Reuters reported on Tuesday that President Joe Biden plans to look abroad for most supplies of EV metals and focus on domestic processing into battery parts, part of a strategy designed to placate environmentalists and counter to a private commitment to miners last autumn to allow more domestic mining.
“The approach is deeply naive and very dangerous to the United States supply chain for electric vehicles,” said James Calaway, chairman of ioneer Ltd, which is developing the Rhyolite Ridge lithium project in Nevada.
Aggressive U.S. climate goals under Biden call for roughly half of all new U.S. automobile sales to be electric by 2030 and every car on the road to be electric by 2040.
“Given the administration’s timeline, they have no choice but to allow more domestic mines,” said Jon Evans, chief executive of Lithium Americas Corp, which is developing the Thacker Pass lithium deposit in Nevada.
Underscoring the supply challenge, the International Energy Agency this month forecast global demand for lithium will jump 40 times by 2040, while cobalt and nickel demand would rise at least 20 times.
Chile and Australia – the world’s two largest producers of lithium – ship most of their product to Asia for processing into battery cathodes and other parts. Expecting those countries to divert existing supply chains to the United States is not realistic, executives said.
“American manufacturing must…
