[ExI] wyoming has lithium

[Mike Dougherty]

On Fri, May 3, 2013 at 4:13 PM, spike <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
> And why is it that when durn near any rich ore for anything is found, it is
> waaaay the heck out where no one lives and no one wants to go?  This isn’t a
> bad thing at all, just puzzling.  We never strike gold in Seattle, or find a
> huge silver mine in Miami.  But they find huge reserves of natural gas in
> South Dakota, and lithium in Wyoming.

That an interesting question.  A lot of these comments are about the
physics, chemistry, and geology of distributing matter.  My first
thought was about the patterns of people moving around the planet in
search of resources.

There's probably a correlation between the waterways that make travel
easier diluting the accumulation of metals so early works had to be
made of mud/clay.  We needed to discover better materials to enable
better technology.  Unless you have an economic system that prizes the
stuff or some way to make electronics, chunks of gold are just pretty
rocks.

Also, that premise isn't entirely accurate.  Consider Marcellus Shale.
 It's great we have resources in the ground.  It's not-great that our
water (et al) is at risk due to the process of retrieving the natural
gas.