Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
The electric vehicle revolution is here, and the United States must now make a choice. If we do nothing or not enough to break our dependence on China for battery metals like lithium and nickel, we face an uncertain future leading to the loss of electric vehicle (EV) production and other advanced technologies that can underpin our manufacturing sector, our energy security and our efforts to slash carbon emissions.
For the first time in decades, passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) offers a major tool for reducing America’s dangerous dependence on China for critically essential minerals and metals. Tax breaks to encourage domestic mining and sourcing requirements for the metals used in EV batteries are a significant step forward in reshoring our mineral supply chains. The opportunity for the United States to meet its own needs – with the help of close allies – for battery minerals and metals is within our grasp if we do it right. But the measures in the IRA alone won’t get the job done.
The U.S. must also fix our broken mine permitting process and resist misguided efforts to completely reshape the nation’s General Mining Law. The U.S. mine permitting process is rife with duplication and unnecessary delays. Permitting new mines takes a decade or more, shaking investor confidence and pushing mining companies to prioritize projects overseas. If our partners in Canada and Australia can permit mines with the same high environmental standards in just a fraction of the time, we certainly can too.
It should also not surprise anyone that there are competing agendas in Washington towards mining. While many policymakers, including key members of the Biden administration’s inner circle, recognize the urgent need to reshore mineral supply chains and reduce the barriers to mining investment, others believe now is the time to completely reshape the nation’s mining laws. That dangerous push could undercut all the incentives in the IRA to encourage domestic production. While imperfect, the nation’s mining laws need the work of a delicately handled scalpel, not the swing of a sledgehammer.
The urgent work of breaking China’s grip on the world’s mineral supply chains and rebuilding this critical piece of our industrial base demands a singular focus. Right now, 85 to 90% of the materials that go into a battery come from China. And China’s EV manufacturers, who account for more than half of the world’s EV sales, have locked up most of the available supply. The cost of raw materials that remain on the market is soaring. For example, the price of lithium carbonate hit an all-time high in April and is still eight times what it was at the start of last year. The same supply crunch is expected for nickel and cobalt within a few years.
Until recently, the U.S. believed that batteries could always be ordered from Asia. But the pandemic, the semiconductor crisis, and Russia’s brutal assault on Ukraine have made it clear that overreliance on global supply chains must end. The risk was underscored by recent reports that China’s CATL, the world’s biggest battery manufacturer, postponed a decision on a U.S. site for a battery factory slated to supply Ford and Tesla, following a visit to Taiwan by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The age of offshoring has come to an abrupt end. The U.S. and China appear to be on a collision course that, at the very least, threatens further economic collaboration and underscores the urgency of building supply chains outside of Beijing’s grasp. The U.S. is finally embracing the essential industrial policy needed to rebuild our minerals industrial base. There’s not a moment to lose leaning into that critically important work.
Jim Constantopoulos is a professor of geology at Eastern New Mexico University. He can be reached at
