But some are concerned bonus veren siteler about what the boom means for the environment.
From the Nevada desert, there’s a silent frenzy building on a rare resource which will be crucial to fulfilling the nation’s goals to slow down climate change.
Lithium, the vital component in batteries for electrical vehicles and renewable energy storage, has largely been produced in countries such as Australia, Chile and China.
There’s only one commercial lithium mine working from the U.S., a facility in Silver Peak, Nevada, which was utilizing ponds to evaporate groundwater and harvest lithium because the 1960s. At least two more mines are awaiting final approval to begin building, among which would produce sufficient lithium for 400,000 electric vehicles a year for the next 50 years, according to the company.
But demand is set to explode as much as 1000% by 2030, according to the Energy Information Administration, and maybe even more if more states continue to adopt policies to promote the adoption of electric vehicles and renewable energy. And with President Joe Biden’s push to manufacture more electric vehicle components in the USA, the focus has turned into how and where the country may collect rare minerals such as lithium ion responsibly.
In the centre in Silver Peak operate by Albemarle Corporation, neon blue pools of water in an underground aquifer evaporate for 12 to 18 months before the company can eliminate the lithium in a powderlike type, which is then processed into the form used to produce batteries.
“This reactivity in character makes it difficult to find, so you can find it’s in the surrounding mountains here as well as the clays, although not in really what we believe economic concentrations,” he said. “So, what’s happening within this closed basin over tens of thousands of years is Mother Nature, and we do get some rain here, not a lot, gradually bringing it into this valley.”
Extracting lithium, for example any type of mining, can still produce greenhouse gas emissions and toxic waste that may threaten the environment, though one argument for increasing the quantity of mining in the United States is increased oversight of those impacts compared to other nations. The sum of the mineral is also finite, and the nation will require more ways to recycle lithium-ion batteries should they continue to be used later on.
Norris stated Albemarle is currently working to produce lithium as efficiently as possible, so they can fulfill the promise that electrical vehicles created with it are better for the environment.
“This is quite important to the automotive industry. Our customer base, they are very focused on this, because the promise they’re giving for you as a customer is, this will be great for the ground, right? So, they’ve got to create certain their supply chain is performing it responsibly,” he told ABC News.
Some environmental advocates are also concerned about the effect more manufacturing would have on a different desert resident that relies on lithium: a rare wildflower that grows on lithium-rich soil named Tiehm’s buckwheat.
Patrick Donnelly, Nevada state director for the Center for Biological Diversity, has been working to obstruct one of the suggested mines he claims simplifies the wildflower. He said there’s a”white gold rush” for lithium ion in Nevada and that while he understands lithium ion is important to handling the climate catastrophe, he also thinks it’s important to protect biodiversity in the area.
“For our part, and as we said, if they could build this mine without destroying this little wildflower, you know, we would likely walk away from this mine and then go find a gold mine to combat instead,” he explained.
Donnelly and the Center for Biological Diversity have registered to announce Tiehm’s buckwheat an endangered species, which would trigger more protections from activity in the region.
Ioneer, the firm planning the Rhyolite Ridge mine, disputes claims its operation would drive the buckwheat to extinction and says it believes it can relocate and protect the plants.
“We are going to put tremendous effort to support this plant and to enlarge this strategy and generate a conservation zone that we will never let anybody ever touch,” Ioneer CEO James Calaway told ABC News.
Calaway reported that even with all the organization’s plans, he can’t 100% guarantee that the Tiehm’s buckwheat would survive forever, but that it would be a pity if this was the sole reason to deny the job.
“To have any chance to satisfy the targets for electrification in the USA and not be wholly determined by the Chinese, we all actually do need to create this project, and we will need to build it today, since the time is quite important. We are reaching a stage where we’re going to have excess demand around the planet versus supply,” he told ABC News.
The debate within Nevada’s white gold rush will pose a test for the Biden administration and whether the government can balance the need for domestically produced minerals to be used in clean energy technology with the strain increased mining could put on the desert ecosystem about it.
Donnelly said the world is facing an outbreak disaster as well as the climate catastrophe and that even as more minerals like lithium are needed, there needs to be more conversation about the best way to do this without damaging the environment.
“Our advocacy to protect this tiny wildflower this does not mean that we are attempting to avoid those difficult questions or we are fighting working on lithium as part of our future,” he explained.
“And so, you knowwe need to get a reckoning about how exactly to get it done without destroying biodiversity.”
