NIMBY: Gem Hunters Found the Lithium America Needs. Maine Won’t Let Them Dig It Up. “But like just about everywhere in the U.S. where new mines have been proposed, there is strong opposition here. Maine has some of the strictest mining and water quality standards in the country, and prohibits digging for metals in open pits larger than three acres. There have not been any active metal mines in the state for decades, and no company has applied for a permit since a particularly strict law passed in 2017. As more companies begin prospecting in Maine and searching for sizable nickel, copper, and silver deposits, towns are beginning to pass their own bans on industrial mining.”

I’ll believe that the “clean energy transition” is necessary when the people who keep telling me about the necessity of the clean energy transition start acting like the clean energy transition is necessary.