Lithium mining offers the promise of prosperity and a competitive income source, forming intentional communities around it. However, history shows us that the lifespan of mining towns is generally short, and post-mining settlements are rarely inhabited, becoming ghost towns marked by abandoned vehicles and vacant homes. Goldfield, Tonopah, and the many other ghost towns punctuating Nevada’s vast and mineral-rich landscapes are a sobering reminder of the contingent nature of extractivism.

Silver Peak, the small town adjacent to the only operating lithium mine in the US, is a landscape of scattered, modest homes, old car parts, an on-call bar, a school, a part-time library, and a dwindling population. Meanwhile, the company operating the mine has ambitious plans. As a global player in the Lithium supply chain, Albemarle is increasing its national footprint through strategic asset investment. Expanding Lithium brine mining in Silver Peak remains a critical component of their national agenda. With a fast-growing market and multi-million subsidies at play, Albemarle is well aware that mining has to change: it must become more efficient and integrate research capacities to diversify products, modernize processes, and attract a young and diverse workforce. The Tidal Mining Locality concept aims to prototype a novel approach to Lithium mining culture in Silver Peak.

Four integrated components advance this concept:

1. The urbanity tides delivers the company’s labor force’s housing, infrastructure, and service needs. The company is committed to creating an intentional community through adaptable housing solutions to offer an enticing lifestyle to a new generation of workers.

2. The mineral tides coordinate the expansion of the mining site, optimize mining techniques and efficiencies for lithium and potassium production, and lead in the diversification of products and processes on site.

3. The production tides merge ecology and economy through the reduction of waste streams in the mining process and diversifying manufacturing from the mining process to include potassium fertilizer, batteries, chemical components, alloy production, and pharmaceutics.

4. The food tides address agriculture’s challenges in arid climates, researching the use of potassium fertilizer and water harvesting techniques to reintroduce local agriculture in the region.

Working together, the four tides serve as catalysts for experimenting and piloting new mining typologies that drive more sustainable regional economies. Operating in an integrated manner, they are building a new paradigm of social and environmental responsibility for lithium mining, from emergence to decommission.

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