The Lithium Dilemma at Rhyolite Ridge, Part 2

Summary

Boiling Point: The Lithium Dilemma at Rhyolite Ridge, Part 2

Host: Sammy Roth
Guest: Bernard Roe, Managing Director at Ioneer
Release Date: June 19, 2025

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Introduction

In the second part of the two-part series on Rhyolite Ridge, Sammy Roth delves deeper into the complexities surrounding the proposed lithium and boron mine in Esmeralda County, Nevada. This episode features an in-depth conversation with Bernard Roe, the managing director of Ioneer, the company spearheading the Rhyolite Ridge project. The discussion navigates the intertwined challenges of advancing clean energy initiatives while preserving endangered species.

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Rhyolite Ridge Project Overview

Bilateral Benefits of Lithium and Boron

Bernard Roe highlights the dual significance of Rhyolite Ridge as both a lithium and boron mine. While lithium is pivotal for electric vehicle batteries and energy storage systems, boron plays a crucial role in everyday products like borosilicate glass, detergents, and agricultural fertilizers.

Bernard Roe (02:09): "There are two main reasons the Rhyolite Ridge mine has been in the news. The first is lithium... The other reason Rhyolite Ridge has been in the news is the endangered wildflower."

Lithium’s Geological Abundance in Nevada

Sammy Roth explores the geological factors that make Nevada a hotspot for lithium deposits, emphasizing the combination of volcanic activity and faulting that concentrated lithium in shallow, evaporating lake beds millions of years ago.

Sammy Roth (10:18): "You had a lot of volcanic activity... the process of weathering and erosion... ended up in these shallow lake beds, which evaporated a lot."

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Environmental Concerns: The Teams Buckwheat

Endangered Wildflower vs. Mining Operations

The central environmental concern is the potential extinction of the endangered wildflower, Teams Buckwheat, due to mining activities. Bernard Roe disputes the conservationists' claims, arguing that Rhyolite Ridge's operations can coexist with the preservation of the wildflower.

Bernard Roe (02:15): "Conservationists say the mine would drive the wildflower to extinction."

Scientific Research and Mitigation Efforts

Roe underscores the extensive research and mitigation measures Ioneer has undertaken to protect Teams Buckwheat. This includes growing the plant in controlled environments and replanting in areas affected by mining.

Bernard Roe (04:15): "We're going to build up a seed bank and then... grow plants that ultimately could be transplanted back into sites like this."

Despite Roe's confidence, the podcast recounts an attempted search for Teams Buckwheat on the mining site, which proved unsuccessful, highlighting the ongoing tension between development and conservation.

Sammy Roth (06:07): "This is a perfect spot for them... They’re proving to be elusive today."

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Mining Process and Economic Viability

Hard Rock Mining Techniques

Ioneer's approach involves hard rock mining using explosives to break down sodium borosilicate rocks rich in lithium and boron. The leaching process with sulfuric acid extracts these minerals, leaving behind insoluble silica.

Sammy Roth (13:09): "We need to drill and blast to break up the rock."

Economic Potential and Market Dynamics

Roe discusses the economic prospects of Rhyolite Ridge, projecting an annual production of 20-22,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate and 150,000 tonnes of boric acid, significantly surpassing current U.S. production levels.

Sammy Roth (07:17): "We would produce about 20 to 22,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate a year and around about 150,000 tonnes of boric acid a year."

The interplay between lithium and boron enhances the project's attractiveness, given boron's stable market demand juxtaposed with lithium's volatile pricing influenced by the burgeoning electric vehicle market.

Sammy Roth (33:22): "We see very volatile pricing regime around lithium and we expect that to continue for the foreseeable future."

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Funding Challenges and Strategic Responses

Loss of Private Equity Partner

Ioneer faced a setback when their private equity partner, Sibanier Stillwater, withdrew a promised $500 million investment due to unfavorable platinum and palladium market conditions.

Sammy Roth (36:13): "They were approximately 15 billion market cap company when we struck that deal... Today they're around 2 and a half to 3 billion."

Securing Alternative Funding

In response, Ioneer is actively seeking new partners while leveraging a secured $1 billion loan from the U.S. Department of Energy. The company plans to maintain majority ownership and operational control through a joint venture structure.

Sammy Roth (31:02): "We will sell down a stake in the project... but we will maintain the majority ownership and the operatorship management of the project."

