In a recycling facility in Covington, Georgia, employees grind up useless batteries right into a high quality, darkish powder. Prior to now, the manufacturing facility shipped that powder, recognized within the battery recycling trade as black mass, abroad to refineries that extracted priceless metals like cobalt and nickel. However now it retains the black mass on web site and processes it to provide lithium carbonate, a important ingredient for making new batteries to energy electrical autos and retailer power on the grid.
From Nevada to Arkansas, firms are racing to dig extra lithium out of the bottom to fulfill the clear power sector’s surging appetite. However this battery recycling facility, owned by Massachusetts-based Ascend Elements, is the primary new lithium carbonate producer within the nation in years — and the one supply of recycled lithium carbonate in North America. The corporate is finalizing upgrades to its Covington facility that can permit it to provide as much as 3,000 metric tons of lithium carbonate per yr starting later this month. Proper now, the one different home supply of lithium carbonate is a small mine in Silver Peak, Nevada.
Since January, President Donald Trump has taken a sledgehammer to the Biden administration’s efforts to develop America’s clear power trade. The Trump administration has frozen grants and loans, hollowed out key agencies, and used government motion to stall renewable energy projects and reverse climate policies — usually in legally dubious ways. On the identical time, citing financial and nationwide safety causes, Trump has sought to advance efforts to provide extra important minerals like lithium in america. That’s precisely what the emerging lithium-ion battery recycling industry seeks to do, which is why some trade insiders are optimistic about their future beneath Trump.
However, U.S. battery recyclers face uncertainty as a consequence of fast-changing tariff insurance policies, the prospect that Biden-era tax credit could be repealed by Congress because it seeks to slash federal spending, and indicators that the clean energy manufacturing boom is fading.
Battery recyclers are in “a limbo second,” mentioned Beatrice Browning, a recycling knowledgeable at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, which conducts market analysis for firms within the lithium-ion battery provide chain. They’re “ready to see what the following steps are.”
To transition off fossil fuels, the world wants much more large batteries that may energy EVs and retailer renewable power to be used when the wind isn’t blowing or the solar isn’t shining. That want is already inflicting demand for the metals inside batteries to surge. Recycling end-of-life batteries — from electrical automobiles, e-bikes, cell telephones, and extra — can present metals to assist meet this demand whereas reducing the need for destructive mining. It’s already taking place on a big scale in China, the place most of the world’s lithium-ion battery manufacturing takes place and the place recyclers profit from supportive government policies and a gradual stream of producing scrap.
When the Biden administration tried to onshore clear power manufacturing, U.S. battery recyclers introduced main growth plans, propelled by authorities financing and different incentives. Underneath former president Joe Biden, the U.S. Division of Power, or DOE, launched research and development initiatives to help battery recycling and awarded lots of of thousands and thousands of {dollars} in funding to companies in search of to develop operations. The DOE’s Mortgage Program’s Workplace additionally offered to lend practically $2.5 billion to 2 battery recycling firms.
The trade additionally benefited from tax credit established or enhanced by the 2022 Inflation Discount Act, the centerpiece of Biden’s local weather agenda. Specifically, the 45X advanced manufacturing production credit subsidizes home manufacturing of important minerals, together with these produced from recycled supplies. For battery recyclers, the motivation “has a direct bottom-line affect,” in accordance with Roger Lin, VP of presidency affairs at Ascend Parts.
The DOE didn’t reply to Grist’s request for touch upon the standing of Biden-era grants and loans for battery recycling. However recyclers report that not less than some federal help is continuous beneath Trump.
In 2022, Ascend Parts was awarded a $316 million DOE grant to assist it assemble a second battery recycling plant in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. That grant, which is able to go towards constructing capability to make battery cathode precursor supplies from recycled metals, “remains to be energetic and nonetheless being executed on,” Lin informed Grist, with minimal affect from the change in administration. Ascend Parts expects the plant to return on-line in late 2026.
American Battery Know-how Firm, a Reno, Nevada-based battery supplies agency, informed the same story. In December, the corporate finalized a $144 million DOE contract to help the development of its second battery recycling facility, which is able to extract and refine battery-grade metals from manufacturing scrap and end-of-life batteries. That grant stays energetic with “no modifications” since Trump’s inauguration, CEO Ryan Melsert informed Grist.
One more battery recycler, Cirba Options, just lately realized {that a} $200 million DOE grant to assist it assemble a brand new battery recycling plant in Columbia, South Carolina, is transferring ahead. At full capability, this facility is predicted to provide sufficient battery-grade metals to produce half 1,000,000 EVs a yr. Cirba Options can be nonetheless spending funds from two earlier DOE grants, together with a $75 million grant to develop a battery processing plant in Lancaster, Ohio.
“I feel that we aligned very a lot to the priorities of the administration,” Danielle Spalding, VP of communications and public affairs at Cirba Options, informed Grist.
