GM To Invest $650 Million In Lithium Mine

The General Motors Company has decided to make an investment of $650 million in the Lithium Americas Corporation. This is the company that is in the process of establishing a lithium mine on Thacker Pass in northern Nevada. If all of the planned construction is carried out, this will be the vastest lithium mine in the United States.

The investment by GM is contingent on whether or not the Thacker Pass project is able to overcome the final environmental and legal challenges that it is currently facing in a federal court in Reno. This court is where conservation organizations and Tribes have filed suit to stop the project from moving forward.

According to a statement from GM, this investment represents the biggest one ever made by an automaker to develop lithium battery raw materials.

“GM has secured all the battery material we need to build more than 1 million EVs annually in North America in 2025 and our future production will increasingly draw from domestic resources like the site in Nevada we’re developing with Lithium Americas,” GM Chair and CEO Mary Barra said in a statement. “Direct sourcing critical EV raw materials and components from suppliers in North America and free-trade-agreement countries helps make our supply chain more secure, helps us manage cell costs, and creates jobs.”

In northern Minnesota, Tesla has entered into a contract with a value of $1.5 billion to purchase 75 tonnes of raw nickel over the course of the next six years. Nickel is a vital metal that is used to expand the range of lithium batteries, and it is anticipated that the demand for nickel will increase over the next decade as a result of the increase in the number of electric vehicles supplied by the automotive sector.

The Bureau of Land Management pushed through approvals for the mine’s permit in the waning days of the Trump administration using a streamlined process. Because of the significance of the land to the region’s 22 different tribes, a rancher, conservation groups, and other local tribes all want to see the land protected. These tribes include the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony and the Burns Paiute Tribe in Oregon.

Peehee Mu’huh, translates to “Rotten Moon,” the name given to Thacker Pass by the Paiute people. Its name originates from a massacre in 1865 in which federal cavalry murdered men, women, and children, then left their bodies to rot.

Attorneys for the Burns Paiute Tribe of Oregon and the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony stated,

“The proximity of the Indian Lodgings in the project area, combined with the intervening plaintiffs’ oral histories describing how Paiute people, being hunted by the US Cavalry, hid in Thacker Pass, and especially the new accounts of the massacre make it very likely that the Sept. 12, 1865 massacre happened, at least partially, within the project area.”

Moreover, tribes contended that the Bureau of Land Management did not consult with them regarding the project. Defend Thacker Pass is a grassroots group that is attempting to halt the mine proposal. They were recently fined $49,890 by the Bureau of Land Management for putting up latrines for Native American elders while they were visiting the camp that worked as a watchdog on the proposed open lithium mine.

The attorneys representing Lithium Americas and the BLM contended during oral arguments on January 5 in Reno that the Thacker Pass project is in compliance with the rules and regulations of the United States.

Attorneys for the Bureau of Land Management stated that the project adhered to standards used in the past to identify which initiatives required government-to-government outreach and engagement.

Additionally, they said that during earlier projects, Tribes had not informed the Bureau that the property was sacred. Attorneys for BLM contend that President Joe Biden’s push to lower greenhouse gas emissions is fundamentally dependent on supporting the switch to green energy.

Miranda Du, United States District Court Judge, said she will render a verdict over the Thacker Pass project within the next couple of months. During the course of the previous year, Du denied two requests for temporary injunctions brought up by tribe leaders.