It wasn’t too long ago when automakers believed that electric vehicles were going to take over the industry quickly, and as such, many began investing heavily in the raw materials needed to produce EV batteries. That includes Ford, which inked raw materials deals with a number of companies including Albemarle Corp, which was slated to supply the automaker with lithium hydroxide, a critical component used in the cathode of lithium-ion batteries. Now, Albemarle is pausing its plans to build what would have become the largest lithium refinery in the U.S., however.
According to Reuters, Albemarle has now put those plans on ice amid an ongoing glut of lithium across the globe, which has driven prices down. Trouble is, that decision leaves the U.S. without a major lithium processing site and dampens efforts to reduce the country’s reliance on China for such raw materials. Currently, there’s only one lithium mine in the U.S. – in Nevada, also owned and operated by Albemarle – and it was planning to invest $1.3 billion to build a processing plant in South Carolina, but it opted to pause those plans as lithium prices have plummeted by 74 percent over the past two years.
“We’ve been wanting to build this Western supply chain. The economics just aren’t there to build that plant out in South Carolina,” said Albemarle CEO Kent Masters. “The math doesn’t work today. We don’t have the confidence to say where (the lithium price) is or where it’s going, which is why we’ve kind of gone to the strategy we have of making sure that we can compete at the bottom of the cycle. I don’t think private companies are going to be able to do it on their own.”
Meanwhile, another lithium supplier – Ioneer – was cleared to begin mining in Nevada’s Silver Peak Range by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) last year, a site that could produce enough of that material to power roughly 370,000 all-electric vehicles annually when it’s completed.
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JUST ANOTHER STUPID IDEA THAT YOUWASTED MONEY ON AND ARE NOW INCREASING THE COST OF OTHER VEHICLES TO PAY FOR IT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Much like student loans that will never be paid back in full.