Speaker1:
The U.S. government has a lithium supply problem, just about
every major automaker has announced a transition to electric vehicles. Tesla delivered nearly one million cars in 2021,
and a handful of new EV companies are finally rolling new models off the line in order to power all of these EVs. We will need lithium-ion batteries, lots of them. Electric vehicle growth will be responsible for more than
90 percent of demand for lithium by 2030. But lithium is also in our phones, computers, ceramics,
lubricants, Speaker2:
pharmaceuticals and are essential Speaker1:
for solar and wind energy storage. Speaker3:
Lithium actually is not a major component of the cost of
batteries, but it's like the blood in your body. The chemistry behind how lithium-ion batteries work, it
remains the common denominator in all the battery technologies, even that we're looking at now for next
generation batteries. Speaker1:
The price of lithium is soaring, and establishing domestic
supply of lithium has become the modern day version of oil security. But today, the United States is Speaker2:
far behind, with only one Speaker1:
percent of global lithium being mined and processed in the
U.S.. Speaker4:
We do have a lot. The challenge is can we produce what we
need at a at an economical and competitive price? That's going to be hard, I think, from that standpoint. We are going to be a net importer of lithium for our needs. Speaker1:
This vital mineral in rechargeable batteries has earned the
name white gold, and the rush is on. Several domestic lithium projects are in the works. Speaker5:
We have what some have described as the Saudi Arabia Speaker3:
of lithium here in the state of Speaker2:
California, but they often face Speaker1:
steep up costs and opposition from environmentalists and Speaker2:
locals. Speaker6:
This is supposedly the largest lithium mine in the world,
and we have to do this right. Getting to the battery and electric cars does not seem to
be green to me. When you're destroying a beautiful Speaker2:
mountain, this mine wants to Speaker6:
run for 40 years and destroy this area. Speaker1:
CNBC explores how the U.S. fell behind in lithium production and if it will ever be
able to catch up. More than 80 percent of the world's raw lithium is mined in
Australia, Chile and China. China controls more than half of the world's lithium
processing and refining and has three fourths of the lithium-ion battery mega factories in the world. But until the 90s, the U.S. was the leader in lithium production. Speaker4:
The lithium industry started in the U.S. and and had a had a good run for 50 years. Speaker1:
So what happened? Lithium is not a scarce element. The United States holds almost eight million metric tons Speaker2:
of lithium, ranking it among Speaker1:
the top five countries in the world. Speaker4:
Bessemer City, North Carolina. That was the original production location in the U.S. You had some of the early companies, which were Foot
Mineral Company and Lithium Corporation of America, and those those two companies had had built their business
on producing lithium from spodumene. Speaker1:
Spodumene is a hard mineral that contains lithium, but
mining spodumene is not always the most cost effective way to extract lithium. Speaker4:
The challenge that we have in the U.S. is that we don't have the high, high quality lithium
resource, and so the concentration of lithium is going to be lower than than the traditional
sources. And then it's more than likely you're going to have more
contaminants. It's all those contaminants have to be be removed. Speaker1:
The other main way of extracting lithium uses a salty brine
that is pumped out of the ground compared to rock extraction. Evaporation brine extraction is fairly cheap
since a lot of the work of separating out the lithium is done by Mother Nature. Speaker4:
The challenge that the U.S. production had was that production costs from the brine
resource in Chile. It was just much lower than the cost of producing it from
spodumene in the U.S. Speaker3:
Lithium-ion batteries. They were invented here. A lot of the technology that is being applied is licensed
to companies overseas because the infrastructure here we don't have anymore. We lost Speaker1:
around the same time a massive lithium refining industry was Speaker2:
growing in China. China was really Speaker7:
the first place where the where the EV revolution started
taking off in a way that it hasn't in the U.S. but it is now happening in Europe. So the fact that a lot of lithium conversion capacity is in
China is just an artifact of the fact that they had to start making batteries five to 10 years sooner than the rest of
us did. Speaker5:
On a per capita basis. I suspect we're going to be one of the biggest users of
lithium in the world and frankly, sending lithium to lithium carbonate we may make in the U.S. and sending it to China for further processing makes
absolutely no sense. We need to have that independent production. China is able to do things in a very impressive manner, but
they aren't always our friends. And if we were suddenly cut off from lithium batteries,
that would change our ability to respond to climate change in a substantial way. Speaker1:
The Biden administration agrees and believes securing
domestic sources of lithium is vital to national security. Last June, the administration released a blueprint for
jumpstarting domestic lithium production and refining, as well as battery manufacturing, and set a national EV sales
