The Biden administration is doubling down on its effort to support the domestic production of EVs by offering a loan for what could become only the second lithium mine in the US.
The Ioneer Rhyolite Ridge Lithium-Boron Project could potentially obtain enough lithium to support the production of about 70,000 EVs each year. This would reduce annual gasoline consumption by nearly 145 million gallons and prevent the release of 1.29 million tons of carbon dioxide each year, the department said.
The loan would be the first of its kind that the White House has offered a US mining project for lithium, a key ingredient used to make electric vehicle batteries.
"The government is sending a strong signal that it's time to let us go build this mine," James Calaway, Ioneer's executive chairman, told Reuters. "We now have the capital to build a very important facility to supply lithium for the United States."
The loan is conditional on...