New US Lithium Deposits Find Could be Biggest in the World

Lithium is the crucial metal for creating the batteries that power Electric Vehicles. In recent years, there has been a veritable race to secure and hoard crucial supplies of the stuff. Companies like BYD, a China-based car manufacturer who started off as just a battery manufacturer, was particularly good at doing this and have invested heavily in countries to try to corner the market of the ‘white gold’.

Now, according to a study published in the Journal of Science Advances, it would seem that the US has stumbled upon perhaps the world’s biggest deposit of the stuff on the Nevada-Oregan border where in a volcanic caldera, known as the the McDermitt Caldera, a staggering 40 million metric tonnes may lie waiting to power the future of automation. Based on these predictions, the deposit is roughly double the previously known largest reserves in the Bolivian salt flats.

Unlike other global deposits that are found in brine under flats, the McDermitt Caldera deposits are in clay. The deposits were formed after a massive eruption about 16 million years ago. A lake formed in the collapsed volcano and a layer of lithium rich sediment of lithium-rich smectite was deposited. Further volcanic events saw lithium-rich hydrothermal deposition, which altered the smectite to lithium-rich illite. Okay, enough of the geology lesson.

The hemp-trouser-wearing environmentalists often object to the extraction of lithium and truth be told, they do have a point. Depending on the method used, vast amounts of C02 can be emitted and ground water contaminated with heavy metals and tons of fossil fuel used to get it out. It is a bit of a conundrum: to save the planet, we must kill some of the planet. But a federal court has now struck down all of the environmentalists and the Native American activists who had tried to block the extraction of the ore.

Currently, the USA owns and produces less than 1% of global lithium. The new McDermitt Caldera deposits will move that rapidly to 10% and start to break the stranglehold that Chinese manufacturers have spent the past twenty years establishing. Whilst many have touted the McDermitt Caldera news as a potential threat to many of China-based companies that had been trying to corner the global supply of lithium, none of the news has done anything to reduce the price of lithium in global markets. In 2022, the spot price for battery-grade lithium hydroxide increased by 150% as each car battery requires about 33 kilos of lithium and by 2030, demand is expected to increase by 400%. Interesting times ahead.