goal of 50 percent by 2030. But there is only one operating lithium mine in the U.S. at the moment in Silver Peak, Nevada. Speaker7:
Eighty five percent of 2030s lithium industry doesn't exist
yet, so the next decade is going to see tremendous growth in the
lithium industry and battery material supply chains in general. Speaker1:
U.s. lithium exploration efforts are underway in Nevada,
North Carolina, California and Arkansas, to name a few. Piedmont Lithium is working on reopening an old hard rock
lithium mine in Speaker2:
the U.S., about Speaker1:
25 miles from Charlotte, North Carolina. Piedmont signed a deal in September 2020 to supply Tesla
with lithium sourced from its deposits. They're sending Piedmont stock soaring at the time. Speaker2:
The initial agreement Speaker1:
says that Piedmont will supply about a third of its planned
one hundred and sixty thousand metric tons per year spodumene concentrate from its deposits in North Speaker2:
Carolina, but the plan Speaker1:
continues to get delayed due to permitting and concerns from
its neighbors. In its heyday from 1955 through the 1980s, that mine
supplied most of the lithium in the U.S. before overseas supplies became cheaper. Operation shut down in the Speaker2:
1990s Two companies Speaker1:
in Arkansas, Galvanic Energy and Standard Lithium are
working on extracting lithium from underground brine Speaker2:
reservoirs. Speaker1:
A similar brine project is underway in California's Salton
Sea. Speaker8:
Lithium in California is in an unusual form. It's in this superheated geothermal brine, which is below
the surface of the Salton Sea, and today there's about a dozen geothermal power plants that
generate electricity by cycling that superheated brine, bringing it up to the surface and generating steam to
create electricity and then pumping it down back in the ground. And so this process basically takes the lithium out
of that brine recovers it and then the brine is pumped back in the ground. That's different than how lithium is produced elsewhere in
the world. Today you have places like Chile and Argentina, where they
have massive evaporation ponds, which have a pretty big footprint. So this is really the greenest way to produce
lithium that exists. Speaker1:
The Salton Sea was once a hot tourist Speaker2:
destination, but Speaker1:
experts say it has become the worst environmental and public
health crisis in modern history. The lake has been fouled by toxic runoff from area farms
for decades, and it is rapidly shrinking. Its receding shoreline is exposing nearby communities to
toxic fumes and killing wildlife. The state of California is trying to transform Speaker2:
the area, calling it Speaker1:
Lithium Valley, and it hopes to generate the revenue needed
to restore the lake. Speaker8:
The Salton Sea resource for lithium is really radically
different than the other formations that we've been reading about in places like Nevada or Australia. This is not mining. This is lithium that exists in a fluid in the superheated,
very mineral rich brine, which today is being cycled through these geothermal power
plants. So it's a closed loop process and very, very low impact. Speaker1:
Imperial Valley, California and Brisbane, Australia based
Controlled Thermal Resources is one of the companies getting close to being able to produce lithium in the area. Speaker9:
Our first stage 50 megawatt power plant will be online in
2023 following with a 20,000 tonne per year lithium hydroxide facility to be delivered shortly
thereafter. Speaker1:
Last summer, GM announced a multimillion dollar investment
in Controlled Thermal Resources development at the Salton Sea and has secured first rights to purchase the
domestically produced lithium for its EVs. Controlled Thermal Resources expects delivery of lithium
from the site in 2024. Speaker9:
This product can be produced here in real time as lithium
hydroxide, a battery grade product that doesn't need to go offshore. We don't have to put it on a train, put it on a
ship, send it over, send it back. So I think General Motors are a testament of their
experience to the supply chain kings, right? They've been doing it forever. This product is produced by
100 percent green energy. It's an interesting, great long term relationship. Speaker1:
About 700 miles north of the Salton Sea project, a massive
open pit lithium mine is in the works. The Thacker Pass lithium deposit is located within an
extinct supervolcano and is one of the largest lithium reserves in the U.S. Canada-based Lithium Americas is behind the project and its
stock is up 740 percent since the beginning of 2020. Speaker3:
It's a different kind of lithium resource. Mother Nature deposited this very thick layer of sediment
at the bottom of this ancient lake, which was once there and drained. We can reverse Mother Nature by putting that war back into
a slurry. It naturally disassociated under very low energy, and we
can separate the lithium out by particle size. Speaker1:
The project is in the final permitting phase. Speaker5:
It will produce on the order of 60,000 tons of lithium
carbonate equivalent per year compared to what Australia produces, which is about somewhat over 400,000
tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent. So it's, you know, 10,15 percent as much as the entire
country of Australia. So it's a big deal. Speaker1:
The site will handle both the mining and the refinement of
the lithium, removing the need for a complex supply chain. Speaker2:
You take what Speaker3:
happens in Australia and China. Put it all on one site is exactly what we're aiming and