These priorities embrace establishing the U.S. as “the main producer and processor of non-fuel minerals,” and taking steps to “facilitate home mineral manufacturing to the utmost attainable extent,” in accordance with executive orders signed by Trump in January and March. As a result of important minerals are utilized in many high-tech gadgets, together with navy weapons, the Trump administration seems to consider America’s nationwide safety is dependent upon controlling their provide chains. As battery recyclers had been quick to note following Trump’s inauguration, their trade might help.
“Vital minerals are central to making a resilient power financial system within the U.S., and useful resource restoration and recycling firms will proceed to play an necessary function in offering one other home supply of those supplies,” Ajay Kochhar, CEO of the battery recycling agency Li-Cycle, wrote in a blog post reacting to one in every of Trump’s government orders on power.
Li-Cycle, which closed a $475 million loan with the DOE’s Mortgage Packages Workplace in November however is now facing possible bankruptcy, didn’t reply to Grist’s request for remark.
Whereas Biden’s method to onshoring important mineral manufacturing was rooted in varied monetary incentives, Trump has pursued the identical purpose utilizing tariffs — and by attempting to fast-track new mines. Though economists have criticized Trump’s indiscriminate and unpredictable utility of tariffs, some battery recyclers are cautiously optimistic they’ll profit from elevated commerce restrictions. Specifically, recyclers see the escalating commerce battle with China — together with recent limits on exports of varied important minerals to the U.S. — as additional proof that new home sources of those sources are wanted. (China is the world’s main producer of most key battery metals.)
“There’s a probability that limiting the quantity that’s being imported from China … might actually strengthen” mineral manufacturing in different areas, together with the U.S., Browning mentioned.
Commerce restrictions between the U.S. and key companions exterior of China may very well be extra dangerous. At present, Browning says, U.S. recyclers usually promote the black mass they produce to refiners in South Korea, which don’t produce sufficient domestically to fulfill their processing capability and are paying a premium to safe materials from overseas. Trump imposed 25 % tariffs on Korean imports in April, earlier than inserting them on a 90-day pause. If South Korea had been to implement retaliatory tariffs in response, it might reduce off a key income stream for the U.S. trade. Nevertheless, recycling firms Grist spoke famous that there are presently no export bans or tariffs affecting their black mass, and emphasised their plans to construct up native refining capability.
“The brief reply is that we see the tariffs as a chance to concentrate on home manufacturing,” Spalding of Cirba Options mentioned.
Whereas battery recyclers appear to align with Trump on important minerals coverage, and to some extent on commerce, their pursuits diverge in terms of power coverage. With out a clear power manufacturing growth within the U.S., there can be far much less want for battery recycling.
At present, practically 40 % of the fabric out there to battery recyclers within the U.S. is manufacturing scrap from battery gigafactories, in accordance with information from Benchmark. One other 15 % consists of used EV batteries which have reached the top of their lives or been recalled, whereas grid storage and micromobility batteries (akin to e-bike batteries) account for 14 %. The remaining third of the fabric out there for processing is moveable batteries, like these in client electronics.
Sooner or later, as extra EVs attain the top of their lives, a good better fraction of battery scrap will come from the clear power sector. If a lot of deliberate battery and EV manufacturing amenities are canceled within the coming years — as a consequence of a repeal of Inflation Discount Act tax incentives, a lack of federal funding, rising mission prices, or maybe all three — the recycling trade could must reduce its ambitions, too.
The price range invoice that passed the House in Might would undo various key Inflation Discount Act provisions. Some clear power tax credit, like the patron EV tax credit score, can be eradicated on the finish of this yr. The laws was kinder to the 45X manufacturing credit score, scheduling it to finish in 2031 fairly than the present phase-out date of 2032. However the invoice might face significant changes within the Senate earlier than heading to Trump’s desk, probably by July 4.
Regardless of uncertainty over the destiny of IRA tax credit, Trump’s actions have already put a damper on U.S. manufacturing: Since January, companies have deserted or delayed plans for $14 billion worth of U.S. clear power initiatives, in accordance with the clear tech advocacy group E2.
Whereas the battery recyclers Grist spoke with are placing on a courageous face beneath Trump’s second time period, some are additionally trying to hedge their bets. As Ascend Parts ramps up lithium manufacturing in Georgia, it has lined up not less than one purchaser exterior the battery provide chain. The battery trade accounts for nearly 90 percent of lithium demand globally, however the steel can be utilized in varied industrial functions, together with ceramics and glass making.
Integrating into the EV battery provide chain stays “the last word purpose,” Lin informed Grist. “However we’re taking a look at different plans to make sure … the financial viability of the operation continues.”
This text initially appeared in Grist at https://grist.org/technology/trump-battery-recycling-lithium-grants-funding-tariffs-ira-tax-credits/. Grist is a nonprofit, unbiased media group devoted to telling tales of local weather options and a simply future. Be taught extra at Grist.org.
