Biden wants to reduce China’s dominance of electric batteries

SACRAMENTO, Calif.

President Joe Biden on Tuesday highlighted his efforts to counter China’s dominance in the electric battery market as he touted national efforts to mine and process the lithium and rare metals needed to create the technology that powers cars, electronics, wind turbines and more.

The Democratic president announced his administration is giving $35 million to MP Materials, a company that mines rare earth metals near the Nevada border in southern California. The funding will enhance MP’s ability to process materials domestically for use in manufacturing in the United States.

He also touted efforts to extract lithium from geothermal brine found around California’s Salton Sea. Biden said U.S. demand for these materials will grow 400% to 600% over the next few decades.

“We cannot build a made-in-America future if we ourselves are dependent on China for the materials that power the products of today and tomorrow,” Biden said. “And it’s not anti-China, or anti-anything else. It’s pro-American.”

Biden spoke virtually from Washington with a group of California business and government leaders, including Governor Gavin Newsom.

Based in Las Vegas, MP Materials operates the Mountain Pass mine and processing facility, the only one of its kind in North America. It extracts rare earth metals and produces a concentrate that is exported for use in other countries. These metals are used to produce magnets needed for electric car batteries and many other items.

The federal money will help the company create a processing facility for “heavy” rare earth metals, and it follows a $10 million award last year for “light” rare earth metals. The company is spending $700 million of its own money to improve processing and set up a manufacturing plant in Texas to produce magnets. The company has an agreement with General Motors, said Matt Sloustcher, MP Materials senior vice president for policy and communications.

“My team is committed to bringing that supply chain home,” company chief executive Jim Litinsky told Biden on the call.

Elsewhere, Biden has touted lithium production efforts in California. Newsom called the state the Saudi Arabia of lithium, a reference to that country’s abundance of oil.

Newsom said lithium mining in California has the potential to enhance national security by improving national supply chains and accelerating the transition from fossil fuels in the transportation sector. Biden previously noted that the country could produce half a million electric cars a year by 2025.

“If it’s as big as it sounds, it’s a game-changer in terms of our efforts to transition to low-carbon green growth and to radically change the way we produce and consume energy,” he said. said Newsom.

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Energy is among several companies working to extract lithium from geothermal brine found around the Salton Sea, California’s largest lake. Berkshire Hathaway has operated geothermal power plants around the lake for decades, but lithium has always been pumped underground with the brine after being used to generate electricity.

With state and federal investments of approximately $20 million, the company is working on projects to demonstrate that it can mine lithium and convert it to a battery in a commercially viable way, said Alicia Knapp, president of BHE Renewables. .

The Newsom administration has said it wants to ensure that the economic benefits of lithium mining flow back to areas around the Salton Sea, which have been hit by economic hardship and environmental degradation as the lake is drying up due to dwindling supplies from the Colorado River.

Silvia Paz, chair of the state-created Lithium Valley Commission, said Biden communities in the region have already seen “broken promises.” She called for investment in career development and education for people in the region, as well as improvements in basic services and cleaning up the environment.

“We want to be at the table and help you understand what it means to us to have a successful economy,” she said.