Thacker Pass Lithium Mine

The Thacker Pass Lithium Mine is a proposed lithium clay mining development project in Humboldt County, Nevada which is the largest known lithium deposit in the US, and one of the largest in the world. There has been significant exploration of Thacker Pass since 2007, and Record of Decision approving development of the mine was announced in January, 2021. The project site would cover , with less than of that being mined, on a site west-northwest of Orovada, Nevada within the McDermitt Caldera. The mine is proposed by Lithium Nevada, LLC - a wholly owned subsidiary of Lithium Americas Corp, whose largest shareholder is the world's largest lithium mining company, Chinese Ganfeng Lithium. At full capacity it would produce 66,000 tons annually, equivalent to 25% of the current (2021) demand for lithium globally, which is expected to triple over the next five years. Development of the mine is driven by increasing demand for lithium used in electric vehicle batteries and grid storage of intermittently generated electricity from sources such as solar power or wind power.

The project has met resistance in the form of legal challenges and direct action. Several indigenous tribes with traditional homeland in the area oppose the project. These tribes have stated that Thacker Pass is a sacred site, a massacre site, and that they were not adequately consulted by the Bureau of Land Management. Opponents of the mine have voiced concerns about rushed environmental review, threats to critical wildlife habitat, disruption of cultural sites, and links between resource extraction and missing and murdered indigenous women. Proponents of the mine have stated that the project is necessary to limit climate change by reducing carbon emissions from American cars, is benign in its social and environmental impact, and will create 300 long-term jobs in rural Nevada, paying an average of $63,000 per year. ''The New York Times'' reported that controversy around the mine is "emblematic of a fundamental tension" between green energy and damages caused by resource extraction required for those technologies.

Resources

The Thacker Pass lithium deposit has Measured and Indicated Resources of 13.7 million tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent, at an average ore grade of 2,231 ppm (0.22%) lithium. The Thacker Pass volcano-sedimentary deposit is the largest known sedimentary lithium resource in the U.S.

Lithium Americas estimates that the site contains recoverable lithium worth $3.9 billion. It is estimated that enough for batteries for about a million electric vehicles a year could be mined.

Mining and extraction process

Thacker Pass would use a newly-developed process to extract lithium from the clay deposit. Usually lithium is mined by either hard rock mining or brine mining. This mine will use hydraulic shovels to remove the clay and turn it into a slurry. Non-lithium-containing sand and rock will be separated and immediately returned to the pit.The lithium-bearing clay slurry would be mixed with sulfuric acid to extract the metal. A plant would be built on-site to burn molten sulfur and produce sulfuric acid, which is safer than transporting sulfuric acid, and would result in one third the number of truckloads necessary. Sulfur is a byproduct from oil refineries, and may be sourced from as far away as the Aberta oil sands. The facility would produce 5,800 tons of sulfuric acid per day, requiring 75 semi-trucks of molten sulfur to be delivered daily from Winnemucca. Burning the sulfur to produce sulfuric acid is an exothermic reaction, allowing the plant to generate most of its own electricity.

After the sulfuric acid treatment, the slurry would be filtered to separate the lithium from the clay and processed into lithium carbonate or lithium hydroxide for batteries.

Background

Global demand and US deposits

Development of the mine is driven by increasing demand for lithium used in electric vehicle batteries and for grid storage of intermittently generated electricity from sources such as solar power or wind power. As of 2021 lithium demand is expected to triple over the next 5 years, increase tenfold by 2030, and potentially increase 50-fold by 2040. The US government is concerned that, as of 2021, almost all the lithium used in the US is imported, which the Department of Energy says is a "strategic vulnerability". The Biden administration policy sees the United States securing a larger share of the lithium-battery supply chain through “safe, equitable and sustainable domestic mining ventures”.

While the US holds some of the largest known reserves of lithium, the only large-scale US mine producing it (located in Silver Peak, Nevada) makes less than 5,000 tons annually, which is less than 2% of the global supply. Bessemer City mine and Kings Mountain Mine in North Carolina have a lithium deposits.

The environmental conflict at Thacker Pass lithium mine is representative of global conflicts arising from increased mineral extraction that would be required to make an energy transition away from fossil fuels in response to climate change. Indigenous people have expressed concern that a global rush for critical minerals like lithium, nickel, cobalt, and copper could violate their basic rights and endanger their local ecologies and cultural heritage. International frontline communities affected by mining have called for a just transition that would prevent or minimise this damage to Indigenous cultures and the environment.

