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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Cobalt mining excavations return amid electric vehicle push. They’re coming to Idaho

By Ian Max Stevenson and Kevin Fixler Idaho Statesman

Deep in the Salmon River Mountains, an Australian company is opening what the company says is the first new cobalt mine in the U.S. in decades, ushering in a potential new era of mineral excavation in Idaho.

With billions of federal dollars aimed at curbing climate change, a large deposit of cobalt in Central Idaho has garnered the interest of several mining companies. Federal officials are pushing to shore up its cobalt supply for battery technology.

On Friday, Jervois Global, a company headquartered in Victoria, Australia, will “formally start operations” at its new mine, which is about a two-hour drive from the city of Salmon. The mine sits along what’s known as the Idaho Cobalt Belt, a stretch of ore located in the Salmon River Mountains.

On its website, Jervois said that it hopes to become “the leading global supplier of responsibly sourced cobalt and nickel” for the battery and chemicals markets.

Gov. Brad Little is scheduled to join company executives at the opening ceremony, as will Dr. Geri Richmond, the U.S. Department of Energy’s under secretary for science and innovation, and Arthur Sinodinos, Australian ambassador to the U.S., according to a company news release.

Cobalt is a critical element used in electric car batteries, which President Joe Biden’s administration has stressed automakers and consumers need to rapidly transition toward if the U.S. is to meet its carbon emission reduction targets. By 2030, Biden has set a goal of cutting U.S. vehicle emissions by at least half of what they were in 2005.

In Idaho, more than half of the state’s carbon emissions come from transportation, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Worldwide emissions are responsible for changes to the Earth’s temperature, oceans and atmosphere that are worsening extreme weather and threatening ecosystems around the world.

China controls much of the world’s supply of minerals needed to produce electric vehicles, which has raised national security concerns in the U.S., as well as economic opportunities.

“I think it’s very critical that we mine not only cobalt in Idaho, and in America, but the other precious and critical minerals,” U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, told the Idaho Statesman in an interview this week. “China, for example, is starting to dominate a lot of these critical minerals that are needed for our economy, and we need to be sure that Idaho is in that game.”

China refines 80% of the world’s cobalt, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. About half of the world’s known supply of the element sits in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with most of the Central African nation’s largest industrial mines owned or financed by Chinese interests.

“Cobalt is also crucially important to U.S. national security, being used in a variety of defense and aerospace applications,” the Jervois release said. “Most of the metal’s mining and processing currently takes place outside the U.S. and is heavily controlled by China.”

U.S. investment in domestic deposits

Private companies have invested billions of dollars in manufacturing electric vehicles, batteries and chargers in the U.S. in recent years, with the pace of investment tripling since 2020, according to a White House fact sheet.

Billions of federal dollars also are pledged toward providing U.S. manufacturers with minerals and other critical supplies needed to make batteries, the White House fact sheet said. The administration has set another goal of making electric vehicles half of all vehicles sold in the U.S. by 2030.

In May, the Department of Energy announced the availability of $3.16 billion in grant funds from last year’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to help speed up the production of EV batteries in the U.S. None of those dollars have been awarded yet, and grant applications are currently under review, a Department of Energy spokesperson told the Statesman by email. A Jervois spokesperson did not respond to a Statesman request about whether the company has applied.

“Positioning the United States front and center in meeting the growing demand for advanced batteries is how we boost our competitiveness and electrify our transportation system,” U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said in a news release. The federal infrastructure dollars “will give our domestic supply chain the jolt it needs to become more secure and less reliant on other nations — strengthening our clean energy economy, creating good paying jobs and decarbonizing the transportation sector.”

In addition, the Inflation Reduction Act, which became law in August, includes tax credits for Americans who buy electric vehicles. The law requires that some materials must be sourced in the U.S. or from a trade partner.

Other than Jervois, Electra Battery Materials/Idaho Cobalt Corporation and Codaho LLC/Koba Resources are exploring cobalt mining in the Salmon-Challis National Forest, Amy Baumer, a U.S. Forest Service spokesperson, told the Statesman by email.

An inactive underground and open-pit mine, the Blackbird Mine, is nearby within Lemhi County. It is now an EPA superfund site, designating it for long-term cleanup based on the potential for contaminated runoff to enter area water bodies during high flows.