{"id":22891,"date":"2023-05-08T21:53:34","date_gmt":"2023-05-08T21:53:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/107237760"},"modified":"2023-05-08T21:53:34","modified_gmt":"2023-05-08T21:53:34","slug":"elon-musk-and-texas-gov-greg-abbott-break-ground-on-tesla-lithium-refinery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/elon-musk-and-texas-gov-greg-abbott-break-ground-on-tesla-lithium-refinery\/","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott break ground on Tesla lithium refinery"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"HighlightShare-hidden\"><\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"InlineImage-imageEmbed\" id=\"ArticleBody-InlineImage-107171525\" data-test=\"InlineImage\">\n<div class=\"InlineImage-wrapper\" readability=\"6\">\n<div readability=\"7\">\n<p>Win Mcnamee | Getty Images News | Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"group\" readability=\"36.723783413297\">\n<p><span class=\"QuoteInBody-quoteNameContainer\" data-test=\"QuoteInBody\" id=\"RegularArticle-QuoteInBody-1\"><span class=\"waslinkname\">Tesla<\/span><span class=\"QuoteInBody-inlineButton\"><span class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-watchlistContainer\" id=\"-WatchlistDropdown\" data-analytics-id=\"-WatchlistDropdown\"><button class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-watchlistButton\"><span class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-addWatchListFromTag\"><\/span><\/button><\/span><\/span><\/span> CEO Elon Musk joined Texas Governor Greg Abbott to break ground at the site of the electric vehicle maker&#8217;s new lithium refinery in Corpus Christi on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Tesla plans to invest $375 million to build the facility on the Gulf coast that will help it secure a domestic supply of lithium hydroxide, a key ingredient used to make batteries for its electric vehicles, and its home- and utility-scale batteries.<\/p>\n<p>Musk said that Tesla is aiming to produce enough battery-grade lithium at the refinery to manufacture one million vehicles per year, and to produce more lithium than the rest of North America&#8217;s refining capacity combined there.<\/p>\n<p>Mining company Albemarle announced plans to invest $1.3 billion in a new <span class=\"waslinkname\">lithium processing<\/span> facility in South Carolina in March.<\/p>\n<p>According to filings with the <span class=\"waslinkname\">Texas Comptroller&#8217;s office<\/span>, Tesla specifically plans to construct a &#8220;battery-grade lithium hydroxide refining facility,&#8221; and other &#8220;facilities to support other types of battery materials processing, refining and manufacturing and ancillary manufacturing operations in support of Tesla&#8217;s sustainable product line.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The company promised in its filings that &#8220;the process Tesla will use is innovative and designed to consume less hazardous reagents and create usable byproducts compared to the conventional process.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>On Monday, Musk claimed, &#8220;There&#8217;s no toxic emissions or anything &#8212; you could live right in the middle of the refinery and not suffer any ill effects.&#8221; <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div role=\"region\" aria-labelledby=\"Placeholder-ArticleBody-Video-107233634\">\n<div role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" id=\"Placeholder-ArticleBody-Video-107233634\" class=\"PlaceHolder-wrapper\" data-vilynx-id=\"7000297827\" data-test=\"VideoPlaceHolder\">\n<div class=\"InlineVideo-videoEmbed\" id=\"InlineVideo-0\" data-test=\"InlineVideo\">\n<div class=\"InlineVideo-wrapper\" readability=\"5.4683544303797\">\n<div class=\"InlineVideo-inlineThumbnailContainer\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"InlineVideo-videoThumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/elon-musk-and-texas-gov-greg-abbott-break-ground-on-tesla-lithium-refinery.jpg\" alt=\"How Chile is shaping the global lithium industry\"><span class=\"InlineVideo-videoButton\"><\/span><span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"group\" readability=\"38.275426874536\">\n<p>Tesla&#8217;s battery raw material and recycling leader, Turner Caldwell, said at the event that the company would find &#8220;beneficial use opportunities&#8221; for the byproduct of its lithium, which they expect to be mostly sand and limestone.<\/p>\n<p>Typically, refining ore into battery-grade lithium requires an industrial process that includes crushing raw material, heating it at a high temperature, and mixing it in a slurry with acids. One of the acids used in lithium processing typically is hydrochloric acid, which is a hazardous air pollutant under the U.S. <span class=\"waslinkname\">Clean Air Act<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>Caldwell and Musk did not disclose the specific chemistry the company would rely upon for processing.<\/p>\n<p>Last year in April, <span class=\"waslinkname\">Musk said Tesla may need to get into lithium refining<\/span>&nbsp;because the cost of the metal had &#8220;gone to insane levels.&#8221; Lithium prices have significantly declined since he made those remarks.<\/p>\n<p>However, <span class=\"waslinkname\">China still controls more than half of the world&#8217;s lithium processing and refining<\/span> capacity while the U.S. has recently controlled just 1%. Musk said the availability of battery-grade lithium was a &#8220;fundamental chokepoint&#8221; for the electric vehicle industry and others.<\/p>\n<p>Governor Abbott, a Republican, praised Elon Musk as the greatest entrepreneur on Earth.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Texas wants to be able to be self-reliant, not dependent upon any foreign hostile nation for what we need,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Win Mcnamee | Getty Images News | Getty Images Tesla CEO Elon Musk joined Texas Governor Greg Abbott to break ground at the site of the electric vehicle maker&#8217;s new lithium refinery in Corpus Christi on Monday. Tesla plans to invest $375 million to build the facility on the Gulf coast that will help it &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22892,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"hashtags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22891"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22891"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=22891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}