Rumors and their origins
Northeast of here, near the the little town of Spruce Pine, NC, there is a mine that provides key minerals used in the manufacture of microelectronics (NPR):
Semiconductors are the brains of every computer-chip-enabled device, and solar panels are a key part of the global push to combat climate change. To make both semiconductors and solar panels, companies need crucibles and other equipment that both can withstand extraordinarily high heat and be kept absolutely clean. One material fits the bill: quartz. Pure quartz.
Quartz that comes, overwhelmingly, from Spruce Pine.
“As far as we know, there’s only a few places in the world that have ultra-high-quality quartz,” according to Ed Conway, author of Material World: The Six Raw Materials That Shape Modern Civilization. Russia and Brazil also supply high-quality quartz, he says, but “Spruce Pine has far and away the [largest amount] and highest quality.”
Conway says without super-pure quartz for the crucibles, which can often be used only a single time, it would be impossible to produce most semiconductors.
Very quickly after the remnants of Hurricane Helene blew through WNC, rumors flew that some bad guys (the gummint and/or rapacious industrialists) wanted to steal people’s property to mine lithium (used in batteries for devices like my PHEV). From here the rumor spread to other storm-impacted areas. There is a lithium mine scheduled to reopen near the town of King’s Mountain, so there is a kernel of truth behind the rumor.
Someone else may have a better explanation, but my speculation is that in a disaster-driven game of “telephone” somehow quartz from Spruce Pine and lithium from King’s Mountain became lithium under Chimney Rock (and everywhere a storm hit) and conspirators were off to the races.
Daniel Dale also recognizes how a kernel of truth powers these fantasies.