A lithium brining pond near Silver Peak, in Esmeralda County, is seen in 2015. (Las Vegas Review-Journal)
CARSON CITY — One of the keys to President
Joe Biden’s $2 trillion clean energy plan could be a mineral that lies
in a salt flat above a prehistoric volcano just south of the
Oregon-Nevada line.
But the question of how to extract lithium
and whether former President Donald Trump’s Department of Interior
rushed a mine through the approval process could be an early test for
Biden and his nominee for Interior secretary, New Mexico Rep. Deb
Haaland.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management issued a
record of decision on Trump’s final Friday in office for an open-pit
lithium mine at Thacker Pass, which is roughly 53 miles north of
Winnemucca.
Lithium Americas, the company behind the
mine, believes it can supply a quantity “critical for establishing a
strong domestic lithium supply chain required to support a low-carbon
economy,” its President and CEO Jon Evans said in a statement.Lithium, long used for rechargeable
batteries found in cellphones and laptops, is expected to become an
increasingly valuable commodity if the new administration pushes
carmakers to scale up electric vehicle production. But its extraction
has splintered environmentalists. While technologists are eager to use
it to transition away from carbon-based fuels, conservationists worry
about the impact new mines have on endangered species and the
environment.
The approval of the mine is among several
eleventh-hour decisions issued by Trump’s Department of Interior to
advance energy and mining projects, including a West Virginia oil
pipeline and an Arizona copper mine on land the San Carlos Apache Tribe
considers sacred. Unlike those decisions, which could be reversed,
Thacker Pass procured the final federal permit needed to begin
construction — one difficult to overturn.“We are not going to fix the climate if we
don’t do it right,” John Hadder, the executive director of Great Basin
Resource Watch, said of the approval. “There’s nothing ‘green’ about
sloppy permitting.”
Hadder said he worries efforts to usher in a
“green revolution” overshadow the need to adhere to established
environmental review processes required under federal law.
Shielded by Trump’s executive orders
streamlining reviews, he said the project’s environmental impact
statement was roughly one-third the length of reviews prepared for
similar-sized projects. Hadder said the lithium mine will harm wildlife,
including sage grouse, and threaten water and air quality.
Unlike other projects fast-tracked in
Trump’s final days, lithium production could bolster Biden’s plans to
transition the economy away from fossil fuels.
The Trump administration listed lithium
among the minerals critical to national security and, amid trade
disputes, thought mines could help wean the country off of foreign
supply. For Biden, boosting domestic production could potentially lower
the price tag on a key component of his climate plan: offering rebates
to consumers to trade in gas-powered for electric cars.
Biden’s Department of Interior did not
respond to request for comment, but a Wednesday executive order revoking
permits for the Keystone XL oil pipeline mentions plans “to both reduce
harmful emissions and create good clean-energy jobs.” And in October,
his campaign reportedly told miners that he wanted to increase lithium
production domestically.
The enthusiasm could put him at odds with
conservationists, who are fighting another proposed Nevada lithium mine
they say would destroy Tiehm’s Buckwheat, a desert flower not known to
exist elsewhere.
Australia-based mining company Ioneer Ltd.
is developing plans to mitigate damage to the flower by trying to grow
replacement plants. The executive chairman of its board doesn’t
understand why environmentalists want to prevent development of a key
element to future “clean energy.”
“Climate change poses an immediate threat to
all the species on Earth,” James Calaway said late last year. “This
will enable the nation’s transformation from oil and gas drilling to
renewable energy.”
Lithium in NevadaMuch of the world’s lithium supply comes
from Australia and South America, where Chinese firms are heavily
invested. Thacker Pass would be the second commercial lithium mine in
operation in the U.S., following a
central Nevada facility
that plans to invest $30 to $50 million to double production.
Elsewhere, thousands of claims for the mineral have been staked on
federal lands by speculators who anticipate carmakers will expand
investments into electric vehicles.
Lithium helped lure Tesla to Nevada. The
company opened a massive battery factory near Reno in 2016. The state
sees the mineral as key to diversifying its tourism-reliant economy and
Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak mentioned it specifically in his Tuesday
State of the State Address.
Lithium Americas said in a statement that
the company now plans to seek financing for the project. Nevada has
offered the company $9 million in tax rebates over a 10-year period. The
mine is projected to require 1,000 jobs during construction and 300
once completed, generating roughly $75 million in state and local tax
revenue over a decade.
Humboldt County Commission Chairman Ken
Tipton said the mine has garnered some local opposition, but most
support it for the jobs it could bring.
“Anytime a county of our size gets the amount of jobs they’re talking about, it’s a real boon for our economy,” he said.
— Metz is a corps member for the
Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report
for America is a nonprofit service program that places journalists in
newsrooms to report on under-covered issues.