The Kings Mountain and Liberty Owl lithium projects have made it to a list of critical mineral production projects added to the United States Federal Permitting Dashboard, giving them a streamlined process, authorities said.
“Once completed, these [lithium] projects will help to develop more secure domestic supply chains, strengthening our national security and our economic security”, the Department of Energy (DOE) said in an online statement, noting China controls 70 percent of the market for a key component in energy storage projects and defense applications.
TerraVolta’s Liberty Owl seeks to build a commercial-scale extraction and refining plant to produce battery-grade lithium from brine in the Texarkana region. The DOE said it is supporting the project with $225 million.
Albemarle Corp.’s Kings Mountain will build a commercial-scale processing facility that can produce up to 350,000 metric tons a year of lithium oxide concentrate. It has been earmarked $150 million by the DOE.
“These additions to the Federal Permitting Dashboard reflect the Trump Administration’s commitment to strengthen domestic supply chains for critical minerals and materials, reduce dependence on foreign sources and advance President Trump’s bold agenda for American energy dominance through a more secure, affordable and reliable U.S. energy system”, the agency said.
“The Department looks forward to working with federal partners, project sponsors, and developers to ensure these projects move forward with increased transparency, clear project timelines, expedited reviews, and the support needed to strengthen domestic supply chains, drive economic growth and deliver on President Trump’s commitment to unleashing American energy and economic security”.
The Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council has added 25 projects to its Dashboard in response to President Donald Trump’s executive order on March 20 ordering regulators to identify critical mineral projects that may receive immediate approvals.
Enlistment on the Dashboard gives the projects the benefits of transparency and efficiency under the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (FAST-41). However, the Steering Council said the 25 are not FAST-41 projects, a status which would have secured them “a coordinated project plan and dedicated project management by Permitting Council experts”.
Rather, their inclusion on the Permitting Dashboard as transparency projects “makes the environmental review and authorizations schedule for these vital mineral production projects publicly available and allows all of these projects to benefit from increased transparency”, the Steering Council said.
“The public nature of the dashboard ensures that all stakeholders, from project sponsors and community members to federal agency leaders, have up-to-date accounting of where each project stands in the review process. This transparency leads to greater accountability, ensuring a more efficient process”, it added.
While the DOE affirmed support for the lithium projects, needed in the development of storage facilities for intermittent renewables, the department is re-scrutinizing financial assistance awards issued by the Biden administration including for clean energy projects.
On May 30 the DOE said federal support awards of over $3.7 billion, mostly for carbon capture and sequestration and decarbonization initiatives, had been canceled as part of the review.
The review, announced May 15, targets 179 awards totaling over $15 billion.
To contact the author, email jov.onsat@rigzone.com
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