That Huge Nevada Lithium Deposit Comes With Strings Attached

Written by Haley Strack on September 22, 2023. Posted in Current News

Lithium Americas Corporation recently detected 20–40 million metric tons of lithium in a volcanic crater along the Nevada–Oregon border — what could be among the world’s largest known deposits

It’s a promising discovery, albeit one that’s overshadowed by the American mining industry’s deficiencies.

They found the lithium. Now what?

First: The area isn’t yet fully explored. Lithium Americas funded the discovery, and it’ll take exploration to see if, and when, lithium could be extracted.

Exploration requires time, and it’s a process that environmental groups will strongly oppose and try to delay.

There are a variety of ancillary concerns. Glaringly, American infrastructure doesn’t yet support large-scale lithium refining.

With a deposit as big as Nevada’s, American companies would still have to outsource lithium production to countries with more lenient, and dangerous, environmental and labor regulations.

Even if Nevada’s deposits were mined today, China would be tapped to process the lithium ore.

Lithium itself is valuable, but the U.S. would still rely on foreign entities to produce lithium into usable materials.

China refines almost all of the critical minerals needed for America’s defense, intelligence, cyber, and health industries and controls 70 percent of global lithium production.

America’s electric future will require either more domestic production facilities or further enslavement to China.

The global demand for lithium is predicted to reach over three million tons by 2030, as lithium is essential in producing batteries, cellphones, computers, and the technology that makes possible wind and solar power.

Lithium is also being used in exploratory medical treatments, including the prevention of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

Luckily, there’s hope. Tesla broke ground on a lithium-refining facility in Texas this year, which CEO Elon Musk said will reach production within the next couple of years.

Albemarle Corporation is also building a processing plant in South Carolina, which won’t operate until closer to 2030. Lithium Americas will complete its recently contracted lithium refining and purification plants in the latter half of 2026.

Domestic production is a long game. It’ll take years to build and regulate facilities, but it’s a worthwhile investment. Companies need money (which Joe Biden acknowledges), market incentives, and integrity to ensure that China doesn’t exploit American resources. …

There’s also the question of whether environmental groups will back down long enough for lithium to be extracted or produced.

Environmentalists and Native American tribes have for years protested against land claims at Thacker Pass, where Lithium Americas discovered the deposit, even though Nevada regulates the surrounding land and groundwater.

The region was also the site of a massacre of Native Americans in 1865, and tribes want to protect the sacred land. Cultural concerns — valid as they may be — don’t undercut the potential for a national emergency imposed by China’s market dominance.

Biden may back up the environmentalists. Even though his administration has given money to mining and production efforts to explicitly reduce reliance on China, it has also promised to conserve 30 percent of U.S. lands and oceans before 2030.

Biden already prohibited new uranium mining claims in Arizona last month when he declared an enormous national monument. Pandering to environmentalists, Biden might render inaccessible any minerals that companies do manage to uncover.

A large stateside lithium deposit is good news. But America has a long way to go before this lithium is produced (domestically, at least) to fit electric or clean-energy goals.

And without expanded domestic production efforts, we’ll still depend on China.

See more here climatechangedispatch

Header image: Ivan Alvarado

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