Why Is the U.S. Department of Defense Giving $90 Million to a Private Corporation to Reopen an Old Lithium Mine in Western North Carolina?
The citizens of Kings Mountain, N.C., do not want the dust, debris, truck traffic and environmental degradation of a lithium mine in their community, but will their local politicians sell them out?
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The United States is moving aggressively to bolster its national battery supply chain as globalists seek to force consumers into more expensive and less practical electric cars as part of their so-called Net Zero climate agenda.
In order to produce EVs, you need lithium for the batteries. Lots of lithium.
China is a top-3 global producer of lithium along with Chile and Australia. But U.S.-China relations are coming apart at the seams over Taiwan, Ukraine, and other issues, so the U.S. cannot depend on future lithium imports from China.
Even the World Economic Forum has gone on the record highlighting the need for more lithium heading into the digital age and the globalists’ penchant for electrification of everything. Not just cars and trucks but lawn equipment, stoves, water heaters, you name it, they want it to run on electricity instead of coal, oil or gas.
Against this backdrop, the U.S. government is looking inward for more sources of lithium. That’s where North Carolina enters the scene.
The federal government is pressuring a small town in North Carolina to allow an old lithium mine to be reopened, despite local backlash against the corporation seeking a permit.
In mid-September, just two weeks before Hurricane Helene blasted this area of North Carolina, the U.S. Department of Defense awarded Albemarle Corporation a $90 million grant to restart mining operations in Cleveland County.
The money will help purchase mining equipment for the operation, which sits off of Interstate-85 in the city of Kings Mountain.
The city manager of Kings Mountain, Jim Palenick, told WBTV that a total of $240 million from the federal government has been awarded to recuscitate the city’s long-closed mining operation.
You might wonder, why is the U.S. government handing out $240 million of our hard-earned tax dollars to restart an old lithium mine so that auto manufacturers can produce more electric vehicles that nobody wants to buy because they’re inefficient, dangerous, and too expensive.
The Kings Mountain lithium mine, about 50 miles west of Charlotte, N.C., shut down back in 1988. But in recent years, lithium, which is the world’s lightest metal, has been growing in demand.
While EV battery makers in need of this metal are chomping at the bit and foaming at the mouth, Palenick told WBTV that the city wants to make sure it’s the right move for the community.
And the community doesn’t want the mine reopened.
Palenick told the outlet:
“What you have here is one of, if not the only source of hard rock lithium in the United States.”
Palenick added,
“There’s a lot of due diligence that still has to go into this from the city’s perspective; we’ll be dealing with truck traffic, with noise, with dust, with water issues, with environmental issues, so all of that must be worked out; there has to be a permit for a special use that hasn’t been granted yet.”
According to Albemarle Corporation, the lithium deposits would initially support the manufacturing of 1.2 million electric vehicles each year.
Albemarle says 70 percent of the lithium it processes goes into electric vehicles. But what about the other 30 percent? Turns out it’s used in triggering devices for nuclear weapons and in aerospace alloys, among other weapons systems. Could this be why the Department of Defense is throwing so much money into getting the lithium out of North Carolina’s foothills?
Some say it might not be a coincidence that a 500-year storm, Hurricane Helene, hit this area of North Carolina three weeks ago. I can’t speak to that.
Unlike lead-asset batteries, used up lithium batteries cannot be recycled and are toxic to the environment.
Palenick said the Kings Mountain City Council is under “tremendous pressure” from state and federal officials to approve the mining operation but will do what’s right for the city.
I’d be shocked if the city council does what is right. If I was a betting man, I’d put my money on this city’s elected representatives voting against the wishes of the people and in favor of the federal/state military-industrial complex.
Below is a PBS mini-documentary, 7 minutes long, on North Carolina’s lithium rush.
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Leo Hohmann is an independent author, researcher, writer.
Featured image: Albemarle lithium plant at Silver Peak, Nevada (Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0)
