Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Electric Vehicles

What Lies Beneath Arkansas

On critical minerals, climate voters, and EV battery recycling

What Lies Beneath Arkansas
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions: Tropical Storm Trami is taking aim at the Philippines • Heavy downpours triggered severe flooding in South Africa’s Eastern Cape • The southern Alaskan mainland is bracing for a major storm system that is expected to bring high winds and flooding.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Study suggests Arkansas has huge lithium reserves

There could be between 5 million and 19 million tons of lithium underground in southwest Arkansas, according to a new study from the United States Geological Survey. Researchers said that even the low-end of this estimate “would meet projected 2030 world demand for lithium in car batteries nine times over.” Lithium, of course, is a critical mineral for the energy transition, and demand is expected to grow in coming years. Most lithium is produced in Australia and South America, and then processed in China. “The potential for increased U.S. production to replace imports has implications for employment, manufacturing, and supply-chain resilience,” said USGS director David Applegate.

The Smackover Formation in Arkansas could hold vast lithium reserves.USGS

2. SCOTUS to decide which courts can handle cases challenging EPA rules

The Supreme Court yesterday agreed to take on a handful of cases that could determine which federal courts can hear challenges to Environmental Protection Agency rules. The move “could undercut the nation’s top environmental regulator by opening the door to industry groups and Republican-led states seeking to challenge certain EPA rules in more favorable courts,” explainedE&E News. The Clean Air Act stipulates that legal challenges to national EPA rules must go through the D.C. Court of Appeals, which leans liberal. But if lawsuits go through regional courts, they may have more favorable outcomes for groups challenging things like pollution laws. The Supreme Court decision is expected by next summer.

3. First-time climate voters are turning out in swing states

Nearly 50,000 first-time climate voters have already cast ballots in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, according to the nonpartisan nonprofit Environmental Voter Project. By examining early voting data, the group determined that climate voters are turning out at higher rates than the general electorate in key swing states like Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Nevada. The one exception EVP found is Georgia, where climate voters are underperforming in early voting. “Early voting is not predictive of overall turnout, and so I never get too excited or too despondent from the data,” EVP founder and executive director Nathaniel Stinnett told Heatmap. “But what we can see is that in 18 of our 19 states, people who list climate as their number-one priority are early voting at a higher rate than the overall electorate, so I feel really good about that.”

EVP

4. NOAA’s top scientist joins JPMorgan

Sarah Kapnick, previously the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s chief scientist, is rejoining the JPMorgan Chase as global head of climate advisory, where she will “advise its corporate and investment banking clients on how to navigate the impacts of climate change,” Bloombergreported. Kapnick has worked for JPMorgan Chase before as a senior climate scientist and sustainability strategist for the company’s asset and wealth management business.

5. Mercedes-Benz opens in-house battery recycling facility

Mercedes-Benz yesterday announced the opening of Europe’s first battery recycling plant. The facility, located in Kuppenheim, southern Germany, uses an “integrated mechanical-hydrometallurgical process” that the automaker says can recover 96% of used battery materials, such as critical minerals, for recycling into new EV batteries. With this development, Mercedes-Benz is “the first car manufacturer worldwide to close the battery recycling loop with its own in-house facility.”

THE KICKER

Alcon Entertainment, the production company behind Blade Runner 2049, is suing Tesla CEO Elon Musk for using AI to create images that look similar to scenes from the film to promote the Cybercab.

Yellow

You’re out of free articles.

Subscribe today to experience Heatmap’s expert analysis 
of climate change, clean energy, and sustainability.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
or
Please enter an email address
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Economy

Tariffs Will Flatten the U.S. Bicycle Industry

Businesses were already bracing for a crash. Then came another 50% tariff on Chinese goods.

An e-bike and money.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

When I wrote Heatmap’s guide to driving less last year, I didn’t anticipate that a good motivation for doing so would be that every car in America was about to get a lot more expensive.

Then again, no one saw the breadth and depth of the Trump administration’s tariffs coming. “We would characterize this slate of tariffs as ‘worse than the worst case scenario,’” one group of veteran securities analysts wrote in a note to investors last week, a sentiment echoed across Wall Street and reflected in four days of stock market turmoil so far.

Keep reading...Show less
Green
Economy

Tariffs Are Making Gas Cheaper — But Not Cheap Enough

Any household savings will barely make a dent in the added costs from Trump’s many tariffs.

A gas station.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Donald Trump’s tariffs — the “fentanyl” levies on Canada, China, and Mexico, the “reciprocal” tariffs on nearly every country (and some uninhabited islands), and the global 10% tariff — will almost certainly cause consumer goods on average to get more expensive. The Yale Budget Lab estimates that in combination, the tariffs Trump has announced so far in his second term will cause prices to rise 2.3%, reducing purchasing power by $3,800 per year per household.

But there’s one very important consumer good that seems due to decline in price.

Keep reading...Show less
Green
Electric Vehicles

There Has Never Been a Better Time for EV Battery Swapping

With cars about to get more expensive, it might be time to start tinkering.

A battery with wheels.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

More than a decade ago, when I was a young editor at Popular Mechanics, we got a Nissan Leaf. It was a big deal. The magazine had always kept long-term test cars to give readers a full report of how they drove over weeks and months. A true test of the first true production electric vehicle from a major car company felt like a watershed moment: The future was finally beginning. They even installed a destination charger in the basement of the Hearst Corporation’s Manhattan skyscraper.

That Leaf was a bit of a lump, aesthetically and mechanically. It looked like a potato, got about 100 miles of range, and delivered only 110 horsepower or so via its electric motors. This made the O.G. Leaf a scapegoat for Top Gear-style car enthusiasts eager to slander EVs as low-testosterone automobiles of the meek, forced upon an unwilling population of drivers. Once the rise of Tesla in the 2010s had smashed that paradigm and led lots of people to see electric vehicles as sexy and powerful, the original Leaf faded from the public imagination, a relic of the earliest days of the new EV revolution.

Keep reading...Show less
Green