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THACKER PASS, Nevada — Construction crews are getting to work on a lithium processing plant at an open pit mine in northern Nevada that mine owners say will — finally — soon produce vital material for electric vehicle batteries, a key part of the Biden administration’s climate change agenda.
Workers at the 6,000-acre mine site, Thacker Pass, about 200 miles northeast of Reno, recently started work on the processing plant, which is the first step in a contested $2.3 billion, 40-year mining program.
Large mining excavators and trucks could be seen removing a layer of topsoil during a visit by reporters to the site hosted by the mine owner, Lithium Nevada Corp. The topsoil will be used to restore the mine area after extraction efforts are finished.
Water trucks filled from newly built holding ponds lumbered through the area, spraying the ground to reduce dust clouds caused by the fine-powder dirt that contains the lithium.
Jonathan Evans, president of Lithium Americas Corp., the Vancouver, British Columbia-based parent company, said all federal and state permitting is complete and production is finally underway.
“[Thacker Pass] will be one of the largest lithium producers in the world and will help strengthen national security by reducing dependence on foreign fuels, as well as strengthen the nation’s commitment to combating climate change and clean energy by reducing carbon emissions,” Mr. Evans told The Washington Times.
The mine holds an estimated 16.1 million metric tons of what the company calls “made-in-America” lithium destined for use in electric vehicle (EV) batteries. U.S. producers have been heavily dependent on foreign production sources, including China’s communist regime.
Most lithium comes from Chile, Australia and China. China leads the world in processing lithium into material used to produce lithium-ion battery packs for vehicles.
The lithium processing facility in Nevada will be among the few plants in the United States capable of producing battery-grade lithium. The mine process moves clay deposits from the open pit to the processing plant, which filters the ore and treats it with sulfuric acid to produce lithium carbonate.
The mine will produce only lithium carbonate. The chemical is typically sent elsewhere and used as a precursor in producing metal sheets inside battery cells. The cells are used to produce battery packs at still another location, usually in Asia.
EVs, power-generating wind turbines and solar panels need lithium-ion batteries to store energy. The drive for green energy is creating what some call a global “lithium rush.”
In addition to Nevada, lithium production is being considered in California, Oregon, Tennessee, Arkansas and North Carolina.
Analysts estimate that demand for lithium will increase to 1 million metric tons a year by 2040, an eightfold increase from world production in 2022, Benchmark Mineral Intelligence reported.
Lithium Americas announced in July that it will divide into two companies: a new U.S.-based Lithium Americas and Lithium Argentina.
The deal will end the U.S. company’s involvement with Chinese lithium company GFL International Co. Ltd., known as Ganfeng, which has a joint venture in Argentina and will remain an investor in Lithium Argentina. The split is expected next month.
Chinese involvement in Lithium Americas led to some opposition of the huge project at Thacker Pass.
Last year, Sen. Tom Cotton sent a letter to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm stating that no department funds should be used for the Nevada lithium mine if the mine provides any benefit to the ruling Chinese Communist Party. The Arkansas Republican raised concerns with the party about Lithium Americas’ relationship with Ganfeng.
Lithium Nevada contends that Thacker Pass is now 100% U.S.-owned, with no foreign involvement. The impending split will also break the American mining company from any supply chain link to China.
The project has attracted major U.S. corporate support.
General Motors announced in February that it was investing $650 million in the lithium mine to support its EV lines. The company said it will make the final half of the investment after Lithium Americas splits from the Chinese-linked Argentine company.
The Energy Department is providing a loan for the mine construction that could pay up to 75% of early costs. The loan is being processed and is part of the department’s Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program, set up by President Biden’s 2021 infrastructure law.
All major U.S. car manufacturers have expressed interest in buying lithium from the mine for their electric cars, but General Motors will receive all the initial lithium produced at Thacker Pass.
Long legal battle
Work on the plant began several weeks ago amid a yearslong legal battle spearheaded by a small group of radical environmentalists and some American Indian groups.
The self-described revolutionary political group Deep Green Resistance and two of its members, Max Wilbert and Will Falk, have been leading the anti-mine legal action. The two activists camped out at the mine site for more than a month in 2021.