what the plan is actually designed to do. So and what we'll have at the end of the day is high
quality lithium chemicals that can go directly on to either a battery or a cathode manufacturer that can be put right
into the supply chain. Our goal is to get into production sometime in 2024. Speaker1:
CNBC got an inside look at Lithium Americas R&D lab in Reno,
Nevada. Speaker3:
Thacker Pass project in particular. While it's a large asset today based on U.S. lithium demand, it would be by 2025. We could do a little bit more than half of the U.S. is need just for batteries. Speaker1:
But no one wants a mine in their backyard, and like other
proposed mines in the U.S., the project has been plagued with lawsuits and opposition from some local Native
American tribes and environmentalists. The initial lawsuits have been dismissed, but some are not
giving up and even camped out on the property in protest. Speaker3:
I found out that the Bureau of Land Management wanted to
destroy a beautiful mountain pass Thacker Pass for the world's largest open pit lithium
mine. And along with my best friend Max Wilbert, I set up camp in
the exact location of where that open pit mine would be. My original goal was to raise awareness about how these
lithium mines would be destroying some of the last beautiful places left in the United States. Speaker6:
We're hoping that they understand that this Thacker pass in
many areas is like a cemetery to us. We didn't have cemeteries back in the day, but what our
people are resting in their eternal life should just not be disturbed. Think about if somebody went and excavated your
ancestors and decided to move them and reburied them someplace else. Speaker8:
That was our main reason for involved in the litigation was
the lack of consultation. As you know, there were twenty seven tribes
in the state of Nevada, and there's there are only three tribes, I believe, that were really had
consultation. If you want to call it that by receiving letters, I guess,
from the BLM on this project. And so we just felt it was inadequate. Speaker1:
Lithium America said it has been working with the local
tribes to participate in the cultural assessment of the land and that there has been overwhelming support from the
locals. Speaker3:
We've got members of the Lithium Americas lithium Nevada
team out in the communities explaining what all this means. So people really understand that we've been we're trying to
be as respectful and careful as possible, but also as I said before wanting to learn what they're interested in,
what things are needed for the community so we can be good neighbors. The initial life of the mine is more than 40
years in the processing plant, so these can be multigenerational jobs in an area that doesn't have these
opportunities today and really never has. So I think it's a multi-pronged effort to try to address
and you have questions from all sides. Speaker7:
Every resource development project will face resistance from
the people who live near it. The land footprint impacts of an extraction project are
always disproportionately inflicted on local people, and that is how it always has been for
thousands of years, and that's how it always will be. Speaker5:
Well, that's the same kind of thing is,the old not in my
backyard issue. And there are times when that's entirely appropriate in
times when it's for the greater good, I think, has to be assessed, and I
think the greater good of Thacker Pass is producing lithium. This is a big mine. Don't make any mistake about it. There is land disturbance going to be in. It's but this mine, all aspects of it I've seen compared to
a gold mine of the same size. This impact is going to be much lower. Speaker1:
Like fossil fuels, mining for lithium is an extractive
industry that inevitably has impacts on the environment, from carbon emissions to local wildlife populations. Speaker5:
If there is a threat to a species because of a lithium mine,
it will pale in comparison to what kind of species extinction we're going to see in the years ahead. If we don't control climate change. Speaker7:
It's possible for the CO2 emissions of lithium chemical
manufacturing to kind of get away from us in a number of different respects. If we don't pay close attention to how we build these new
mines because we are going to have to build a lot of new mines to satisfy demand for lithium chemicals from the
battery industry. Speaker1:
One Oakland, California, based startup Lilac Solutions aims
to make the extraction of lithium less water intensive and more sustainable. Then there are companies like Redwood
Materials and Li-cycle that are recycling depleted batteries and recovering lithium and other metals for reuse. Speaker7:
It is possible to decarbonize power that runs an electric
vehicle. It is even possible to decarbonize the extraction and
processing of battery materials, which are used to make the batteries that stole that store that energy in the electric
vehicle battery. It is never possible to decarbonize the fossil fuels that
are used to run internal combustion engines. Speaker3:
It's important as we grow this industry to be in the U.S. or be in the countries that are have share similar values
because the danger with rapid growth like this is that things are done improperly. Whether it's environmental standards, labor standards,
respect for local communities, we have laws and processes here in the U.S. and in like minded countries to avoid
things like that from happening. I think that's going to be an important aspect as this
industry grows.
