. „We're pumping lithium from the bottom, similar to hydraulic fracturing,“ Tedesco said, adding that the process requires huge amounts of water. When the brine evaporates, it leaves behind lithium salts and other byproducts, some valuable and some toxic. „People who live near mines have the right to take advantage of this economic opportunity,“ he says, but in reality, most of the benefits come from the communities where mining takes place, Tedesco said. He is watching.
“Unfortunately, history is littered with systemic disregard for transparency and lack of corporate accountability,” Tedesco said.
Water scarcity is a hot topic in Wyoming. Wyoming is a cold, dry state with extensive open pit mining, intensive hydraulic fracturing, and a growing critical minerals industry. Coal has been tied to the identity of Gillette, a small town in the northeastern corner of the state, for more than 100 years. The Powder River Basin stores most of the nation's recoverable reserves. Coal company Ramaco Resources, with help from the Department of Energy's national laboratories, has discovered what is believed to be the nation's largest deposit of rare earth metals on land it purchased for $2 million in 2011. Llamako doesn't dig coal; what it says He would become a $37 billion millionaire from important minerals.
Shannon Anderson, staff attorney for the environmental group Powder River Watershed Resource Council, doesn't see anything unusual about what Llamaco is doing. “Companies are good at reinventing themselves when there is an opportunity in the market,” she said, and the mining industry was keen to join the clean energy supply chain. Research shows that mine tailings, acid mine drainage, and other toxic coal waste may actually be hazardous materials. decent sauce of important minerals. Despite opposing many of President Joe Biden's clean energy policies, Senate Democrat Joe Manchin, who represents the coal-producing state of West Virginia, is hopeful that the mines could go to waste. The country had little difficulty in promoting the strengthening of domestic supplies of vital minerals. profitable for coal companies. What Anderson said has changed in his 16 years of work is the „astronomical level of subsidy that drives these decisions.“
In Wyoming, grassroots organizations and their organizations are particularly concerned about water consumption and pollution, an ongoing problem in the state's high deserts. „We've been dealing with the impacts of coal for a long time,“ Anderson said. “Are we ready to deal with the impacts of new kinds of mining over a generation or two?”
Anderson also expressed concern about the Biden administration's good intentions.energy community„Defined as areas that were once dependent on fossil fuels and facing economic diversification,“ Biden could see further exploitation of these communities, which he has made a priority for investment through his clean energy program. There is sex.
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While many federal grants and loans focus on housing, broadband, and energy efficiency improvements, some focus on: mineral research, biofuels and natural gas infrastructure. Since January 2021, the Department of Energy has announced an estimated $41 million in projects to support critical mineral exploration. A former mining community.
Despite these funding opportunities, many of these locations may be underserved in terms of tax revenue, environmental regulations, and cleaning. Laws vary from state to state, but in most areas where vast resources have been exploited by coal and oil companies, the windfall is recovered through wages, state royalties, local severance taxes, park construction, and other corporate mega-businesses. I only received a small percentage of what I earned. Amenities.
Severance taxes on critical minerals fall under the category of „general minerals“ taxes and are generally lower than taxes paid on coal and oil. Under the Mining Act of 1872, no state royalties are paid at all. So, to ensure that communities reap the economic benefits, we need to rethink how that revenue is distributed. “You can't design a tax system to replace one-for-one,” Anderson said.
The Mining Act of 1872 also does not apply to private land or land east of the Mississippi River. That land is instead regulated by the Clean Water Act and other laws, which allow for a more gradual process than for oil and coal. Within this patchwork of federal, state, and local laws and land ownership systems, many loopholes exist for certain types of mine waste. Blaine Miller-McFeely, a mining expert at the environmental law nonprofit Earthjustice, warned that there are many ways oil and gas companies can avoid responsibility for the long-term effects of mineral extraction.
„This administration is not applying strong enough diligence standards to the money that's going out,“ Miller-McFeely said. “They have an opportunity to set a high bar to ensure that we don't shift victim areas from oil and coal-impacted communities to mining-impacted communities.”
He added: „These oil, gas and coal companies are greenwashing themselves by claiming that their traditional methods of extraction, which are destructive and toxic, are the solution to climate change.“ Ta.
The Biden administration has noted these challenges, and an interagency working group at the Department of the Interior has been established. trying to reform The Mining Act of 1872, which allowed for stricter environmental regulations and public procedures, was enacted, but mining industry representatives and Republican officials have criticized the effort, which has now stalled. Environmental Protection Agency officials contacted by Grist confirmed widespread support for the new policy. A highly regulated leasing system This would allow the United States to pay more attention to water quality and the right of local communities to say no to new development, or to protect critical mineral resources while maintaining transparent communication with mining companies where development is desired. It will be possible to meet increasing demand.
Marco Tedesco says stronger regulations can help communities that provide the materials needed to transition away from fossil fuels reap more of the benefits and reduce the problems that fossil fuel extraction brings. He said it could happen. But he cautioned that this will only happen if local, working-class communities like Louisville and Gillette participate in a public and transparent process to shape the policies they need.
“Involving communities at an early decision-making level, investing in tackling environmental impacts, anticipating impacts for future generations, and sharing economic and financial benefits with communities is the key to choirs. They should go together like elements,” Tedesco said. ”