Thacker Pass lithium mine
The Thacker Pass lithium mine is a lithium clay mining development project in Humboldt County, Nevada, which is the largest known lithium deposit in the US and one of the largest in the world, and is believed by some to have the potential to supply up to 25% of the world's lithium demand. There has been significant exploration of Thacker Pass since 2007. The Bureau of Land Management issued a Record of Decision approving development of the mine in January 2021. Construction began in March 2023 after an emergency appeal was denied by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The project site would cover, with less than of that being mined, on a site west-northwest of Orovada, Nevada within the McDermitt Caldera. The mine is a project of Lithium Nevada, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lithium Americas Corp. In late January 2023, car giant General Motors announced it would invest $650M in the mine project, giving GM exclusive access to the first phase of production. In February 2023, when the initial $320 million investment was completed, GM became Lithium Americas's largest shareholder and offtake partner. At full capacity the mine would produce 66,000 tons annually, equivalent to 25% of global demand for lithium in 2021, which was expected to triple over the next five years. Development of the mine is driven by increasing demand for lithium used in electric vehicle batteries and grid storage of intermittently generated electricity from sources such as solar power or wind power.
The project has met resistance in the form of legal challenges and direct action. While several Indigenous tribes with traditional homeland in the area support the project some nearby tribes oppose the project. These opposition tribes have stated that Thacker Pass is a sacred site, a massacre site, and that they were not adequately consulted by the Bureau of Land Management. No BLM study or cultural mining study has found evidence of the massacre site within the mining area or even the extended area. Additionally, opponents of the mine have voiced concerns about rushed environmental review, threats to critical wildlife habitat, disruption of cultural sites. Proponents of the mine have stated that the project is necessary to limit climate change by reducing carbon emissions from American cars, is benign in its social and environmental impact, and will create 300 long-term jobs in rural Nevada, paying an average of $63,000 per year. The New York Times reported that controversy around the mine is "emblematic of a fundamental tension" between green energy and damage caused by resource extraction required for those technologies.
Ownership
In February 2023, General Motors completed an initial $320 million investment, becoming Lithium Americas's largest shareholder and offtake partner. In 2024, GM invested a further $625 million, giving it a 38% stake, with the right to buy all lithium produced by the mine's first phase. In October 2025, Lithium Americas announced that the US Department of Energy had taken a 5% stake in the mine.Resources
The Thacker Pass lithium deposit has measured and indicated resources of 13.7 million tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent, at an average ore grade of 2,231 ppm lithium. The Thacker Pass volcano-sedimentary deposit is the largest known sedimentary lithium resource in the U.S.Lithium Americas estimates that the site contains recoverable lithium worth $3.9 billion. It is estimated that enough batteries for about a million electric vehicles a year could be mined.
Mining and extraction process
Thacker Pass would use a newly developed process to extract lithium from the clay deposit. Usually lithium is mined by either hard rock mining or brine mining. This mine will use hydraulic shovels to remove the clay and turn it into a slurry. Non-lithium-containing sand and rock will be separated and immediately returned to the pit.The lithium-bearing clay slurry would be mixed with sulfuric acid to extract the metal. A plant would be built on-site to burn molten sulfur and produce sulfuric acid, which is safer than transporting sulfuric acid, and would result in one third the number of truckloads necessary. Sulfur is a byproduct from oil refineries, and may be sourced from as far away as the Alberta oil sands. The facility would produce 5,800 tons of sulfuric acid per day, requiring 75 semi-trucks of molten sulfur to be delivered daily from Winnemucca. Burning the sulfur to produce sulfuric acid is an exothermic reaction, allowing the plant to generate most of its own electricity.After the slurry is reacted with sulfuric acid, it will be pressed through filters which separate the elemental lithium solution, and then processed into lithium carbonate or lithium hydroxide for batteries. The tailings will then be returned to the pit.
The mine is planned to operate for 46 years, with the first 20 years removing material above the water table, with Lithium Americas intending to conduct studies over a decade on the water flows around the pit in hopes of proposing a safe method for mining below the water table
Background
Global demand and US deposits
Development of the lithium mine is driven by increasing demand for lithium used in electric vehicle batteries and for grid storage of intermittently generated electricity from sources such as solar power or wind power. As of 2021 lithium demand is expected to triple over the next 5 years, increase tenfold by 2030, and potentially increase 50-fold by 2040. The US government is concerned that, as of 2021, almost all the lithium used in the US is imported, which the Department of Energy says is a "strategic vulnerability". The Biden administration policy sees the United States securing a larger share of the lithium-battery supply chain through "safe, equitable and sustainable domestic mining ventures".While the US holds some of the largest known reserves of lithium, the only large-scale US mine producing it makes less than 5,000 tons annually, which is less than 2% of the global supply. Bessemer City mine and Kings Mountain Mine in North Carolina have lithium deposits. As of September 2024, in the United States, there are eight active lithium mines with eleven projects delayed indefinitely or cancelled and fifty-one separate project proposals lie in the exploration or development stages. The majority of proposed and active sites are in the western United States, with concentrations in California and Nevada.
