Recycled batteries contain critical minerals

Critical minerals underpin our country’s transition to energy dominance. These minerals are found in everything from battery storage to geothermal technology, nuclear energy, transportation, and more.

Without critical minerals we cannot produce batteries, and without batteries we cannot power the devices we use every day in business and at home. Our reliance on batteries is only expected to increase. According to the International Energy Agency, global battery manufacturing capacity reached 3 terawatt-hours in 2024. The agency predicts that we could see another tripling of production in the next five years.

For the United States to be a legitimate contender in this sector, we need to increase our access to critical minerals. This means diversifying our supply chains and becoming leading producers of these metals. To do this, we need to understand where and how our nation sources these materials. We also need to share the benefits of battery recycling as a primary source of these materials with a broader audience.

Opening new U.S. mines is challenging

The key metals that go into making rechargeable batteries are found in electronics, data energy storage systems, vehicles, tablets, and smartphones. Lithium, cobalt, nickel, and manganese are the primary materials found in rechargeable batteries.

In the U.S., there is one active mine for lithium and one for nickel. There are no U.S. mines for cobalt and manganese, despite recent efforts to open a cobalt mine.

Opening a new U.S. mine requires three key elements: financing that demonstrates a positive return, a high-quality resource with sufficient size and quality, and community support. Some projects have suspended operations due to failures in one or more of these areas.

As a result, the U.S. relies heavily on lithium imports from mineral-rich countries like Australia, Chile, and China. The Democratic Republic of Congo leads in global cobalt production, with Australia, Brazil, and Indonesia possessing some of the largest nickel reserves.

Cobalt can be very hard to find, and big deposits are rare. The Salmon River Mountains in Idaho have one of the only known deposits in the country. Lithium and nickel can be found across the country, and there are exploratory plans underway to open other mines but that is a long-term solution for establishing domestic supply chains

Battery recycling can provide critical minerals

In the short-term, the U.S. can turn to battery recycling to capture and refine a diverse range of critical minerals. Although the battery recycling sector has been around for decades, it has been under used as a compliment to mining and a strategic way to diversify and strengthen our domestic supply chains. Critical minerals must be mined and purified to create the electronic devices we use today so why not reuse these minerals over and over again.

The Energy Department reported in 2023 that the United States had battery recycling facilities capable of reclaiming more than 35,000 tons of battery materials – and that number is growing. With the current U.S. capacity to process and refine end-of-life batteries and manufacturing scrap into battery-grade materials to manufacture new batteries, we are already well positioned to increase our domestic supplies and keep the materials we already have within our borders.

Battery recycling offers the U.S. an immediate opportunity to enhance its national security by strengthening our domestic supply chains. When we aren’t sourcing materials from foreign entities, we are less vulnerable to global disruptions. In the long-term, through battery recycling, we can increase our global competitiveness in the critical minerals industry by creating a closed-loop supply chain of these materials.

The topic of critical minerals impacts a vast range of industries and is too important to not take immediate action. Battery recycling is a key component to securing our nation’s critical mineral independence and becoming a dominant player in onshoring critical mineral production and manufacturing.

David Klanecky is CEO and President of Cirba Solutions