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The US lithium boom is headed to North Carolina as the US government announced funding to help reopen a mine that closed in 1988.
He The Department of Defense (DoD) has committed $90 million to reactivate the Kings Mountain mine, which could contain five million tons. Strengthen the US military’s net-zero emissions goal by 2050 and return the extraction business to the United States.
The funds will be allocated to the Albemarle Corporation, which plans to begin operations by 2030.
The mayor of the small suburban town welcomes the project, but many of the 11,000 residents They have expressed concern about being kicked out of their homes and about the environmental impact.
Lithium is a critical component for batteries that power everything from smartphones to electric vehicles to solar panels, and China has dominated the market for decades because 90 percent of the mined metal is refined domestically.
Kings Mountain was one of the world’s largest lithium producers between 1938 and 1988. The mine received $90 million from the government to reopen in 2030.
Anthony Di Stasio, director of Manufacturing Capability Expansion and Investment Prioritization (MCEIP), said in Tuesday’s announcement: “The agreement with Albemarle demonstrates the Department of Defense’s continued commitment to meeting the needs of our warfighters, today and in the future”.
“This investment directly supports President Biden’s April 2022 presidential determination on critical materials in high-capacity batteries.”
Last year, the Biden Administration set a goal for 50 percent of all new cars and trucks sold by 2030 to be electric vehicles.
The Department of Defense is also the world’s largest institutional user of fossil fuels, but is now working to switch to electricity to reduce its emissions output.
Albemarle acquired the site in 2015 and now plans to use the Department of Defense’s $90 million to buy a fleet of mining equipment.
The site has a processing facility, so no major construction is necessary, but the pit is full of water that must be drained before mining can begin.
The company has been working with residents for years in hopes of convincing them that a lithium mine would do wonders for the city.
In 2022, Albemarle held a council meeting in Kings Mountain to share the proposal and answer questions about the project, WFAE reports.
The site has a processing facility, so no major construction is necessary, but the pit is full of water that must be drained before mining can begin.
Kings Mountain (pictured) is a small urban town outside Charlotte that is home to about 11,409 people.
Mayor Scott Neisler said the project is a “no brainer” as it will create several hundred new jobs.
‘We have had mining in this community for over 80 years. So it’s nothing really new. And that’s why we’ve been able to live, you know, side by side in mining all this time,” Neisler said.
However, some residents do not share the same enthusiasm as their mayor.
Clay Bruggeman bought his house in Kings Mountain five years ago, near the mining site.
He said Local Spectrum News that Albemarle had begun blowing up the site in 2022, which shook the ground and caused cracks in the foundation.
“The first few times we weren’t sure, but it feels a bit like an earthquake,” he said.
However, the company said by email that no explosions have occurred near Bruggeman’s home.
Kelli Hopp-Michlosky, vice president and head of global communications and corporate marketing at Albemarle Lithium, shared: ‘There is no mining activity at the site nor are there any explosions occurring at our Kings Mountain site. …If this resident has suffered explosions, it is due to another source in the community.’
Bruggeman also told the local news outlet that Albemarle had offered to buy his home and had made the same offer to other residents who said they would not be able to find a new home if they were forced from their current locations.
Debra Dixon told WSOC-TV that she was told her family’s home along Parkgrace Road is just outside the proposed mining site, but not far enough to avoid its impact.
“I have a lot of concerns because this place has been in business (for) about 15 or 20 years,” Dixon said.
Dixon said he has no problems with the mine reopening, but is He was worried that a possible purchase of his property would be enough for his family to pay a new mortgage elsewhere.
Albemarle also operates a mine in Chile (pictured) and another in Clayton Valley near Silver Peak, Nevada, the only active mining facility in the US.
Albemarle ships some of the lithium extracted from its Nevada facility to North Carolina (pictured) for processing.
Kings Mountain was one of the largest lithium producers from 1938 to 1988, when it closed after cheaper sources of lithium were found in South America.
The mine contains one of the few known hard rock lithium deposits in the US, which could last up to 30 years and withstand It makes about 1.2 million electric vehicles a year, according to Albemarle.
Eric Norris Albemarle’s president of energy storage said: “As one of the only US-based lithium companies conducting mining, processing and research into new materials for lithium batteries in the United States, “Albemarle is uniquely positioned to help drive the clean energy revolution.”
‘Lithium is an essential ingredient in our sustainable energy future. “Demand is expected to increase significantly and it is imperative to ensure the supply of this critical resource to our nation.”
The company also operates a mine in Chile and another in Clayton Valley near Silver Peak, Nevada, the only active mining facility in the United States.
Albemarle ships some of the lithium mined from its Nevada facility to North Carolina for processing.
In March 2022, Chile’s Environmental Superintendence (SMA) initiated legal proceedings against Albemarle for overextraction of brine in its operations.
The first charge, classified as Minor, was charged for extracting an annual average flow rate of 452 Liters/second for the operating year of October 2019 to September 2020, exceeding the annual average flow limit of 442 Liters/second.
The second infraction, classified as Serious, was charged because the company did not comply with all the measures committed to in the Early Warning Plan (EAP) of the Aquifer Alert Sector in March 2021.
The violation occurred after the company did not notify the SMA of its activation and did not immediately reduce brine extractions from its project in February and March 2021.
The United States is slowly abandoning gasoline-powered cars for electric vehicles to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but the shift also means it will rely more on other countries, such as China, to provide the necessary materials.
Mining lithium on American soil would help the nation on its path to self-sufficiency, something the country has strived for but has not yet achieved.
The country is home to only one active lithium mine, Clayton Valley, near Silver Peak, Nevada, but many companies are working to change that.
The United States imports hundreds of millions of lithium-ion batteries each year, and the volume is constantly increasing.
According to data from the UN Comtrade database, China accounted for the majority of US battery imports last year, with a total trade value of $9.3 billion. South Korea and Japan are popular sources, with $1.3 billion worth of batteries and $1 billion imported to the United States in 2022.
The total value of lithium-ion battery imports has nearly tripled since 2020, reaching $13.9 billion last year.
Data has proposed that around one million metric tons of lithium will be needed to meet global demand by 2040, an eight-fold increase than total global production in 2022.
While lithium is critical in the clean energy transition, white gold mining can cause long-term ecological damage.
The lithium extraction process uses a lot of water: more than 500,000 liters per ton of lithium.
Miners drill a hole in the salt flats to extract lithium and pump salty, mineral-rich brine to the surface.
After several months, the water evaporates, leaving a mixture of manganese, potassium, borax and lithium salts, which is filtered and placed in another evaporation pool.
After 12 and 18 months, the mixture is filtered sufficiently to extract lithium carbonate.
In one year, producing 60,000 tons of lithium could devastate the surrounding environment: up to 30 million tons of earth need to be excavated.
This is more than the annual amount of earth dug up to produce all the coal production in all but seven or eight US states.
In May 2016, dead fish were found floating in China’s Liqi River, where a toxic chemical leaked from the Ganzizhou Rongda lithium mine.
Carcasses of cows and yaks were also found floating in the river, probably killed by drinking contaminated water.
Lithium mining also damages the soil and causes air pollution.
In Argentina’s Salar de Hombre Muerto, residents believe lithium operations contaminated streams used by humans and livestock to irrigate crops.
In Chile, the landscape is marred by mountains of discarded salt and canals filled with contaminated water an unnatural blue hue.
According to Guillermo González, a lithium battery expert at the University of Chile, “This is not an ecological solution, it is not a solution at all.”