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Comment by latchkey | Hacker News Reader

If Thailand has it, Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia probably do too.

Edit: After checking on a map, probably Myanmar/Malaysia.

Myanmar has the most bountiful gem mines in the world. I visited in 2019 and there were many shops with piles of ruby, jade, sapphire, even amber. They're already pretty specialized in mining and have little qualms about razing mining areas so would be able to take quick advantage - if their civil conflict allows.

> Myanmar has the most bountiful gem mines in the world.

I assume that's hyperbole because I couldn't find a list of top producing countries that included Myanmar, do you have a link?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myanmar#Extractive_industries

> Myanmar produces precious stones such as rubies, sapphires, pearls, and jade. Rubies are the biggest earner; 90% of the world's rubies come from the country, whose red stones are prized for their purity and hue.

The article that is cited is from 2010, seems like overall gem production has decreased significantly since then.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1061659/myanmar-producti...

Well, it’s definitely not ideal. But if history is anything to go by, then either they themselves take it and maybe by killing each other; or someone from outside will come and do the killing for them and then take it all and also sell some freedoms while they’d be at it.

Anecdotal evidence can be misleading. I went to India and saw a literal pile, 7 ft high and maybe 10 ft in diameter of emeralds casually “stored” in a corner of a room but I don’t think India produces all that many emeralds (it’s primarily a cutting hub).

Where was this?

Somewhere in Rajasthan.

No, I think Botswana or DRC does

Myanmar is in active civil war and under sanctions https://www.state.gov/burma-sanctions/ Even if they did find it, no one would be able to use it.

The Chinese fund and own several regional warlords and resource mafias. They can probably bribe and subvert their way into any promising lithium find.

Given where the province is I would only speculate for Myanmar and Malaysia.

I admit that I didn't check closely enough on a map and now that I have, you're probably right about that.

As someone from Myanmar, this piques my interest

It's the new oil, so I would be careful. Democracy and camaraderie and all those greater good things tend to come where the cheap resources are.

Deposits appear sufficiently distributed to not cause geopolitical conflicts [1]. This is not oil. Lithium is relatively abundant, and a mineral to be reused, not energy to be consumed once through. To keep it conflict free, we must continue to discover reserves and drive down the value of the commodity. No one goes to war over say, salt, in the 21st century (at least not yet!).

[1] https://lithiumfuture.org/map.html

It won't cause conflict because China will just come in and take it. Look at what they've done with the silkroads through Laos/Cambodia.

"Here, take a 'free' hydrodam on your river and we will just take some land and electricity."

Sounds like a trade to me. Predatory tho if the country is very poor and easily exploited. But as someone from a country that loves to invade others for resources I’d take predatory trading over military force any day.

You didn't dive deep enough into the literal eco/social catastrophe that the silkroad is.

It isn't military because neither of those two countries have any sort of way to defend themselves against China, but it might as well be military, because China.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative

That's a whole lot better than the deal from the US, frankly.

> It won't cause conflict because China will just come in and take it...

> "Here, take a 'free' hydrodam on your river and we will just take some land and electricity."

So which is it? They will 'take it' or they will trade for it?

That's the problem with anti-chinese propaganda. It makes no sense and is full of contradictions.

What they take has been proven to be far greater value than what they gave. It isn't a fair "trade", at all.

To be fair to China, corrupt locals allowed it to happen.

> What they take has been proven to be far greater value than what they gave. It isn't a fair "trade", at all.

Sure it is. As long as it wasn't coerced.

> To be fair to China, corrupt locals allowed it to happen.

I have a feeling that any trade with china or anything that helps poor countries progress is 'corrupt' to you. But then again, you push so much ant-china shilling, I recognize you just from your username.

If china is taking so much for so little, why isn't europe or the US swooping in and offering a better deal? Perhpas because china is giving them the best deal?

> As long as it wasn't coerced.

By definition, it was coerced.

Can you clarify about reuse? At least as far as batteries go, right now once it's in a battery it gets used up & then ends up in the trash [2]. There's no efficient / cost-effective way to extract lithium from spent batteries for reuse in new batteries. We might in the future but it would require some scientific advances + expensive commercialization to scale up. Even if in the future we do develop a mechanism, it could remain very expensive & not be practical until mining costs have gone up enough. Similarly, all batteries that have been consumed until that point are likely irrecoverable as they're in the waste stream & finding & collecting those batteries is unlikely to ever be economical.

[1] https://americanbatterytechnology.com/lithium-costs-a-lot-of...

[2] https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a42417327/li...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2023/11/02/redwood-...

