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NEWRY, Maine – The race to produce more lithium has begun in the United States.
The US will need much more lithium to meet its clean energy goals and the industry that extracts, extracts and processes the chemical element. But it also faces a number of challenges from environmentalists, Indigenous groups and government regulators.
Although lithium reserves are widely distributed around the world, the USA is home to only one active lithium mine in Nevada. This element is critical to the development of rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, which are seen as key to reducing the climate-changing carbon emissions created by cars and other forms of transportation.
Worldwide demand for lithium was around 350,000 tons in 2020, but the industry predicts project demand will be six times higher by 2030. New and potential lithium mining and extraction projects are in various stages of development in Maine, North Carolina, California and states. Nevada.
“No one really anticipated this massive increase in demand,” said Tim Crowley, vice president of government affairs at Lithium Nevada, a subsidiary of a company that develops mines in Thacker Pass, Nevada. “We owned the lithium field for a long time and lost it to China.”
Most of the world’s lithium comes from South America and Australia, and China dominates the worldwide supply chain for lithium-ion batteries. The United States produces less than 2% of the world’s lithium supply, although it has about 4% of the reserves. The world’s largest reserves are in Chile.
Expanding domestic lithium production would involve open-pit mining or brine extraction, which involves pumping and processing a mineral-rich brine to the surface. Opponents, including the Sierra Club, have expressed concerns that the projects could damage sacred Indigenous lands and endanger fragile ecosystems and wildlife.
But Glenn Miller, emeritus professor of environmental sciences at the University of Nevada, said the projects could also benefit the environment in the long run by removing fossil fuel-burning cars from the road.
“A domestic resource is of immense value. “Then we can do things with production that only China can do,” he said.
Lithium, the lightest metal on earth, was discovered more than 200 years ago by Swedish chemist Johan August Arfwedson. Since then, lithium and its compounds have been used in everything from psychiatric medicine to lubricating greases.
But interest in lithium has exploded in recent years due to its use in rechargeable batteries for electric and hybrid cars, lawnmowers, power tools and more. Lithium batteries also power laptops and mobile phones.
The Biden administration has made the half-million charging station plan for electric vehicles a key part of its infrastructure goals. This effort and the growth of electric vehicle companies like Tesla will require much more lithium to make batteries.
The closest new lithium mining project to development is the one proposed by Lithium Americas for Thacker Pass. The northern Nevada mine would make millions of tons of lithium available, but Native American tribes argued that it was in the holy land and should be stopped.
Lithium Americas CEO Jonathan Evans said construction could begin later this year, noting that this would be the first lithium project allowed on federal land in six decades.
Evans said the US will attempt to extract more lithium due to increased demand. “It was a small industry and it grew rapidly,” he said. “I expect larger companies to enter the space through acquisitions or other means.”
The Thacker Pass project, and others that may follow, poses a challenge to environmentalists, as they hold the promise of decarbonisation in exchange for severe impacts on ecosystems and local communities. The Sierra Club argued that lithium mining could endanger water quality and farming in some states.
Lisa Belenky, senior attorney at the Center for Biodiversity, said the biggest challenge is to ensure that lithium mines are located where they do the least damage.
“Local species are really site-specific in terms of what impact they will have on the water,” Belenky said. “Almost every energy project we look at for climate change has its own greenhouse gas footprint.”
More domestic demand for lithium has opened up mining and mineral extraction potential in states beyond Nevada. An Australian company called Piedmont Lithium is looking to develop a proposed open pit mining project for the Kings Mountain region west of Charlotte, North Carolina. The region was a major supplier of lithium from the mid-20th century to the 1980s, the company said.
The salty and shrinking Salton Sea, California’s largest lake, is also poised to host lithium operations. Lithium can be extracted from geothermal brine, and the Salton Sea has been the site of geothermal power plants pumping brine for decades. Proponents of removing lithium from the lake said it would require less land and water than other saltwater operations.
A company spokesperson said a project led by EnergySource Minerals is expected to be operational next year. General Motors Corp. he is also an investor in another project that could start producing lithium in the Salton Sea by 2024.
Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, predicts that California lithium could put the state in a leading position in battery production. In a speech in January, he called the state the “Saudi Arabia of lithium”.
Dee Dee Myers, Newsom’s senior business advisor, said lithium is an “increasingly critical resource” as California and the world continue to develop clean energy to slow the effects of climate change.
Myers said the state has the opportunity to produce “epic quantities of lithium” given the resources around the Salton Sea. But he said he wants to ensure that lithium is extracted and produced in a sustainable manner.
The state government can play a role in regulating the extraction process. In 2020, California also created the Lithium Valley Commission to review and analyze incentives for lithium extraction. They must submit a report of their findings by October.
In Maine, Mount Plumbago in the western part of the state has attracted mining interest. According to a 2020 article in the scientific journal Mineralium Deposita, the mountain is a “potentially important new source of lithium” with a higher average lithium content than similar deposits around the world.
However, Maine mining regulations can make lithium difficult to extract. State mining coordinator Mike Clark said the Maine Department of Environmental Protection is considering the possibility of quarrying for lithium in Plumbago at the request of property owners.
Alicia Cruz-Uribe, an associate professor of petrology and mineralogy at the University of Maine, said Mount Plumbago is the kind of site that could be important to the United States as it tries to meet its clean energy goals.
Cruz-Uribe said the country’s lithium reserves are among the largest in the world. “But the amount we produce is peanuts.”
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Associated Press writer Kathleen Ronayne contributed to this report from Sacramento, California.
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