Chinese Ganfeng holds less than 10% of it and it looks like every other big shareholder is North American or European

Who owns a company doesn't matter as much as where the resource is. Foreigners can't cut you off from your own country, and they can't sell anything without following national laws.

I mean, this kinda only applies to devices that need the highest energy density.

For situations where space isn't much of an issue, it can make more sense to use other forms of batteries that are cheaper per MWh. I agree Li-ion won't be replaced in phones etc. but for some applications that are stationary, it can make commercial sense to use something else.

We'll be moving bulk storage to molten sodium over the next 3 decades, lithium will be for high density applications, but they're working on sodium-air designs because the density is even higher than lion.

Lithium is the most energy dense so most suitable for private transport but I think industrial and domestic storage won't be dominated by lithium in a decade or 2

You mean I won't be running my car off bacteria?!

Sigh.

Sulfuric acid is one of the few chemicals that is bad to have around and can be controlled. The very first wet scrubbers to be designed (per WW2 tech here) were for dealing with it. Add water plus a calcium base like Diatomaceous earth and you get harmless sulfur-calcium salts. There are almost no local waterways and mining is very regulated.

Maybe be happy for once that more mining will be happening in a country that bothers to regulate environmental stuff and is closer to the consumer market.

On the bright side, that area is an endoheric basin, so at least it won't go all the way downriver to the ocean. It'll just, uh, build up in salt flats/dry lake beds instead, which obviously won't cause any problem at all.

The children yearn for the mines...

It means we don't have to go to the Congo or through Russia, China, or others anymore. Which is a pretty big political relief because it means that we have a little bit more resource independence.

Maybe even a way we could compete on the global market if we play our cards right.

If they're smart, they'll use it to beef up our power grid for the global warming shock.

Unfortunately, I imagine @poopa_mo is right, and this is just going to beef up someone's bank account. Or rot in a warehouse.

So this means prices will go down, right? Right?