Green Rush in Black Hills
South Dakota’s Black Hills are no stranger to mining. The hills — sacred land to the Lakota — have long been exploited for gold and uranium deposits, the lands scarred and rivers polluted in the process. The area is a relatively small (60 by 100 mile) island of lush trees and rolling hills amid a vast expanse of grasslands, but one in every five acres has an active mining claim. Now, mining companies are eyeing the region for another resource: lithium. In the last decade, global lithium production has quadrupled, predominately coming from two places. The first is a region in Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina known as the “Lithium Triangle.” Lithium sourced from this region is found in salt flats and extracted from pools of salty brine through an evaporation process. The second is Western Australia, where the mineral is mined from bedrock in places like Western Australia and Zimbabwe. Mining companies are preparing for similar endeavors in the United States in Nevada, South Dakota, North Carolina, and more. Welcome to the “white gold rush” to procure lithium, a vital element used to produce the batteries that power the electric cars, solar cells, and other technologies of the green energy transition. This rush is in its initial stages, but already the same actors who capitalized on past oil and mineral rushes are positioned to continue business as usual. This time, climate change is being exploited to justify the same harmful extractive practices. Journalist Steward Sinclair reports on the mining industry’s mounting interest in South Dakota’s lithium resources and the Indigenous-led effort to protect the Black Hills from further extraction.
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