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HuggableBear 33 points ago +44 / -11

Fuck Pebble. I'm not sacrificing the largest salmon spawning grounds in the world so you can have a cheaper cell phone.

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deleted 20 points ago +24 / -4
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fadingecho 13 points ago +13 / -0

I'm in limbo on it. I know for a fact (because i've been to them) that we are drilling oil on a coral reef in the Gulf of Mexico and it is thriving. It can be done. The problem is and always will be if the companies that are mining aren't held to a standard that the Flower Gardens rigs are held to, it would just destroy the area. It is my belief that they will not be held accountable and until proven otherwise, it should not be allowed.

Many businesses went to China to get out of environmental laws (and of course the slave labor). China doesn't give three fucks about the environment other than what it can generate in good publicity for its authoritarian communist dictatorship.

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deleted 8 points ago +8 / -0
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fadingecho 2 points ago +2 / -0

I know it's apples to crescent wrenches. The point is that we're not talking strip mining... well, actually kind of are. However, lots of other spots in Alaska are mining gold like mad and they make them put it back like they found it.

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HuggableBear 4 points ago +4 / -0

If Pebble were oil, this really wouldn't be an issue, but it's not. It's going to be an open copper strip mine. There is literally no example of a mine of that type where the holding ponds don't leach into the groundwater. It's inevitable and all you can do is hope to mitigate it, not stop it.

There are plenty of places where that isn't really an issue. Bristol Bay is not one of those places.

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Christopian 1 point ago +1 / -0

I love the diversity of thought on the right.

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aveydey 1 point ago +2 / -1

It wouldn’t even be US companies doing the work. It’s Canadian companies I believe.

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TrollToll 0 points ago +1 / -1

agreed

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raver9876 24 points ago +24 / -0

If we learned how to mine rare earth metals without filling our rivers with crap, we would be helping the average Chinese person drink cleaner water.

I don’t have a problem not upgrading my phone every fucking year.

If you replace your battery and use a good protective case you can make a cell phone last 4 or 5 years.

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obamagavemeaphone 10 points ago +10 / -0

I only "upgrade" when 'they' have made my device obsolete. Like when I had to trade my S3 for an S8... not because the S8 was all flashy and cool but because 4G made my S3 not work anymore and I was FORCED to upgrade. It's just an expensive paperweight for me most the time.

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Johnson 4 points ago +4 / -0

What is pebble? Surely other places with minerals exist. Can we make a deal with Korea to buy their resources in exchange for military oversight?

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spezisthedevil 6 points ago +6 / -0

We had Afghanistan, but deep state traitors gave China all the REM rights. The US taxpayers paid to secure the region while China, (and the Bidens, Pelosis, etc.) profited.Beyond fucked up.

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HuggableBear 3 points ago +3 / -0

It's one of the last easily accessible large copper deposits on Earth. It would require very shallow mining to access it and there's a lot there.

It also happens to sit just upstream from the largest and most delicate salmon spawning grounds in the entire world.

There is no way to strip mine copper without the byproducts going into gigantic holding ponds, which then always leach into the groundwater. In most locations, this isn't a huge issue as they are remote and the surrounding environment is robust enough that nothing bad happens as long as the ponds themselves don't rupture and flood downstream,

That is not the case with Pebble. It sits directly upstream from two large lakes where salmon from Bristol Bay migrate upriver to spawn. Leachate from the holding ponds would go directly into their spawning grounds.

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Johnson 2 points ago +2 / -0

tough situation.

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JesusisKing 4 points ago +4 / -0

not really. The past is the future. all 300 million Americans do not need a new cell phone once a year.

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Johnson 1 point ago +1 / -0

How much copper do phones use?

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JesusisKing 1 point ago +1 / -0

idk quantities but xbox smart tv x2 cell phone x4 smart fridge amazon alexa smart security cameras smart appliances chipsets in cars plus wifi infrastructure all to have your power go out. hope you didn't have a large portion of your assets in digital currency too.

Lots of services and infrastructure is just going to stop i think, we take the supreme court and lets say we fix everything functional about our governemnt, there's still literally cities full of people who would rather die than live on a farm to lose their fancy pants and their lollypops.

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Johnson 1 point ago +1 / -0

can live without all of those. mobile internet and electronics in cars seem important. and data security seems important. both substitutes for similarly expensive alternatives.

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HuggableBear 3 points ago +3 / -0

Not for me. There are other copper deposits in the world, they're just more expensive to mine. This isn't something that is only found here and nowhere else on earth, it's just the most profitable.