> In 2024, a quarter million aging electric vehicles will be ready for dismantling and recycling. That could be more than a 30% jump from 2023 — and Redwood Materials, which aims to be the country's leading EV battery recycler, is ramping up its operations to prepare for the coming onslaught.

> The company created by Tesla cofounder JB Straubel, which also makes components for new batteries from materials it recovers from old ones, expects some 250,000 aging Tesla Model S sedans, Nissan Leaf hatchbacks, Toyota Priuses, Prius plug-ins and other hybrids, to turn up at dismantler lots in 2024 — with more coming every year after. That’s up from between 150,000 to 200,000 this year. To ensure it gets as many of those old batteries as possible, it’s launched a web portal to quickly give auto dismantlers purchase offers and schedule trucks to haul them away for recycling.

https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/redwood-inks-long-term... ("Redwood inks long-term EV battery materials supply deal with Toyota")

Redwood Materials is currently operational, processing the waste stream. Ford and Volvo are also partners. They'll also accept EV packs that are damaged, defective or recalled (DDR) on an ad hoc basis if you open a ticket with their team.

https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/auto-recyclers-battery-port...

(have shipped them old Leaf and Tesla packs)

> There's no efficient / cost-effective way to extract lithium from spent batteries for reuse in new batteries. We might in the future but it would require some scientific advances + expensive commercialization to scale up.

It's already 95% efficient.

No fundamental scientific advances are needed.

It's already being scaled commercially.

One example:

https://li-cycle.com/

Check out Jeffrey "JB" Straubel's new company, Redwood Materials[1][2]. They recycle lithium-ion batteries. He was Tesla's former chief technology officer.

They are essentially a lithium mine that's using a very high quality ore, ground-up batteries.

There are other companies doing this as well. [3]

1. https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/

2. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/battery-recycling-redwood-mater...

3. https://li-cycle.com/technology/

Basically zero EV or HV batteries make it into the trash. They're recycled and already have a pretty good scrap value.

I was thinking mostly about phones, laptops, power banks etc. I couldn’t find any source online that expressed what percentage of lithium goes to different kinds of applications.

The 2019 Bolivian political crisis [1] came right off the heels of Evo Morales negotiating lithium trade with Russia and China. Bolivia happens to have the largest lithium reserves of any nation.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Bolivian_political_cris...

Good context, but not a geopolitical crisis, it was an internal civil conflict.

The US/CIA has a long history of inciting coups, rigging elections, and funding far right terror organizations across Latin America for matters similar or lesser than this [1]. I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss this as unprovoked internal conflict. Especially given that only a year after this event, another election was held in which Luis Arce won in a landslide [2]. Luis Arce was importantly the finance minister for the Evo Morales administration [3]. There’s no evidence that popular support had ever waned for the Movement for Socialism in Bolivia. Yet Jeanine Añez was able to win in 2019 and exile Evo Morales in an election that involved, “irregularities and serious human rights abuses by security forces,” according to independent human rights organizations [4].

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in...

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Bolivian_general_electi...

[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Arce

[4] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/17/bolivia-govern...

> The US/CIA has a long history of inciting coups, rigging elections, and funding far right terror organizations across Latin America for matters similar or lesser than this [1].

More recently we've been supporting leftist elected candidates against right-wing coups.

We don't care Bolivia has lithium. We get lithium from Australia.

Third worldist leftists have many dumb ideas, but among them is the idea that wars are for resources or that we're exploiting third world countries by taking their resources. It's almost the opposite - they are poor because we aren't trading with them.

Which left wing governments has the US defended against right wing coups?

Brazil and Guatemala in 2023.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/01/12/bernardo-are...

And Guyana against invasion by Venezuela.

> Good context, but not a geopolitical crisis, it was an internal civil conflict.

Do you think clandestine services pursue their goals by declaring war on countries?

This was because Evo was running again even when their constitution forbid it, basically every latin american president dream of eternal reelection.

But processing the lithium and making productive tools or products out if it isn't really distributed.

Countries can suffer Dutch disease just fine without ever seeing a single Marine.

Well, it's not like Mynamar's democracy is particularly functional: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Myanmar_coup_d%27état

In the sense of "we'll bring Democracy to your country", yes. ;-)

Please do bring democracy to my country of birth, yes. And I mean it.

Right now it pretty much is held occupied by brute force. 90% of population would welcome ANY change.

The democracy is of the sarcastic kind by the way.

I was referring to the Resource Curse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse#Democracy_and_h...

So... Autocracy / tyranny are better?

it's okay, we are already doing pretty bad

Can't wait for the next genocide in the region, all in the name of freedom

Because there's not currently a genocide happening in the region?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingya_genocide

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