Good News Central North Americans !!

Australia has long been the major supplier of raw lithium concentrate [1] - sending it on to either China or Malaysia [2].

Soon we'll be shipping concentrate to Texas [3] [4] [5] so that the filthy dirty toxic work of heavy rare earths separation can take place as close to the greedy end consumers as possible.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20221110-how-australia-be...

[2] https://lynasrareearths.com/

[3] https://www.mining-technology.com/news/lynas-heavy-rare-eart...

[4] https://thetexan.news/rare-earths-processing-plant-to-open-o...

[5] https://www.miningmagazine.com/supply-chain-management/news/...

I am not sure if you are opposed to the idea of localized damage. That is the best thing you can do as then one can control it far easier. It is much easier to test for emissions from on coal plant powering all the EVs on the road for example than the other scenario of testing each ICE vehicle.

As to externalities, no one said that there shouldn’t be taxes or rules in place that make sure that the consumers of lithium don’t internalize the cost.

The US could completely source all it’s lithium needs internally and still be vastly better off. It’s got the 5th largest proven reserve of any country, but that’s understating things as lithium is surprisingly abundant we just haven’t had much use for the stuff before lithium ion batteries.

In terms of total harm, even people working lithium mines are better off if that eliminates ICE engines.