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Navigating Legal and Environmental Opposition

Lawsuits and Regulatory Hurdles

Environmental groups, including the Western Shoshone Defense Project, have initiated lawsuits aiming to revoke Ioneer's federal permits, challenging the project's environmental impact assessments.

Sammy Roth (38:14): "It's part of developing a mining project in this part of the world."

Despite these legal challenges, Roe expresses confidence in the project's compliance with environmental regulations and the robustness of its conservation measures.

Sammy Roth (38:41): "We're not concerned about it. We feel that we're in a good, strong position."

Addressing Activism and Scientific Scrutiny

Roe emphasizes the importance of data-driven approaches to resolve conflicts between mining and conservation, advocating for scientific assessments over assumptions.

Sammy Roth (40:26): "We've put the effort into... listening and understanding the concerns, being prepared to sit down and come up with solutions."

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Future Outlook and Conclusion

Optimistic Projections

Ioneer remains hopeful to commence construction within the year, contingent upon securing new equity partners and navigating ongoing legal challenges. The anticipated announcement of an expanded mineral reserve is poised to bolster investor confidence.

Sammy Roth (42:09): "I'm hoping so, yes."

Balancing Clean Energy and Environmental Stewardship

The episode concludes with a reflection on the broader implications of lithium mining for clean energy. Roe advocates for the possibility of harmonious development that supports climate goals while safeguarding biodiversity through meticulous planning and proactive conservation efforts.

Bernard Roe (25:32): "I think it's probably pretty rare where you actually face a situation where you have to choose one or the other, you can't have coexistence."

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Key Takeaways:

1. Rhyolite Ridge's Dual Importance: Serves as a significant source for both lithium and boron, essential for clean energy and various industrial applications.
2. Environmental Stewardship: Ioneer's commitment to preserving Teams Buckwheat through scientific research and proactive mitigation strategies.
3. Economic Viability Amid Challenges: Overcoming financial setbacks and legal opposition to realize the project's potential.
4. Navigating Clean Energy and Conservation: Demonstrates a model where renewable energy initiatives and environmental preservation can coexist through data-driven solutions and collaborative efforts.

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For listeners interested in the intricate balance between advancing renewable energy infrastructure and environmental conservation, this episode of Boiling Point offers a comprehensive exploration of the challenges and potential solutions at Rhyolite Ridge.

Transcript

[Sami Roth]

This is an LA Times Studios podcast.

[Bernard Roe]

My name is Sami Roth and I'm the climate columnist for the Los Angeles Times. This is a special edition of Boiling Point.

[Sami Roth]

Oh, this truck is one of these that beeps every time you do anything, including open the door.

[Bernard Roe]

That was Bernard Rowe, managing director at the Australian mining company Ioneer.

[Denise Callahan]

We're your best.

[Sami Roth]

I split my time between Australia, Sydney and Reno.

[Bernard Roe]

Similar to our guest on last week's podcast, the scientist Naomi Fraga Roe took a circuitous path to Esmeralda County, Nevada, one of the least densely populated places in the United States.

[Sami Roth]

Planning on being a farmer when I was a young kid. But I went to university. It was only there that I really enjoyed hearing the stories of the geology lecturers. And I thought, right, I'm going to study that.

[Denise Callahan]

Good for you.

[Sami Roth]

I did not go to university to go into mining like Fraga.

[Bernard Roe]

Ro has spent a lot of time here. Also like Fraga, he was eager to show me around.

[Denise Callahan]

What's this over here?

[Sami Roth]

Okay, so this is appropriately named the White Hill.

[Denise Callahan]

Okay.

[Bernard Roe]

You might remember the White Hill from last week's episode. If it weren't for the soil around here, Rome might have gone back to Australia by now.

[Sami Roth]

This White hill, okay, even though people looked at it and said, oh, it must be clay because it's white and it's very fine and we can't see the minerals. No, the rock actually has no clay in it, or almost no clay. It's made up of this sodium borosilicate mineral and that's what changed everything.

[Bernard Roe]

It's chock full of two very valuable metals, lithium and boron. And if it weren't for an endangered wildflower growing from the soil, Rose Co. Might have built its mine already.

[Sami Roth]

And it's fenced off because of the thiem's buckwheat.

[Denise Callahan]

Okay, yes. The team's buckwheat was buckle.

