There’s a lithium mining boom, but it’s not a jobs bonanza : NPR
The town of Tonopah, Nev., was born from the silver rush. A frenzied race to exploit natural resources created a town of more than 10,000 people — for a while.
Today, Tonopah is home to more than 2,000 people. But there’s a new mining boom in town.
You can see it upon check-in at the old Mitzpah hotel, all its faded glory, ghost stories and tales of Wyatt Earp. Above the counter, next to a chandelier, a screen advertises a lithium mining company.
And forty minutes outside of town, the Silver Peak lithium mine is in the process of doubling production.
Lithium is essential to making rechargeable batteries, like the giant batteries used in electric vehicles. Demand is skyrocketing. And, after decades of moving production abroad, the auto industry is now racing to move the supply chain back to the US — especially for batteries, from raw materials to assembly.
It’s a key priority for the Biden administration, which argues that accessing this resource will reduce dependence on countries like China and boost American jobs.
Mining is part of this push — sometimes a controversial thing. And there is a strong case for how domestically producing essential minerals improves the security of America’s supply chains.
But employment is another story. Unlike the glory days of Tonopah – or, in modern times, the oil-booming towns of North Dakota and West Texas, for example – this race to extract resources from the ground does not look like an opportunity. job.
Take Silver Peak’s investment to double its output. “I believe we’re growing – maybe it doesn’t sound like a lot – I think it’s about five to 10 new employees,” said Karen Narwold, chief executive officer of Albemarle.
Silver Peak is a brine mine that harnesses solar energy to concentrate lithium inside saltwater. At first, it employed only about 70 people, operating the pumps and maintaining the equipment.
Comparatively speaking, other mines require more workers. John Evans, CEO of Lithium Americas, is trying to open a mine in Thacker Pass, northern Nevada. (It is currently facing legal challenge from locals who oppose the mine.) He said that the mine, once operational, will employ about 300 people.
But he also noted that the total number of mines will not be large.
“If there are five or six of these in the next ten years, I think we’re doing pretty well,” Evans said.
Overall, it makes a relatively modest employment impact. Phil Jordan is vice president of BW Research, a consulting firm focused on workforce and energy. He recently completed modeling work on how government incentives, such as in this summer’s major climate bill, affect different parts of the supply chain.
“There is definitely an increase in mining jobs,” he said. “But those gains will be, you know, maybe a thousand jobs that will last for ten years.”
That number is dwarfed by jobs created in clean energy production or construction. And that’s just a tiny fraction of the more than half a million jobs supported by those incentives.
Kwasi Ampofo, BloombergNEF’s head of metals and mining, says it’s no surprise that job numbers will be modest. Mines in developed countries have very, very low levels of labor, and automation and other technological innovations only reduce the need for labor, he said.
The mining industry, for its part, emphasizes that related jobs that pay well and are located in rural areas may have few other options.
“Our average salary is more than $95,000 a year,” said Tire Gray, president and chief executive officer of the Nevada Mining Association. “And when you talk about wages like that, those are the kinds of wages that allow you to change the lives of your family.”
And Evans, from the Thacker Pass project, said the real value of building mines in the US is not the mining jobs it generates, but what it allows to continue the supply chain, by creating a safer source of minerals.
“All the parts of the battery — the cathode, the anode, the divider, all that — that will be where the big work is done,” he said. For example, he points to an LG Chem factory opening to make cathode — battery components — in Tennessee.
“You’ll have 2000 people working there,” he said. “But for that cathode plant to work, you need materials from 300 people… in northern Nevada.”
Atlas Public Policy recently cataloged all the factories announced to build electric vehicles, batteries, and chargers. They counted 143,575 jobs announced.