In a piece that ran in the Reno Gazette Journal on May 28th, Nevada’s Lieutenant Governor Stavros Anthony detailed why the ‘Lithium Loop’ is positioning Nevada become a global leader in every stage of the battery supply chain - mining, manufacturing, and recycling.
“Nevada is home to the nation’s only operating lithium mine, which has been in operation since the late 1960s. But rapidly growing demand for battery technologies, especially in the automotive sector and on the nation’s power grid, is fueling a major expansion in Nevada’s lithium mining sector.
This is critically important because currently, the world’s leading producers of lithium are Australia, Chile and China. Unless this trend is reversed, the U.S. economy could be even more dependent on foreign lithium than we used to be dependent on foreign oil.”
Lt. Governor Stavros noted how the Nevada Tech Hub has been created to focus on developing the ‘Lithium Loop’ in Nevada.
“Under the leadership of the Nevada Tech Hub, community colleges, state agencies, industry leaders and labor representatives will coordinate to train the workforce needed to make the lithium loop a reality.
Research efforts will be centralized on a single, dedicated campus to accelerate breakthroughs in lithium battery technology and other crucial materials for electric vehicles and energy storage systems.
Regulations will be streamlined to ensure that the mines, manufacturing plants and other pieces of essential infrastructure for the lithium loop are built in a timely manner.”
There are already tangible results of this strategy including Lithium Nevada Corp.’s Thacker Pass manufacturing plan a $514M chemical manufacturing, Lithion’s 80,000 square foot facility manufacturing facility in Henderson, and Redwood Materials announced $3.5B expansion of battery recycling operations.
“For many years, leaders in the public and private sectors have talked about bringing manufacturing investment and jobs back to America. Here in Nevada, it isn’t just talk — we are actually making it happen.”