[Sami Roth]

Yeah. And I'll show you some of it.

[Bernard Roe]

There are two main reasons the Rhyolite Ridge mine has been in the news. The first is lithium. It's one of the most important metals for the clean energy transition. We need it for lithium ion batteries to power electric vehicles and for energy storage systems to keep the lights on after dark. With solar power. Without lithium, we'll be stuck burning, climate wrecking and air polluting fossil fuels. The other reason Rhyolite Ridge has been in the news is the endangered wildflower. It's called teams buckwheat and it only exists right here in Esmeralda County, Nevada, where Roe's Company wants to build its mine. Conservationists say the mine would drive the wildflower to extinction. That was the focus of last week's podcast. Roe says the conservationists are wrong on the science and he's going to tell me why. But first he wants to talk about boron, because for all the attention that lithium gets, Roe is eager for people to know that this would be a boron mine too. And boron is an all sorts of products that we use in everyday life, which I'll admit, I had no idea.

[Sami Roth]

Glass is the big use of borosilicate glass. Now, that could be the glass in a car windscreen, the glass on your iPhone, gorilla glass, the glass on TV screens, the glass on an induction cooktop, you know, the glass in an oven, the glass in a Pyrex dish that goes into the oven. Any glass that needs to be strong and heat resistant has got boron in it.

[Bernard Roe]

As Roe showed me around the future Rhyolite Ridge mining site, he told me about the science he says his company has funded to ensure the safety of Teams Buckwheat. He said there's no reason the wildflower and the mine can't coexist. He told me about the company's work to grow Teams Buckwheat away from the mine site and then replant the flower here in areas where soil has been removed from the mining pit and deposits.

[Sami Roth]

So we would build up a seed bank and then secondly we would grow plants that ultimately could be transplanted back into sites like this.

[Denise Callahan]

The University of Nevada, Reno is doing that right with you, or are you doing that on your own?

[Sami Roth]

We're doing that on our own in collaboration with the Fish and Wildlife Service.

[Bernard Roe]

Roe strongly disagrees with conservationists who say the flower grows well only in boron rich soil and that mining will decimate its ability to survive. As again and again, Roe told me that Teams Buckwheat likes to grow in soils that have been disturbed. If anything, Roe says mining might be good for Teams Buckwheat in the long term.

[Sami Roth]

They don't like competition from other plants and hence they do very well in disturbed areas where they've got no competition and they tend to colonise those disturbed areas. Roads, old mine dumps.

[Bernard Roe]

I asked Ro about what Fraga the botanist, told me that the endangered flowers thrive on boron rich soil, not human disturbance.

[Sami Roth]

I totally disagree and there's a lot of scientific data to counter that. Now, if you just simply go and sample all the buckwheat populations, the soil around them, which we've done Some of the soils are very high in boron, like this one. And some of the soils are very low in boron, so it's got nothing to do with boron.

[Bernard Roe]

To prove his point, Ro showed me around an area with white mineral rich soil and no buckwheat. But then he took me to another area, somewhere that had been badly disturbed, where he assured me we'd find some wildflowers.

[Sami Roth]

Like, here's a good spot to find one. No, that's not one. Not that dog.

[Denise Callahan]

Nope, false alarm.

[Sami Roth]

There will be some here. This is perfect spot for them.

[Denise Callahan]

Okay, I'm gonna watch my step.

[Bernard Roe]

But we walked around searching for a while.

[Denise Callahan]

Come out, come out.

[Sami Roth]

They're proving to be elusive today.

[Bernard Roe]

And we came up empty. No team's Buckwheat.

[Sami Roth]

I'm a bit surprised that don't even see not one. Oh, let's go to another one.

[Denise Callahan]

Go somewhere else.

[Sami Roth]

Yeah.

[Denise Callahan]

Aye.

[Bernard Roe]

Ioneer hopes to start construction of its mine later this year, assuming it can get its financing lined up and assuming it isn't blocked by a lawsuit from environmental groups challenging its federal permit. If the company does move forward, Rhyolite Ridge would be one of America's two largest lithium mines, along with Thacker Pass, which is under construction in northern Nevada.

[Denise Callahan]

So this would be the mine right here.

[Sami Roth]

I mean, it's a spectacular painting itself, huh?

[Denise Callahan]

Yes, it is.