The salmon spawning lakes are unbelievably important. This isn't a situation where a few hundred tiny gobies that are barely distinguishable from some other goby in some tiny tributary are threatened. This is a hugely important primary habitat bottleneck for millions of salmon that get funneled through this one small area in order to propagate their species, and they are not the only fish that use it as well.

I am the last person you will find advocating to limit resource extraction to protect habitat and even I can look at this thing and see that it's no bueno. This isn't one tiny local species possibly going extinct. This threatens the survival of the entire North Pacific salmon population, which is also a significant source of revenue for tens of thousands of people. Again, not a little hidden snail somewhere, we're talking about a resource that supplies food for millions and provides jobs for the people harvesting and processing that food, not to mention the vast sportfishing economy surrounding it as well. You risk sacrificing both of those industries for, again, a single mining company and its employees and investors.

In short the risk is incredibly high, and the reward is not worth that risk. There are plenty of places where that calculus goes the other way, but this isn't one of them.

In all seriousness, this would be like drilling for oil in Yellowstone. The only reason it isn't a much bigger deal to your average American is because salmon aren't cute.

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Bubbahax 1 point ago +1 / -0

Pennies are pretty much useless. Melt them all down.

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HuggableBear 1 point ago +1 / -0

Fun fact, pennies are only copper plated. They haven't been pure copper since before the Civil War, when they were switched to bronze. They remained various bronze alloys until the early 80's, when they were changed to be almost entirely zinc with a copper plating.

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stratocaster_patriot 2 points ago +2 / -0

I've gotten 6 out of mine and it's still going except that it's 3G and will not be compatible in a year.

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JesusisKing 2 points ago +2 / -0

Most of these 5G movements into the internet of things literally equips every fucking extra possible thing with a chip. Do you really need a rare earth processor on that fucking doorbell?

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Thingthing22 9 points ago +9 / -0

Lol... Musk will just hurry us up and put us on the moon.

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JesusisKing 2 points ago +2 / -0

Did you know that Nixon broadcast a live television phone call from the oval office to the men on the moon? Even had a picture from the mission hanging in the oval office during the call.

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Wenger 6 points ago +6 / -0

Pebble mine im agin it

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570dbp 6 points ago +6 / -0

CCP single-mindedly works toward the goal of seizing the title of the largest GDP in the world from America. Its next move is to force the world to replace the US dollar with the yuan for the reserve currency. If this were allowed to happen, the living standard in America would plummet like a rock. The Left screams muh Russia while ignores CCP, the greatest threat to America security and prosperity.

To attain their ultimate goal, they have been buying off the DC politicians from both parties, the media, and the US corporations. Along came Trump who decided to do something about this. This is why they all hate Trump.

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Pilotmtb 1 point ago +2 / -1

Hopefully the world doesn’t trust China enough with this power especially with their humans rights abuses, seizing territory, and sending their own people to internment camps. They are literally modern day Nazi Germany

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JesusisKing 1 point ago +1 / -0

4 years ago this exact paragraph was being written about MUH MUSLIMS, and now its old news and a low threat. I hope the same befalls China these next 4 years.

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deleted 6 points ago +6 / -0
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deleted 6 points ago +11 / -5
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OGTD1 [S] -1 points ago +6 / -7

Reading through your comment history takes me back to the bad days of Reddit. It’s full of akshullys and this bot that bot link please source this. Wow. The metals import imbalance is the point. Politico did a hit job along with other MSM. Tucker and Don JR got duped by the enviros and it are them look bad. Who cares if she’s a nurse. I can find plenty of Masters level journalists who couldn’t change a tire much less side with the truth.

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deleted 3 points ago +6 / -3
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deleted 5 points ago +6 / -1
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VetforTrump 4 points ago +4 / -0

Ccp is bad but our worst enemies are within.

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FudgyFudgeBots 4 points ago +4 / -0

"four to six times more copper is needed in the generation of green energy than in fossil fuel counterpart"

"The U.S. now imports over $37.6 billion a month in copper from China,"

Hmm. Is green energy Chinas idea?

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deleted 3 points ago +3 / -0
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obamagavemeaphone 3 points ago +3 / -0

If the tailings ponds are ever damaged [earthquake, volcano] and leak into Bristol Bay then one of the world's most fertile salmon fishing grounds will be utterly destroyed by poison that'll take decades to recover from. They're after gold up there... not convinced the risk is worth it.

