How a heap of lithium on the Nevada-Oregon border could ignite an environmental battle

Oregon sits on a colossal bounty of lithium straddling the border with Nevada, sharing one of the largest deposits on Earth with a southern neighbor.

Lithium is one of the most important resources for the ongoing renewable energy boom, vital for batteries used in electric vehicles to solar energy technology. (Lithium batteries also likely power the device on which you’re reading this story.) Right now, it’s key to getting millions of polluting gas-powered cars off the road.

Miners are already prospecting the Oregon side of the massive deposit of “white gold” in an ancient volcanic caldera. But getting that lithium out of the ground could emit about as much carbon as Oregon’s last coal-fired power plant in its last 22 years in operation. And environmental groups say mining the area would hurt a crucial ecosystem in Oregon’s high desert.

The Nevada side of the deposit is estimated to contain a larger supply of lithium in higher concentrations. Companies with land in Oregon expect they’re at least a decade away from tapping the Oregon side — where they expect tougher environmental regulation and more public resistance — by which time battery technology might well have moved on.

But at least three transnational Australian mining corporations are exploring the Oregon sites, drilling dozens of holes into its claystone rock to measure the amount of lithium. Representatives from one of the companies met with Gov. Tina Kotek last month.

So the site might yet set up a new clash between environmentalism and the rush toward sustainable energy. And Oregon may have to choose between a modern-day oil boom and the environmental values many of its residents cherish.

Environmentalism and sustainability

The prospect of lithium mining on Oregon’s desolate but ecologically dense southeastern border has raised a litany of concerns for the state’s environmental advocacy groups.

For one, they consider the area critical to the survival of the sage grouse, a bird native to Oregon’s high desert that’s considered “near-threatened.” Mark Salvo, the Oregon Natural Desert Association’s conservation director, said the area contains breeding grounds for the birds that mining would decimate.

And it’s not just the sage grouse. Because the area is passable to wildlife during winter, even when nearby mountains are encased in deep snowpack, Salvo said many species depend on it. Mines could also disturb threatened Lahontan cutthroat trout, which lives in creeks that run near prospective mining sites.

It also includes species such as the pronghorn antelope, which Salvo said “frankly every other western state is concerned about” due to long-term population declines.

The mines would also demand immense supplies of water to extract the lithium. One mine in Nevada at Thacker Pass already plans to withdraw just under 1.7 billion gallons of water per year from local groundwater in its second phase.

Water usage is already a perennial issue in Oregon, where cities, industry, farmers and fish already compete over a finite supply. And environmental groups such as Salvo’s are especially concerned about this in the proposed mines.

But one of the biggest environmental concerns reveals a tension between reducing carbon emissions through electrification and present-day battery technology.

John Dilles, a retired geology professor at Oregon State University who co-authored a transformative study that estimated the amount of lithium in the caldera, said the element is so heavily embedded with calcium carbonate in claystone rock that miners will need to dissolve the surrounding mineral to extract the lithium.

For every ton of lithium mined, the chemical process will release between four and 30 tons of carbon dioxide. (That ratio depends on the concentration of lithium in the rock the miners will extract it from, among other factors.)

Dilles estimates the amount in Oregon could be on the higher end of that range — about 20 tons of carbon dioxide released for every ton of lithium extracted. On the conservative estimate of 2 million metric tons of lithium at the largest site on Oregon’s side, that means 40 million metric tons of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere.

That’s equivalent to running Oregon’s Boardman Coal Plant — the state’s last coal power plant, decommissioned in 2020 — for 22 years.

Every ton of lithium used in electric vehicle batteries prevents the release of about 190,000 tons of carbon dioxide emitted by gas-powered vehicles. That means even if a small fraction of the deposit’s lithium goes to EV batteries, it could halt the emissions of hundreds of millions of tons of carbon dioxide, far outstripping the carbon cost of its extraction.

But climate scientists say carbon emissions today, when greenhouse effects are accelerating, could be more damaging than future emissions — if global emissions are already in decline.

Scientists are researching ways to capture that carbon before it’s released into the atmosphere, Dilles said, but it’s not common practice.

Who would mine the sites?

At least three companies, all Australian or subsidiaries of Australian mining corporations, have laid claims on Oregon’s lithium deposits.

The site was first scoped out by Chevron in the 1970s, which at the time was hunting for uranium. The Australian company Aurora Energy Metals has followed suit, laying claim to a portion of the northeastern edge of the caldera. The company says on its website that it hopes to mine both uranium and lithium at its site.

A U.S. subsidiary of another Australian lithium mining company, Chariot Corp., has stakes in significant portions on both sides of the border.

But the company has suggested it may never mine the Oregon side. Shanthar Pathmanathan, Chariot’s managing director, told a mining industry podcast host in March that he expects difficulties.

“The Oregon part, we think, is going to be somewhat frustrated by politics in Oregon which prevent that from being developed into a mine,” Pathmanathan said on the podcast. (His company, Chariot Corp., did not respond to an interview request.) “Nevertheless, the mineralization is also there.”

The regulation for permitting is largely handled by the Bureau of Land Management, a federal agency, just as in Nevada. But Oregon authorities get some say. Water usage for drilling, for example, still has to go through an Oregon water master, and there are other constraints the state can place on a major mining operation.

The largest deposit on Oregon’s side is staked out by Jindalee Lithium, another Australian firm, through its U.S. subsidiary, HiTech Minerals. But the company, like others, doesn’t expect to have shovels in the ground for many years.

Brett Marsh, vice president of exploration and development at Jindalee, said it would be at least a decade, but likely much longer, until mining operations actually begin on the company’s site.

Still, the company is close to obtaining an exploration project permit for its Oregon land, where the company plans to drill hundreds of holes and build miles of road.

Jindalee representatives met with Gov. Tina Kotek last month to discuss the company’s project. A spokesperson for Kotek said she met with Jindalee at the company’s request to discuss the company’s business model, the process to extract lithium and world markets for the resource.

But getting shovels in the ground on Oregon’s side may still prove to be much harder than in Nevada. It’s possible, experts say, that battery technology passes by lithium in the meantime. Scientists and renewable tech are already looking at alternative battery technology that relies on potentially more sustainable resources, such as sodium.

A mirror over the border

If Oregon wants to know what it could expect from mine development, it can look to its southern neighbor.

Nevada’s largest lithium mine, at Thacker Pass, has drawn intense controversy and protest.

Lithium Americas, the Canadian company that operates the mine, estimates it contains almost $4 billion in extractable lithium, enough to satisfy a quarter of yearly global lithium demand.

The mine is projected to create hundreds of jobs in the remote corner of the state, with wages that average about $63,000 a year. The state’s average salary is about $55,000.

Three tribes have sued the Bureau of Land Management, alleging the mine is being constructed near the site of a massacre where U.S. Cavalry killed dozens of Native Americans. A federal judge ruled last year that the tribes failed to prove the project site was where the massacre occurred.

Activists allege the company rushed environmental reviews and say the mine represents threats to wildlife similar to those feared by environmental groups on Oregon’s side.

Karly Foster, a former campaign manager for the Oregon Natural Desert Association, vehemently opposes the development of mines on the Oregon-Nevada border. She supports the use of lithium, but she said this site is too important to local wildlife and cultural resources. (Foster wrote an ode to the site’s “vibrant ecological haven” for The Bulletin in Bend earlier this summer.)

But beyond her own opinion on the matter, she said the lithium lode illustrates the tension between environmental protection and the race toward net zero, to the widespread adoption of electric vehicles and of renewable technology. Both, she said, are crucial.

“It’s an incredible mirror,” Foster said, “that just happens to live in Oregon.”