The U.S. Interior Department on Thursday gave final approval to ioneer’s Rhyolite Ridge lithium mine in Nevada, the first domestic source of battery metal authorized by President Joe Biden’s administration and which will become a supplier key to Ford and other electric vehicle manufacturers.
Shares of the Australia-based critical minerals mining company jumped more than 20% in New York trading Thursday afternoon before slowing.
The approval ends a more than six-year review process during which regulators, authorities and environmental advocates argued over the fate of a rare flower found at the mining site, a tension that revealed the sometimes competing priorities between climate change mitigation efforts and biodiversity protection.
The permit, which was expected by the end of the year, comes amid a flurry of recent moves by Biden officials to support production of critical minerals and offset China’s market dominance.
It also unlocks a $700 million loan from the U.S. Department of Energy, as well as a $490 million equity investment from Sibanye Stillwater to finance the project.
“This is a scientific decision,” Laura Daniel-Davis, acting deputy secretary of the Interior Department, told Reuters. “We are trying to send the signal that there is no more important issue than the fight against climate change.”
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which is controlled by the Interior Department, released the Rhyolite Ridge Project’s Record of Decision — essentially the mine’s permit — on Thursday and said the project “will include important protections for the local ecosystem” and will help create hundreds of jobs in rural areas.
The project, located about 220 miles (362 kilometers) north of Las Vegas, Nevada, contains enough lithium to power about 370,000 electric vehicles each year. Construction is expected to begin next year, for production by 2028, a timeline that would make Rhyolite Ridge one of the largest lithium producers in the United States, alongside Albemarle and Lithium Americas.
The U.S. Geological Survey has called lithium an essential mineral, vital to the U.S. economy and national security.
“We are proud to be the first U.S. lithium mine authorized by the Biden administration,” James Calaway, president of ioneer, told Reuters.
The project will extract lithium as well as boron, a chemical used to make ceramics and soaps, from a clay deposit. Lithium will be processed on-site into two main derivatives used to make batteries, and the company has announced plans to recycle half of all water used on-site, which is higher than the industry average.
Ford and a joint venture between Toyota and Panasonic have agreed to purchase lithium from the mine.