The environmental conflict at Thacker Pass lithium mine is representative of global conflicts arising from increased mineral extraction that would be required to make an energy transition away from fossil fuels in response to climate change. Some opposition groups have expressed concern that a global rush for critical minerals like lithium, nickel, cobalt, and copper could violate their basic rights and endanger their local ecologies and cultural heritage. Some international frontline communities affected by mining have called for a just transition that would prevent or minimise this damage to Indigenous cultures and the environment.
Cultural history
Thacker Pass is the traditional homeland of several related Indigenous nations, including the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes of the Duck Valley Reservation, the Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone Tribe, Lovelock Paiute Tribe, Fallon Paiute Shoshone Tribe, Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe and the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony. Local Indigenous communities harvest traditional foods, medicines and supplies for sacred ceremonies in the region. Members of the Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone Tribe have stated that their tribe "descends from essentially two families who, hiding in Thacker Pass, managed to avoid being sent to reservations farther away from our ancestral lands" and hence that this tribe owes its existence to the shelter provided by the Pass.Rotten Moon
Thacker Pass is known as Peehee mu'huh by tribal protestors, meaning 'rotten moon'.The name was first publicized in March 2021, by People of Red Mountain, a twelve-strong group formed to oppose the mine.
In numerous interviews, group lawyer Will Falk, with members Myron Smart and Daranda Hinkey, recounted a gory massacre of Paiutes.
Those interviews and Falk's July/August 2021 court filings, detailed the butchery of the 'rotten moon' story, but didn't mention who perpetrated the attack leading to speculation on the involvement of soldiers.
A tribal elder, Alana Crutcher, refuted the claim Peehee mu'huh was a name used for Thacker Pass and cast doubt on whether the massacre protestors described ever took place. Reporter Molly Wood, who interviewed both Crutcher and Hinkey couldn't substantiate the story despite further research.
In August 2021, Falk unearthed historical records of a cavalry attack in 1865 on Paiutes in the Quinn River Valley claiming it spilled over into Thacker Pass.
In November 2021, Falk's court filing for the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony described two separate attacks, with the story of Peehee mu'huh updated to include the Pit River Indians as perpetrators of the massacre in which the Paiute victims were murdered by the enemy tribe and their insides strung out on the sagebrush. The Pit River inter-tribal raid story of 'rotten moon' has been conflated with the documented 1865 attack by soldiers in many reports, including those by local reporters following the court case.
In a December 2023 video, People of Red Mountain's Day Hinkey also said the name Peehee mu'huh derives from an inter-tribal war with the Pit River Tribe. Falk, in an April 2021 conversation with Deep Green Resistance co-founder, Derrick Jensen, said the origin of the name was an enemy tribe attack.
Mine impacts
According to the United States Department of Energy, the Thacker Pass lithium mine could supply enough lithium carbonate for up to 800,000 electric vehicle batteries annually, reducing consumption of gasoline by 317 million gallons per year.The lithium mine is proposed to be a carbon-neutral operation, generating electric power from a sulfuric acid plant built on-site to leach lithium from the extracted ore. The Final Environmental Impact Statement for the mine estimated Phase 2 emissions at an equivalent of 132,000 tons per year of CO2 with an additional 20,000 tons of emissions generated off-site by raw material transportation. The FEIS says approximately 200,000 tons per year of CO2 equivalent emissions are avoided in off-site power generation in Phase 2 by producing carbon-free electricity at the mine.
Phase 1 water consumption is estimated at 2,600 acre feet per year, the equivalent of approximately five alfalfa irrigation pivots of well water. The mine would consume 5,200 acre feet of water annually in Phase 2, equivalent to 1.7 billion gallons. The proposed transfer of water rights from Quinn River Valley crop irrigation to the mine site prompted a protest from a local rancher who claimed the diversion was detrimental to the Bartell Ranch operation and against the public interest. The protest was overruled on February 9, 2023, by the Nevada State Engineer, who developed an independent groundwater flow model to estimate the impacts of the mine on local water resources.
The mine overlaps with of big sagebrush habitat and known golden eagle breeding sites. The project may be disruptive to the habitat of Endangered Species Act-listed animals. A coalition of environmental groups filing a lawsuit against the mine stated that Thacker Pass is "critically important to wildlife because it connects the Double H Mountains to the Montana Mountains" and "provides lower-elevation habitat that wildlife need to survive the winter." However, the environmentalist groups lost the battle in court and the mine has been allowed to proceed. The group also stated that the area constituted "one of the last big blocks of the sagebrush sea free of development."
Additional environmental concerns include contamination from groundwater pollutants such as arsenic, air pollution from sulfuric acid leaching of lithium from clay sediments, and changes in the connectivity of groundwater and surface water systems. This could harm the habitat of the endangered Lahontan cutthroat trout and the Kings River pyrg, a rare springsnail not known to live anywhere else in the world.
There are concerns about the mine's potential impacts on the safety of local communities: projects that bring a large predominately male workforce from outside the local area can generate local increases in drug use and violent crime, and are associated with violence against Indigenous women.