Deep Green Resistance, according to its website, is a Marxist group that advocates “a world without industrial civilization” that must be reached by “coordinated dismantling of industrial infrastructure.” The organization describes itself as “proudly Luddite in character” and believes humans do not need electricity.
The activists enlisted members of several American Indian groups in the area, including the Fort McDermitt reservation north of the mine and the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony.
Some Indians say the mine will disturb sacred ground where Paiutes were massacred in 1865. However, archeologists who surveyed the mine site determined that the massacre was not on the mine site. Thirty Paiutes were found to have been killed more than 5 miles south of the area.
A local Indian leader said evidence from the massacre suggests that a rival tribe, not U.S. troops, might have carried out the killings.
Lithium Nevada is building a day care center on the McDermitt reservation and an elementary school in the town of Orovada, near the mine site. Mine construction will provide many local jobs, officials say.
The legal skirmishing is not over. Mr. Falk, the activist and lawyer who has represented several Indian cases against the mine, said federal authorities failed to identify the massacre site in the area before issuing the mining permit.
“BLM refuses to delay Lithium Nevada’s construction of the mine to consult with tribes about how to mitigate harm to sacred sites,” he said. “This is racist and a continuation of the United States’ genocidal legacy.”
In May, Indian protesters erected a tepee on the pathway of a pipe being built from a water source near the mine.
Controversy over the mine has put the Biden administration on the spot over its dual goals of fighting climate change and addressing historical grievances, especially of minorities and historically disadvantaged groups.
Mr. Biden has announced he wants 50% of all new vehicle sales to be for electric cars by 2030. Simultaneously, however, the administration has called for addressing past grievances of American Indians.
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said during remarks in Idaho this year that tribes were excluded from management of ancestral homelands for centuries.
“The administration is taking intentional action to ensure that tribes have opportunities to weigh in before decisions are made that impact their communities because their voices, perspective and knowledge deserve respect,” she said.
Ms. Haaland has said the “climate crisis” is the “greatest challenge of our lifetime.”
The Energy Department is spending $2.8 billion from the recent infrastructure law to fund domestic projects, including a plan to develop enough battery-grade lithium to supply about 2 million EVs annually.
Boosting domestic production
The mine at Thacker Pass aims to increase domestic supplies of the battery material. When fully up and running, it will support production of up to 1 million EVs per year. The Nevada mine will begin the process of producing battery-grade lithium in 2026 at the pit using large excavators that will dig 400 feet below the surface.
Several lawsuits failed to halt the mine, which is on federal Bureau of Land Management land. The BLM approved a permit for the mine in February 2021, setting into motion a series of legal challenges and a two-year bureaucratic process to obtain the six federal and state permits needed before construction could commence.
The federal government approved a permit in September 2021 after Lithium America submitted a cultural historic properties treatment plan. The permit followed two injunctions rejected by the courts. The government also gave the company a permit to move any eagle nests on the mine site.
Nevada’s state government issued three permits for air quality operating procedures, water pollution control and water rights transfers. Nevada also approved a mine reclamation permit.
The legal battle over the mine passed a key test in July when the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in California rejected environmental groups’ efforts to overturn federal land managers’ approval of part of the mine project.
One remaining lawsuit is a joint legal effort by the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony, Summit Lake Paiute Tribe and the Burns Paiute Tribe to have the mine declared protected land under the National Register of Historic Places.
Oil company Chevron first discovered lithium at the mine in 1975 while searching for underground uranium deposits.
The lithium at the mine is located on a caldera — the remains of a massive volcanic eruption 16 million years ago. The caldera at one time was a lake. Water from the lake percolated through rocks and leached lithium into the caldera basin, which was left as sediment after the lake dried up several hundred years ago.
Science magazine, in a recent study of Thacker Pass, described the mine as a deposit of extremely high-grade lithium that is more than double the size of similar volcanic sedimentary lithium deposits worldwide. It ranks as one of the largest overall lithium production sites in the world, the magazine reported Aug. 30 in a study sponsored by Lithium Americas.
The mine will extract only a portion of the lithium in an area that extends more than 30 miles north into southern Oregon.
“This whole area is full of lithium,” said Lithium Nevada Vice President Tim Crowley.
• Bill Gertz can be reached at bgertz@washingtontimes.com.
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