Digging For Dollars

Exploring The US' Lithium Mine Project in Nevada

Contents

1. Introduction

2. New Mines and Operations: Nevada

3. New Mining Process

4. Issues

5. Other Major Sources of Lithium Recently Discovered

6. Concluding Remarks

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Introduction

It’s all well that we’re pursuing a cleaner, greener world. But we are using finite resources at a rapid rate. Once they’re depleted, we’ll have to venture into the great unknown of outer space to find more, and that’s hardly the easiest task. How can we better care for and protect the minerals we possess on Earth?

Our forecast demonstrated that we’ll have enough lithium for the clean energy transition. This, however, is based on production occurring at the forecasted rate. This requires new projects to be discovered and mines established at a quicker rate than the current 5-year minimum set-up time. Are we pursuing this globally? Today, we’ll explore the latest developments in the lithium sector, including the source discovered in Nevada, USA and how innovation will solve problems that will limit our worries regarding production capacity.

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New Mines and Operations: Nevada

The Thacker Pass Lithium Mine in Nevada has recently made news based on its potential to be the largest lithium mine in the world. Exploration at Thacker Pass has actually been in process since 2007. It was only in January 2021 when the Bureau of Land Management approved the development of a mine, with construction beginning in March 2023.

A small side note, this demonstrates how long it can take to even begin the process of constructing a mine, after this comes the operation of the mine, which as we’ve discussed with lithium, is a lengthy process.

Photo by Veri Ivanova on Unsplash

The 18,000-acre site is owned by Lithium Nevada, a subsidiary of Lithium Americas Corp (LAC). LAC’s largest shareholder is Ganfeng Lithium. Both are companies I’ve discussed in this series on lithium. Only 5,500 acres will be mined over a mine life of 46 years. The production projection for the mine is 66,000 tons per year. Total estimated resources are 13.7 million tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent, worth $3.9B.

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New Mining Process

An interesting difference from typical lithium mines (hard rock or brine), is that Thacker Pass would use a new method to extract lithium from clay. The process is as follows:

1)      Use hydraulic shovels to turn clay into slurry. A slurry is a mixture of solids suspended in a liquid.

2)      Slurry not containing lithium is returned to the mining pit.