THACKER PASS, Nevada — Construction crews are getting to work on a lithium processing plant here 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 climate change agenda.
Workers at the 6,000-acre mine site known as Thacker Pass, located about 200 miles northeast of Reno, recently started work on the processing plant that 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 later 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 in an effort to reduce dust clouds caused by the fine-powder dirt that contains the lithium.
Jonathan Evans, president of Lithium Americas Corp., the Vancouver, Canada-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 is calling “made-in-America” lithium destined for use in electric vehicle (EV) batteries, at a time when U.S. producers are heavily dependent on foreign sources of production, including China’s Communist regime.
Currently most lithium comes from Chile, Australia and China, and Beijing leads the world in processing of lithium into material that eventually is used to produce lithium-ion battery packs for cars.
The lithium processing plant in Nevada will be among 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 that filters the ore and treats it with sulfuric acid to produce lithium carbonate.
The mine will only produce lithium carbonate. The chemical is then sent elsewhere and used as a precursor in producing metal sheets inside battery cells. The cells are then used to produce battery packs at still another location, usually in Asia.
EVs and power-generating wind turbines and solar panels all need lithium ion batteries to store energy. The drive for green energy is creating what some are calling a global “lithium rush” to find more.
In addition to Nevada, lithium production is being considered in California, Oregon, Tennessee, Arkansas and North Carolina.
Analysts estimate demand for lithium will increase to around 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 it will divide into two companies, a new U.S.-based Lithium Americas and Lithium Argentina.
The deal will end the new U.S. company’s involvement with the Chinese lithium company called 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 to take place next month.
Chinese involvement in Lithium Americas led some critics to oppose 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 about Lithium Americas relationship with Ganfeng with the party.
Lithium Nevada contends that Thacker Pass is now 100% U.S.-owned, with no foreign involvement. The impending split in companies will also break the American mining company from having any supply chain link to China, and the project has attracted major U.S. corporate support.
General Motors announced in February it is investing $650 million in the lithium mine to support its EV lines. The final half of the investment will be made after Lithium Americas splits from the Chinese-linked Argentine company, the company said.
The Energy Department is also in the process of 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, a fund set up by Mr. Biden’s 2021 infrastructure law.
All major U.S. car manufacturers have expressed interest in buying lithium from the mine for their electric cars. However, General Motors will receive all the initial lithium produced at Thacker Pass.
Long legal battle
Work on the plant began several weeks ago following a legal battle by mine opponents that has been underway for years. The legal clash was 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 over a month back 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 members of the Fort McDermitt reservation north of the mine, and the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony.
Some Indians opposed to the mine say it will disturb sacred ground where a massacre of Paiutes took place in 1865. However, archeologists that conducted a survey of the mine site determined the massacre was not located on the mine site. The deaths of 30 Paiutes were found to have taken place more than five miles south of the area.
A local Indian leader said evidence from the massacre suggests the killings may not have been carried out by U.S. troops but a rival tribe.
Lithium Nevada is building a day-care center on the McDermitt reservation, and an elementary school in the two of Orovada, near the mine site. Mine construction will provide many local jobs, officials say.
Still, the legal skirmishing is not entirely done: 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 of the mine 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 tipi on the pathway of a pipe being built from a nearby water source to 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 earlier this year that for centuries, tribes were excluded from management of ancestral homelands.
“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 also 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 is aimed at increasing 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 located on federal Bureau of Land Management land. The BLM approved a permit for mine in February 2021, setting in 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 following Lithium America’s submission of a cultural historic properties treatment plan. The permit followed two injunctions rejected by the courts. The government also gave the company a permit for moving any eagle nests that may be located on the mine site.
Nevada’s state government issued three other permits related to 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 Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in California rejected efforts by environmental groups 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.
Lithium at the mine was first discovered by the oil company Chevron in 1975 during the company’s search for underground deposits of uranium.
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 nearby rocks and leached lithium into the caldera basin that 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, noting that the mine is only extracting a small portion of the deposit.
• Bill Gertz can be reached at bgertz@washingtontimes.com.