[Sami Roth]

And so firstly, White Mountains.

[Denise Callahan]

Not too spectacular, though. You wouldn't want to put a mine here, right?

[Bernard Roe]

As Roe and I looked out at the planned location of the mining pit, he talked about just how much lithium.

[Denise Callahan]

This project could produce.

[Sami Roth]

We would produce about 20 to 22,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate a year and around about 150,000 tonnes of boric acid a year. The US produces about 5,000 tonnes per.

[Denise Callahan]

Year, which is all at that Silver Peak mine somewhere over the mountains, which.

[Sami Roth]

Is just over this range here.

[Denise Callahan]

It's the only one, it's the only.

[Sami Roth]

One in the United states. It's about 5,000. They're increasing it a little bit, but.

[Denise Callahan]

It'S a small mine, 5,000 tons of lithium a year, and you're going to.

[Sami Roth]

Produce at the beginning about 20 to 22. So we will quadruple that production.

[Bernard Roe]

I wasn't sure how I felt about teams Buckwheat and the conflict between conservation and clean energy playing out at Rhyolite Ridge. But the idea that my first electric car could be powered by this place, that was pretty hard to wrap my head around. Right now, the world mostly runs on fossil fuels, oil, gas and coal. Are making the planet increasingly unlivable through worsening heat waves, wildfires, droughts and other weather disasters. Weather fossil fuels are also killing millions of people every year through regular old air pollution. They're drilled and extracted in ways that are terrible for plants and wildlife. I'm not here to tell you if.

[Denise Callahan]

Rhyolite Ridge is the way forward, but.

[Bernard Roe]

We'Ve got to have a conversation about it. So here's some more of my discussion with Roe.

[Denise Callahan]

Bernard, thank you very much for being with us on the Boiling Point podcast.

[Sami Roth]

Thanks, Sami. Great to be here.

[Denise Callahan]

So we've been running all over your site today and I've learned a lot. It sounds like you've been in Nevada for a long time or going back and forth between Sydney and Nevada. How'd you first come out here? Back in 2003?

[Sami Roth]

So I was with a couple of other geologists. We started a small private company to do early stage exploration and ironically, Rio Tinto gave us some funding.

[Denise Callahan]

One of the biggest global mining companies, right?

[Sami Roth]

Yes, exactly, that's right. Ironically, they gave us some funding to go and look for new gold and copper deposits in this part of the world. So that's what brought us here in the beginning.

[Denise Callahan]

And ironic, because they're one of your competitors now.

[Sami Roth]

Well, that's right. They're one of the second largest boron producer in the world. And yeah. So there is a fair bit of irony and serendipity that they funded us in the. In the beginning to come here in 2003. Yes.

[Denise Callahan]

Right. And so you say they're one of the biggest boron producers and people, I think, to the extent they've heard about Rhyolite Ridge, they know it's a lithium project. But you've been telling me all day today, boron is a big deal too. Let's do this one at a time. So lithium used in electric vehicle batteries, used in batteries to store solar power. Why is there so much lithium here in this part of Nevada? What makes this such a good spot? Why is there so much attention being focused on getting lithium out of Nevada relative to, I don't know, anywhere else in the world?

[Sami Roth]

Yeah, like all mineral deposits, there's a geological reason why they are where they are and what sort of characteristics they have. So you've got a combination of, you know, young, relatively young geological rocks in geological time frame scale. You've got, there was a lot of volcanic activity, there was a lot of faulting going on and that sort of earthquake faults. Earthquake faults, yes. You had a lot of lakes formed by that faulting, because the, the faults either lift up or drop down the rocks often, and that can form a lake or a mountain. It was forming lakes. You had these lakes full of water. You had volcanic activity happening. The volcanic rocks and the hot solutions that were sort of circulating beneath the Earth's surface had lithium in them. Okay. And not in very high concentrations, but there's lithium in those rocks. And there was lithium in that volcanic activity. And that sort of introduced the lithium into the environment. And then through the process of various processes of weathering and erosion and other things, that lithium ended up in these shallow lake beds, which evaporated a lot because it was also like it is today, hot and dry. And so there was a lot of evaporation. And so you had this concentration of. Of lithium in these shallow lake beds about 6, 7 million years ago.

[Bernard Roe]

Right.

