Is This a Mine That Tesla CEO Elon Musk and US President Joe Biden Can Both Support?
The future of U.S.-made electric-vehicle batteries might be found in a modest white shed in Tamarack, Minnesota, population 104. Beneath bright fluorescent lights, foot-long cylindrical pieces of rock are laid out in cardboard boxes, where they sparkle with grains found in the millions of pounds of nickel that Tesla Inc. committed to buy on Jan. 11. That commitment has the potential to turn into a savvy buy for the electric carmaker.
Brian Goldner, chief exploration officer for Talon Metals Corp., an exploration and mining company, lifts one of the rock cylinders recently drilled from hundreds of feet below the Earth's surface and tilts it so that the nickel catches the light. “Over nine percent,” he says of the unusually high metal content. “It's crazy.”
In 2020, Tesla's Elon Musk begged miners to “please mine more nickel” and offered a “giant contract” to anyone who could do it sustainably. The problem is acute. Nickel is a key component of electric-vehicle batteries. Thanks to surging EV demand, geopolitics and a lack of new supplies, the high-grade nickel necessary for making electric-vehicle batteries is becoming scarce.
According to Goldman Sachs, the world faced a high-grade nickel deficit in 2021 that will widen in 2022, and quadruple to over 800,000 tons by 2030. That shortage is having an impact: In March, Tesla raised prices on vehicles with nickel-based batteries by $1,000 to account for surging raw material costs.
Recycling and waste reclamation are important means of obtaining some of it. But if the world is truly committed to achieving a net zero carbon future, new mining must play the key role over the next decade. Tesla's commitment to Talon is, in part, a bet that Talon can do it.
If it's successful, the
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