The Department of Energy on Friday announced $3 billion for projects to bolster the electric vehicle and grid battery supply chain, from mining to recycling.
The 25 projects target one of the biggest challenges facing battery manufacturing: China’s dominance over raw materials and metals needed to build clean energy projects. The grants support retrofits and construction of domestic facilities for mining and battery production and reuse...
Republican presidential candidate
Donald Trump and Republican allies in Congress are pledging to repeal parts of the IRA if they win at the polls in November...
Among the recipients are companies wanting to use technologies to extract lithium from brine. SWA Lithium, a joint project between
Standard Lithium and
Equinor, received $225 million to move forward with a commercial-scale direct lithium extraction project in Arkansas...
A separate $225 million grant was awarded to
TerraVolta Resources, which is poised to use direct-lithium extraction technology in the Texarkana region.
The grants will also benefit lithium processing projects.
Albemarle received $67 million to retrofit a facility to make lithium anode batteries in North Carolina.
The funding announcement marks a boost for the first critical minerals project the Biden administration opted to fast-track through a special permitting process. DOE awarded a $166 million grant to
South32 Hermosa, which is building a $1.7 billion underground manganese and zinc mine and processing plant in southern Arizona.