Also on today’s menu:
ARPA Money For Safe Communities
The Lithium Conundrum
Lech Walesa, former president of Poland, addressed a joint session of the New Hampshire House and Senate on May 12, calling for the United States to resume its leadership role in ensuring a safe, secure, and peaceful world.
“We cannot be such as yet because we still have remnants lingering on from the old era; that is, Russia and China,” he said. “Certainly communism as such is out of the question. I’m not claiming now that it was either bad or good as an economic system, but simply it has proven totally ineffective throughout the world. Mankind has no time for further experiments, so communism is out.”
Capitalism as it exists now is not perfect, either, he went on to say. “It proved effective when we were confined to our respective countries,” he said, but “that capitalist system allowed for people who could not keep the pace with the others to become jobless. … Out of the capitalist system, we need to retain the free-market economy, whereas all its other elements have to be redefined.” He said we need to give work to the jobless, and for them to work hard.
“Providence has given us such a strong potential, and you can really be the leader to the world,” he said, then joked, “If by any chance you are very unwilling to continue being the leader, share your potential with Poland and we will try to put it to good use.”
ARPA Money For Safe Communities
The Biden Administration is emphasizing how American Rescue Plan Act money is helping to promote safe communities, citing Manchester, New Hampshire’s $13.5 million investment in public safety which includes $6.5 million for the Community Health Worker Program, a joint effort between the Manchester Health Department and Manchester Police Department. The city is hiring 13 community health workers who will respond to emergency calls that currently go to the police but do not involve any criminal activity.
“Along with ongoing state and local support from the Justice Department, American Rescue Plan investments made 2021 among the largest single-year commitments of federal resources for state and local law enforcement and public safety on record,” the White House announced today.
“Before the American Rescue Plan passed, the Menino Survey found that 27% of mayors anticipated making significant cuts to their police budgets and services.”
The Lithium Conundrum
To meet the demand for lithium as the world focuses on replacing petroleum-based vehicles with electric ones, mining operations to extract the metal used in electric batteries threaten to harm the environment, and the vast quantities of lithium needed are driving up prices. Seaborne lithium carbonate prices climbed 413 percent between January and December 2021 and lithium hydroxide prices rose 254 percent over the same period, according to a December 2021 S&P Global Commodities Insight report.
Popular Mechanics reports one solution: Using gallium nitride, which could provide lighter and faster-charging batteries. Navitas Semiconductor is one of many companies looking at ways to address the lithium problem, and it suggests that gallium nitride, which is used in light-emitting diodes, or LED lights, can also be a way to improve the traction systems in EVs, which means more movement with less energy.
Dan Gearino reports another approach in Inside Climate News: Researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington, have produced magnets that can separate lithium and other metals from water. The process has the potential to affordably gather lithium from sources like the brine used in geothermal power systems and industrial wastewater.
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