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OGTD1 [S] 2 points ago +2 / -0

Have you checked the map of the mine location. A complete catastrophic failure due to a massive, not moderate, earthquake of a holding pond would be able to be cleaned up with no damage. That is a myth that was put out months ago. Checked the streams on satellite they are miles away from anything meaningful water flow. This mine has done all of its DD and won’t break any protocols. Talk to the oil people about enviro disasters before questioning this mine. It’s going to be one of the most if not the most sophisticated mining operations ever and of great strategic national interest.

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CommieCrats 3 points ago +3 / -0

PATRIOT MINES!

DIG FOR COPPER AND GOLD AND SILVER

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Sandman441 3 points ago +4 / -1

Yeah I am against pebble mine. Theres no reason for it at this time. Its location is too pristine and dangerous to put anything there.

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snebe 3 points ago +3 / -0

NAK

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LORD_RM 2 points ago +2 / -0

Look into FVAC for US based mining of rare earth elements

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Caferrell 2 points ago +2 / -0

The key to containing China is India. Our President realized this and he has met with PM Modi many times. The other key is Vietnam and Donald Trump has that covered as well. The missing piece is Russia, and unfortunately the Russia the Russia hoax makes it politically dangerous to invite Russia into the anti-China alliance

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TheMadManDidItAgain 2 points ago +2 / -0

Maybe the CCP is our greatest foreign enemy... but seriously, the Marxist leftist party, the Democrats, can and will do more damage to this country than China ever could. The democrats are our biggest enemy, foreign or domestic.

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TrumpingTheStorm 2 points ago +2 / -0

I love it when people try and tell me china would win in a war against the USA. All we would have to do is collapse the Three Georges Dam and China is finished. They built something in the middle of their country that can do more damage than a nuke.

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T-Bear 2 points ago +2 / -0

We have several rich deposits of rare earths here in the US. They are just under bondage to the enviromentalists.

Maybe stop bending the knee to Gaia and we don't need to worry as much?

Or maybe accelerate mining the asteroid belt, where the environmentalists cannot reach?

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Kael 2 points ago +2 / -0

Make Mines Great Again

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Ilikefries 1 point ago +1 / -0

The guys who got their asses kicked in by Japan who is our ally? Right

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VoterIDMatters 1 point ago +1 / -0

No, the Democrats are the greatest enemy of America.

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Caferrell 1 point ago +1 / -0

Fortunately the CCP has lots of enemies and those enemies are all friends of the USA, mostly thanks to the very clever foreign policy of one Donald J Trump.

Did you notice what happened with Trump´s trip to India? He wasn't just a tourist taking pictures of the Taj Mahal. He made a mutual defense treaty with Prime Minister Modi - China blocked to the west.

Do you remember when trump went to Vietnam? Was that just a pleasure jaunt? Uh... no. Trump negotiated a reciprocal defense treaty with Vietnam - China blocked to the south

Do you remember Trump making a huge arms deal and mutual defense treaty with Japan? China blocked to the east.

Add to that the improving relations with North Korea and the only missing piece is a mutual defense treat with Russia. With that last piece China is totally surrounded and the USA and its allies could squeeze China into better behavior.

The only hole in the strategy is Russia. China was able to make American lawmakers on their payroll invent the Russia hoax and thereby made it impossible to finish the enclosure of China.

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Pilotmtb 1 point ago +2 / -1

Let’s mine the moon!

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tonightm16 1 point ago +1 / -0

China has such a hardon for Australia as it wants its rich iron ore deposits.

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YukonQuismias 1 point ago +1 / -0

We are at war with the CCP. Our generals are prepared to fight the last war. The CCP launch a ow budget bioweapon and effectively destroy our economy and change our way of life. They follow up financing a wave of riots, murder and mayhem in 100+ cities with their allies of Democrats and useful idiots like ANTIFA/BLM. The CCP are actively meddling in our elections. At some point, we will fight back.

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spez_this 1 point ago +1 / -0

I have no problem using up China's rare elements AS LONG AS we are prepared to ramp up domestic mining when this becomes unavailable. The key is to have everything in place when this occurs. And while we're at it, we need to re-invigorate our domestic manufacturing capabilities.

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stratocaster_patriot 1 point ago +1 / -0

I would just like us to start mining lead at least and start making bullets again.

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Pedeberrycrunch 1 point ago +1 / -0

Hold the phone; I thought we were going to the moon for this stuff?

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MaoHatesSparrows 1 point ago +1 / -0

Rare earth elements can be extracted from byproduct of other mining activities, the problem is that it's not profitable to do so with the market flooded. Copper and molybdenum mining produce what you want but the extraction is difficult and getting permitting is basically impossible. I worked in the mining industry as a chemist, and I've seen the assays of our concentrates, rare earth elements are not extracted because you would lose money doing so.