Apparently the Salton Sea in SoCal has enough lithium to support US EV needs for the foreseeable future.

I used to be surprised when these deposits are suddenly "discovered" after a shortage, but it's actually a normal part of the commodities market.

autonews.com/manufacturing/… Whenever you hear the news say there's X amount of a given material, most of the time they're talking about "proven reserves", where proven really means "proven to be profitable to extract", not the total amount of the substance in Earth's crust.

investopedia.com/terms/p/proven…

@SamoBurja @MarkLutter @tylercowen 1/ Sorry I'm late guys :D - I'll comment here as a factory owner, buyer of many machine tools, and industrial history buff. First, it's true that today only a few countries make all the machine tools today, so let's look at that history. Thanks for indulging me :-) @SamoBurja @MarkLutter @tylercowen 2/ Precision machine tools in their modern form were invented in Britain / France in the early industrial revolution to start down the path of standardized / interchangeable parts (which proved very elusive).