For folks who don’t live in Maine it’s a no-brainer: sure, go for it! Bring the USA more domestically produced lithium.
But… mining fucks up entire ecosystems and pollutes water etc… and even if companies can “promise” the operation will be clean, come to implementation they likely walk back on that and the damage is done.
At the very least, all the demolition and vehicles, fuel, explosives, chemicals.
Shits going to leak into the rivers one way or the other. In addition, they would likely use up a ton of local water supply.
It’s a no-brainer. Maine is not in the middle of some desert.
It is just a lot more expensive then.
Which is why most mining is done in remote, or poor areas, with laughable regulations, where no one dares complain for the jobs.
Because it's worse than lithium and contributes to a global catastrophe that threatens billions of lives.
1. Mine lithium 2. Drill oil 3. Do nothing
You have to store energy somehow, even if the entire world shifted to walking everywhere. Goods still need to traverse the world and thus far there hasn't been anything else with a high enough energy density to get close.
The argument being made is that if mining lithium becomes more popular, its likely to lead to advancements that do limit its ecological impact and provide a more sustainable method for storing energy...
Mine somewhere else.
Non-lithium approaches to storing energy.