The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

[OakesCS]

amazingly enough, that was also my 1st thought

One of the objections is water use related to use of sulfuric acid in extracting the lithium. If those deposits are as rich as I suspect they are, then the ore could be shipped to a location without a water problem. In the 1800s ranchers loved railroads. Also, sulfur is butt cheap and for the truly enterprising environmentalist, can be used as an energy source as well as a raw material (just different ends of the same processing stream).