“We’re going to tear up the Caldera so we can have an electric car”: Wrestling with prospective lithium mining in the Oregon desert

• Lithium mining is key for decarbonization, but impacts ecosystems and communities. • Study participants wrestled with costs and uncertainties around lithium mining. • Participants worried about climate change, but also about local ecological damage. • Participants recognized the nuance and complexity associated with proposed mining. • Lithium mining evokes conflicting and competing socio-ecological imaginaries. Extraction of lithium, a key ingredient for renewable energy transitions, is a land- and water-intensive process. In this study, we use qualitative, place-based research to explore socio-environmental imaginaries surrounding a landscape on the verge of change due to lithium mining. We examine the ways that different actors are wrestling with the costs, benefits, and uncertainties of potential open-pit lithium mining in Oregon’s section of the McDermitt Caldera. In contrast to previous research which has described support for mining amongst those closest to the mine site, we find that in this case, perceptions of mining are characterized by ambivalence, uncertainty, and recognition of complexity and nuance. We note the ways in which tradeoffs, scalar tensions, connections to the local landscape, and uncertainty and unknowns are generating a prevailing sense of ambivalence around mining futures in the McDermitt Caldera. As the demand for critical minerals continues to rise, there is a growing need for place-based research to understand specific impacts of and reactions to potential extraction in areas on the verge of transformation. The expansion of critical mineral extraction for energy transitions generates internal conflicts and competing socio-environmental imaginaries.