New, by me: In the last 6 years, the US has gone from producing 0% of the world's rare earths to nearly 15% thanks to a single mine in California. Now the company behind it is taking the next steps toward an entirely US-based rare earth supply chain: grist.org/energy/a-once-… Some interesting stuff I learned about the rare earth industry from this story.

One, it’s p well known that China dominates rare earth mining (~60% of the total) What’s less appreciated is how utterly it dominates the downstream supply chain, inc. 92% of all rare earth magnets

#Longread by me in ⁦@grist⁩ today: How a fight over Nevada’s lithium mines could reshape America’s electric car future.

This is a story that about an environmental battle that is going to be coming again and again if we don’t reform mining laws: grist.org/climate/the-we… Lil' thread on some highlights:

Nevada has a lot of lithium, and America needs a lot to meet its electrification goals.

The Biden admin is well aware. Last month it issued a statement calling for America to "better leverage its sizable lithium reserves" whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/…

My favorite thing about my job is getting to learn about something completely new and amazing. In today's installment of that, I present to you the engineers who are figuring out how to turn discarded wind turbine blades into infrastructure grist.org/energy/todays-… A bit of background: Most parts of a wind turbine are very easy to recycle and repurpose bc they're made of stuff like steel, copper, and aluminum. But the blades are weird composites of plastic, fibers, wood and glue that are hard to take apart and even harder to recycle.

Super stoked that this weird bit of history is out. For a few weeks I’ve been in touch with a former Chevron engineer who has a copy but was uncertain abt releasing it; turns out there were at least 2 in the wild. Never underestimate how long folks keep stuff in their basements.

https://twitter.com/engadget/status/1268941850511134727

He also gave me the game manual which is delightfully boring and contains an entire section on how to use a mouse, I guess I should upload that to the internet archive now.

One of the worst oil spills in US history occurred when an underwater mudslide toppled an oil rig in the Gulf. Now scientists have unearthed evidence that such mudslides occur unnervingly often, in waters filled with oil platforms.

Me, for @NatGeo

nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/0… While this is definitely alarming, there's also some fascinating science at play: 75 of the 85 mudslides researchers spotted coincided with an earthquake occurring *more than 600 miles away*, mostly along the US west coast.

TIL that Chevron commissioned the makers of SimCity to create an oil refinery simulation, SimRefinery, in 1993. It was never released to the public.

If there are any former Chevron employees out there sitting on an old copy, I would absolutely love to see that shit. Here’s like, the only article that ever mentions it—an interview with Will Wright from 1994. He describes SimRefinery as “for the accountants and managers who walked through this refinery every day and didn't know what these pipes were carrying” wired.com/1994/01/wright/

"If this [a 5% drop in global carbon emissions] is all we get from shutting the entire world down, it illustrates the scope and scale of the climate challenge, which is fundamentally changing the way we make and use energy and products" eenews.net/stories/106289… Another good point in here: This dramatic drop is coming from people staying home and drastically altering their lives, that is, many individual actions on a massively disruptive scale. We're maxxing out individual action and it's hardly making a dent in the carbon economy.

Been a lot of talk lately about how climate change impacted Australia's ongoing bushfire season.

But the bushfires are also *impacting* the climate, from releasing millions of tons of CO2 to sending plumes of soot into the stratosphere.
Me for @grist grist.org/climate/climat… @grist To summarize what I learned here: One, the fires have already released 400 megatons of CO2, which is, in scientific terms, a shitload. It's about as much carbon as the UK emits in an entire year.

Two years ago, Apple said it wants to stop mining the Earth "one day."
For garbage week @Gizmodo, I took a deep dive into what that means and whether it's even possible.
Short answer: Not until Apple overhauls its entire business model. earther.gizmodo.com/behind-the-hyp… Longer, more complicated answer: A smartphone contains literally dozens of metals. To stop mining any of them, Apple has to find new sources of materials, from manufacturing scrap to recycling. Every metal poses a host of different challenges from chemistry to economics.