Award Date

December 2023

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Communication

First Committee Member

Laura Martinez

Second Committee Member

David Gruber

Third Committee Member

Rebecca Rice

Fourth Committee Member

Simon Jowitt

Number of Pages

117

Abstract

Thacker Pass in Northern Nevada is a rich desert ecosystem with spiritual significance to local Indigenous peoples, and it is also the site for what will be, for now, the United States’ largest open-pit lithium mine. Lithium is one mineral constituent of electric batteries which are essential to current U.S. electric energy transition policy, a transition which policymakers and other public groups have called on to be done in a way which is just. However, what exactly a just electric energy transition looks like in places like Thacker Pass is under continued negotiation in theoretical and practical senses. Existing research has provided theoretical lenses to interpret the intersection of corporate messaging, mining and extractive industries, critiques of domination, and mapping participants in discourses. To contribute to an understanding of how a just electric energy transition is characterized at Thacker Pass, and values dominating the discourse there, the present study evaluated electric energy transition discourse around the Thacker Pass lithium mine through a textual analysis of public-facing documents from both industry and resistant groups. The analysis finds that the lithium mining company justifies extraction as part of a just energy transition, characterizing themselves as valors of climate crisis and mitigating the appearance of traditional mining harms. Meanwhile, resistant stakeholders interrupt popular notions of a just energy transition, redefining terms like green and clean in the context of mining and calling on concepts of justice to call attention to the unjust nature of mining at Thacker Pass. Ultimately industry characterizations align with popular neoliberal approaches to climate change mitigation policy that continue to prioritize production and consumption, marginalizing ideologically paradoxical value priorities such as land protection, reduced consumption, and distributing more negotiating power to Tribes. Theoretically, this study contributes to expanding the subfield of energy communication studies toward the newer context of mining for the electric energy transition. It also offers critical theories, and frameworks such as the stakeholder model to begin the process of uncovering motivations in this new energy context taking place within familiar political and economic power structures. More practically, this study contributes to informing an electric energy transition which is just by calling attention to the material spaces where the transition is manifesting, especially new mining sites.

Keywords

Climate change; Electric vehicles; Energy policy; Environmental Social and Governance; Minerals economy; Natural resources

Disciplines

Communication | Environmental Health and Protection | Environmental Law | Oil, Gas, and Energy | Sustainability

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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