[frafart]

WSJ has a very paternalistic view of Chilean politics. Lithium extraction (and mining) pollutes water and uses a ton of it. In Atacama, the driest desert in the planet, it is already extremely scarce for local populations. Chile is not blowing up anything. A sovereign nation can do as it pleases with its natural resources and take any measures to protect its natural environment and population. Anyway, a lithium electric car revolution is a myth, lithium is too scarce to be a scalable solution.

[ggm]

Citation required. Australian Lithium miners would like to talk. As would Julian Simons, from the grave, he won his "limits to growth" bet because Erlich had made the usual mistake I think you are making: the difference between active sources, known reserves and probable amounts worldwide is immense, and the difference between active source and reserves varies as a function of capital investment and risk capital.

Typically people do the "if everyone wanted one NOW" model. But we're in a supply chain curve. Its not now, its over the next 25 years. We don't have a shortage of Lithium in time, over time, we have a shortage in supply chain now, but for a market which is GROWING not increasing by multiple orders of magnitude quanta in one cycle.

[spindle]

You might like to post that as two or three separate comments, since you're getting pushback on just one part of it. I strongly agree with you about the WSJ (and, personally, the rest, but the rest is separate).