Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course not, but The West (NATO and its allies) uses those excuses to support coups, dictatorships and regime changes that benefit American companies. The objective is to plunder the country of its natural resources, and control it politically and militarly. Do you think the west gives a flying fuck about human rights? Do you see protests erupting in Saudi Arabia or Dubai or other western allies? They dont care abo…
You don’t see protests in Dubai and Saudi Arabia because these countries are (compared to Iran) really rich and liberal
Iran discovers world’s second largest lithium reserve
331–340 of 400 posts
Re: Iran discovers world’s second largest lithium reserve
#332Earlier quoted context omitted.
Great, can't wait for another democracy that is doomed from the start.
Why would it be doomed? What reasons do you see for this to happen? Unlike Iraq or Afghanistan, Iran has a long and recent history of being a highly orderly society. How democratic it would be is another question, but very likely it at least is not going to be as oppressive. Even if the resulting state were closer to Singapore than to Switzerland, it would still be a serious relief for the population.
Re: Iran discovers world’s second largest lithium reserve
#333Re: Iran discovers world’s second largest lithium reserve
#334Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you were to electrify all the vehicles in the world today (and the developing world hasn't even got lots of cars yet), it would take 1/2 the world's known supply of lithium. and those batteries only last about 8 to 10 years. Lithium become abundant, no way. Not with the amounts we're using up per capita and the enormous population on this planet. the green revolution is just getting started and there's definitely…
Lets save the planet with further exploitation of the planet.
Re: Iran discovers world’s second largest lithium reserve
#335Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe even ocean water is a potential source of Lithium if we ever get constrained on more direct sources. Unfortunately it's not really Lithium holding back EVs, it's Cobalt and a few other rare earth metals. Also not sure how much having Lithium locked up in a heavily sanctioned country will help the big battery manufacturers. Edit: typos
> Also not sure how much having Lithium locked up in a heavily sanctioned country will help the big battery manufacturers To put my cynic’s hat on: Having something the super powers want sounds like a great way to stop being so sanctioned. Great negotiating leverage.
Re: Iran discovers world’s second largest lithium reserve
#336Earlier quoted context omitted.
The current state of Iran is a result of the Revolution.
He must be talking about the Shah of Iran
Of course it’s hard to say what course history would have taken without this but I fail to see how the current theocracy / securocracy could have had a foothold without it (revolutions always just swap elites).
Re: Iran discovers world’s second largest lithium reserve
#337Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I had a nickel mine for every time I've pointed out to someone that the "proven reserves" of lithium on a USGS two page PDF are completely uncorrelated to the amount of lithium that will soon be discovered, I'd be extremely wealthy with cobalt. (Cobalt is a common byproduct of nickel mining.) Even looking at the year-after-year increases in known lithium resources over the past decade shows massive increases. Lith…
Exactly. Lithium scarcity is a similar mindset to what peak oil was in the 90s. It seems like an issue given our current understanding, but there's a huge economic incentive to discover new deposits and make their extraction economically viable. Some of the the largest oil fields currently known were only discovered in the past decade or two. I wouldn't be surprised if battery materials follow a similar discovery cur…
Petroleum reserves are basically tsr sands and fracking which is low EROEI, even with the industry externalizing costs like methane leakage, vast freshwater consumption / pollution.
For example it used to be you burned a barrel of oil to get 20 or 30 out back in the easily accessible light sweet crude days.
Shit like the tar sands is more like 2:1 EROEI.
Re: Iran discovers world’s second largest lithium reserve
#338It's a little bit sickening that so many of these initial comments are joking about the US going to war over the lithium.
Re: Iran discovers world’s second largest lithium reserve
#339Earlier quoted context omitted.
norway is the only example of someone who broke the curse. Saudi, gulf monarchies and all other examples that you can come up with(except maybe russia, but it's a very big and not that simple to analyze), either already fucked by the curse, or still in the process(which is pleasant enough, so most people think it's ok), the metric is that other parts of the economy have meaningless growth rate compared to resources e…
Actually Norway did not break the curse. Their economy is pretty much exclusively oil-based, very few other industries. If you run the numbers their fund will fund current expenses for only a decade or so if oil stopped completely. Which isn't really enough time to start other industries for their citizens to have jobs. So they're basically completely dependent on oil, with maybe a short runway for afterwards. They d…
But my point is that the curse is that there is a stimulus to stop doing any other businesses. And it seems that Norway has largely avoided that by forcing as much oil money as possible out of the economy(oil fund)
Re: Iran discovers world’s second largest lithium reserve
#340Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. Lithium scarcity is a similar mindset to what peak oil was in the 90s. It seems like an issue given our current understanding, but there's a huge economic incentive to discover new deposits and make their extraction economically viable. Some of the the largest oil fields currently known were only discovered in the past decade or two. I wouldn't be surprised if battery materials follow a similar discovery cur…
Light sweet crude definitely peaked. Petroleum reserves are basically tsr sands and fracking which is low EROEI, even with the industry externalizing costs like methane leakage, vast freshwater consumption / pollution. For example it used to be you burned a barrel of oil to get 20 or 30 out back in the easily accessible light sweet crude days. Shit like the tar sands is more like 2:1 EROEI.
All those people complaining about EROEI no longer seem to have the slightest concern, despite it being a significant hurdle for future fossil fuel use.