News
A Nevada Lithium Mine Nears Approval, Despite Threatening the Only Habitat of an Endangered Wildflower
Elements in the soil of the Silver Peak range nurture a buckwheat that grows nowhere else in the world, but could also radically increase U.S. production of a mineral critical to the energy transition.
By Wyatt Myskow
The Biden Administration signaled it was on the verge of approving a proposed lithium and boron mine in Nevada’s Silver Peak range that would quadruple the nation’s current production of lithium and potentially power 340,000 electric vehicles—though at the cost of roughly 20 percent of an endangered wildflower’s critical habitat.
Related Knowledge Center: ENERGY BASICS: coal
State of Play
The use of coal, a staple of heating and electricity-generation for decades, is in decline in the United States — supplanted by newly abundant production of natural gas — but is still dominant in some parts of the world. While economical, coal use is particularly problematic as international attention focuses increasingly on climate change.