A federal appeals court has cleared the way for construction in Nevada of the largest lithium mine in the US while it considers claims by conservationists and tribes that the government illegally approved it in a rush to produce raw materials for electric vehicle batteries. The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday denied to grant an emergency injunction to prevent a subsidiary of Lithium Americas from breaking ground near the Oregon line this week at the third-largest known lithium deposit in the world. Lawyers for the mining company and the Biden administration said in court filings that further delay was undermining efforts to combat climate change, the AP reports, as the 2-year-old legal battle lingers and demand grows for the key component in batteries for electric vehicles.
Reserves at the Thacker Pass mine, expected to begin production by the end of 2026 about 200 miles northeast of Reno, would support lithium for more than 1.5 million electric vehicles per year for 40 years, the company said. "There are no other US alternatives to Thacker Pass to provide lithium at the scale, grade or timeline necessary to begin closing the gap between the lithium available and the lithium needed to achieve the US's clean energy and transportation goals," its lawyers wrote. On Wednesday, the San Francisco-based court scheduled expedited filing deadlines through April on the merits of the appeal, but its four-page ruling didn't explain its rejection of the injunction.
Environmentalists and tribes trying to block the project support efforts to bolster lithium supplies to build electric vehicle batteries and replace fossil fuels with renewables, but they say this particular mine would destroy essential wildlife habitat and sacred cultural values. "This massive open pit mine has been fast-tracked from start to finish in defiance of environmental laws, all in the name of 'green energy,' but its environmental impacts will be permanent and severe,” said Talasi Brooks, a lawyer for the Western Watersheds Project. A Nevada rancher filed the first lawsuit in early 2021 seeking to block the 5,000-acre project with an open-pit mine as deep as a football field.
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