Cultural history

Thacker Pass is the traditional homeland of several related Indigenous nations, including the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes of the Duck Valley Reservation, the Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone Tribe, Lovelock Paiute Tribe, Fallon Paiute Shoshone Tribe, Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe and the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony. Local Indigenous communities harvest traditional foods, medicines and supplies for sacred ceremonies in the region. Members of the Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone Tribe have stated that their tribe, "descends from essentially two families who, hiding in Thacker Pass, managed to avoid being sent to reservations farther away from our ancestral lands" and hence that this tribe owes its existence to the shelter provided by the Pass.

Thacker Pass is called ''Peehee mu'huh'' in the Paiute language, meaning 'rotten moon'. This name derives from an 1865 massacre that Native tribes contend occurred at Thacker Pass (though the BLM contends that the site is 15 miles away), where a band of Paiute families were killed.

Mine impacts

CO2 emissions from the mine would amount to over 152,000 tons annually, (equal to a small city).

The mine would consume 1.7 billion gallons of water annually (500,000 gallons per ton of lithium produced). The mine's water use has prompted a lawsuit from a local rancher who also claims that the hydrologist hired by the BLM to prepare reports assessing the mine's impact has a conflict of interest with Lithium Nevada.

The mine overlaps with of big sagebrush habitat and known golden eagle breeding sites. The project may be disruptive to the habitat of Endangered Species Act-listed animals. A coalition of environmental groups filing a lawsuit against the mine stated that Thacker Pass is, "critically important to wildlife because it connects the Double H Mountains to the Montana Mountains. The pass also provides lower-elevation habitat that wildlife need to survive the winter." The group also stated that the area constituted, "one of the last big blocks of the sagebrush sea free of development."

Additional environmental concerns include contamination from groundwater pollutants such as arsenic, air pollution from sulfuric acid leaching of lithium from clay sediments, and changes in the connectivity of groundwater and surface water systems. This could harm the habitat of the endangered Lahontan cutthroat trout and the Kings River pyrg ('' Pyrgulopsis imperialis''), a rare springsnail not known to live anywhere else in the world.

There are concerns about the mine's potential impacts on the safety of local communities: projects that bring a large predominately male workforce from outside the local area can generate local increases in drug use and violent crime, and are associated with violence against Indigenous women.

Regulatory approval and litigation

Bureau of Land Management

In August 2019, Lithium Americas lodged a Plan of Operations for its proposed lithium clay mining development project with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the federal mining regulator. In January 2020, the company announced the publication of a Notice of Intent to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement for the Thacker Pass lithium project. On January 15, 2021, BLM issued their Record of Decision approving the Thacker Pass Lithium Mine.

Opponents of the mine claim the environmental review was rushed, because what is normally a multi-year review process was completed in less than a year. During the permitting process for the proposed Thacker Pass lithium mine in 2020, the BLM consultation with the Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone Tribe, the Summit Lake Paiute tribe, and the Western Winnemucca Indian Colony resulted in no issue concerning historic property within areas of potential disturbance. Other tribes were not consulted during the review process, leading the Burns Paiute Tribe and the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony to intervene in a lawsuit against the BLM and Lithium Nevada Corporation in July 2021.

In early February, 2021, a local rancher filed a lawsuit against the BLM over concerns about the project's water use. On February 26, 2021, four environmental non-profits (Western Watersheds Project, Great Basin Resource Watch, Basin and Range Watch, and Wildlands Defense) also filed a lawsuit challenging the BLM's permitting of the project, claiming threats to sage grouse habitat, old growth sagebrush, golden eagle nests, endemic springsnails, and Endangered Species Act–listed Lahontan cutthroat trout, bighorn sheep, and pygmy rabbits. These opponents of the mine have claimed that the review process was rushed and that the public input process was questionable.

Regional indigenous tribes have intervened in the lawsuits against the BLM and Lithium Nevada Corporation. Reno-Sparks Indian Colony requested that the BLM consult them about the mine, stating in a letter that, "Just because regional tribes have been isolated and forced onto reservations relatively far away from Thacker Pass does not mean these regional tribes do not possess cultural connections to the Pass." When the BLM rejected this request for consultation, Reno Sparks Indian Colony, Burns Paiute Tribe

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