The Appalachian Mountains hold massive untapped reserves of extractable lithium — enough to make 500 billion cellphones, 180 billion laptops or 130 million electric vehicles, new research from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) suggests.
The region holds 2.5 million tons (2.3 million metric tons) of the key element, which would replace U.S. lithium imports for 328 years if imports stayed at last year's level. Therefore, mining this mountain system could lessen the U.S.' dependence on countries like China, Argentina and Chile, but the environmental consequences of doing this are unclear.
