The shift to electric vehicles is about to overwhelm meager US mining operations - The Verge

The US may not be able to produce enough critical minerals to fuel the shift to electric vehicles. Automakers are urging regulators to streamline the permitting process to get more mines into production.

Electric vehicles are very helpful for fighting climate change. But EVs need batteries, and batteries need minerals like nickel, cobalt, and lithium. The US has some of these minerals underground, and it wants to dig them up, expeditiously, so that it doesn’t have to rely as much on other countries, including China.

But this is where it gets tricky. Mining operators say they can speed up the digging process, but a bunch of regulatory roadblocks stand in their way. And environmentalists and tribal groups remain extremely skeptical that all this mining can be done in a way that doesn’t ruin the land and spoil the water.

This more or less summarizes the nearly 27,000 comments that the Department of the Interior has received over the last six months since it published a request for information on ways to improve federal hardrock mining regulations, laws, and permitting practices. The department will need to comb through these comments as it mulls much-needed reforms to a very outdated law. And it will need to figure a way to navigate all these competing interests and concerns as it seeks to bolster US mining to supply rising EV demand while also protecting the environment.

It’s going to be a nearly impossible task.

The Inflation Reduction Act, the Democrats’ new tax and climate bill, devotes nearly $400 billion to clean energy initiatives over the next decade, including EV tax credits and financing for companies that manufacture clean cars in the US. And California said it would ban the sale of new gas-powered vehicles starting in 2035, a move that over a dozen other states are expected to follow.

https://www.theverge.com/2022/8/31/23330537/ev-battery-mineral-shortage-us-tax-credits

---