[Denise Callahan]

Which, the way you describe it, six, seven million years ago. That's not very long in geologic time.

[Sami Roth]

No, it's not. Once we start talking hundreds of millions of years or even billions of years, then they're old rocks for us. Something that's 5 or 6 or 7 million years old is a blink of the eye in geological time.

[Denise Callahan]

So this lithium you're describing, this geologic activity, this volcanic activity, this faulting these lakes, this is why the only lithium mine in the US today, Silver Lake, which was just over the hills that we were exploring. That's why that's here, right?

[Sami Roth]

Yes, they are all related. They're different kinds of deposits that you get, but ultimately they are all related. And that, that lithium mine, Silver Peak Mine.

[Denise Callahan]

Oh, Silver Peak. Excuse me.

[Sami Roth]

Silver Peak. It was actually, I think, started in the mid-60s. And not only is it the only lithium mine in the United. It was actually one of the first lithium brine operations in the world, where they were extracting the lithium from salty water pumped from like a salt lake or a salar, as they call them.

[Denise Callahan]

So they're going to be very different from you as you've explained it. And I want you to talk about this a little bit, because they've got these big ponds where they just let the water evaporate and it leaves. They pump out the water, the briny water, the water evaporates from the pond, that leaves the lithium left over in sort of those salt beds. That is not what you're doing at all. You're doing hard rock mining with sort of a twist. Explain what your process looks like.

[Sami Roth]

Yeah, so you're right. We're doing hard rock mining. These are like layered sedimentary rocks, but they are Hard rock. So we have to drill and blast to break up the rock.

[Denise Callahan]

Do you use dynamite for that?

[Sami Roth]

An explosive? Not dynamite. We use something else called anfo, but it's an explosive. And so, yes, we need that because the rocks, particularly the rocks that are very high in boron, are actually quite solid, competent rocks.

[Denise Callahan]

Hard rocks, you were showing me that earlier. They're not that easy to break.

[Sami Roth]

No, no. And so like a pure lithium clay, which. There are also lithium clay deposits in Nevada. You know, you can rip them up without using explosives. But if you put boron in that rock, it makes the rock a lot more solid, competent, hard. And you do need to drill it and then blast it to break up the rock, to. To be able to extract the lithium and the boron. So we're starting. Our starting point is a rock, and then we crush the rock. We use sulfuric acid to leach it like they do, or we do in the copper industry.

[Denise Callahan]

Leaching. Does that basically mean dissolving?

[Sami Roth]

Yes, and it's not dissolving the whole rock. So we crush the rock down to about three quarters of an inch in size, and then we put it in a. Like a tank. We call it a vat, but it's just an open tank. And we mix that crushed rock with a mixture of water and acid, and it takes about three days. And the water and acid eat their way through the rock. They dissolve the minerals that are soluble, but they leave a lot of the mineral behind as well, because silica makes up 50% of this rock in the mineral silicide. And that's not soluble in acid, which.

[Denise Callahan]

Is okay because you're not here to get silica. You're here to dissolve out the boron and the lithium, Correct?

[Sami Roth]

Yeah. So fortunately, the things that we want are soluble, and most of the things that we don't want are not soluble. So the rock stays as a rock. It becomes like a skeleton. If you think about it like that, it's the minerals that stay behind that are not soluble are the skeleton of the rock. So the rock remains a whole rock, but the acid and the water have eaten their way through it and dissolved the things that we do want. And put the lithium and the boron into solution, so it's a liquid.

[Denise Callahan]

Now talk a little bit about why the boron is important, because you told me one. There's not much boron produced in the world today, or there's not many places where it's produced. But it also sounds like the presence of the boron is helpful for extracting the lithium so talk about those two things and why it's important to know that this isn't just a lithium mine, it's also a boron mine.

[Sami Roth]

Yeah. It is a very important aspect of this project. The fact that it is the two things together and that there's a. There's a whole lot of reasons why that's a positive for this project. So I'll touch on the main ones. Firstly, you're right. There are very few large boron deposits known anywhere in the world. And in fact, 73 or 4% of the world's reserves of boron are located in Turkey. And there is. Just like lithium, there's only one operating mine for boron in the United States. And yet the United States is a large consumer, in fact, the second largest consumer in the world. So from a product, a domestic source of boron, rhyolite Ridge is important because there are no others.

[Denise Callahan]

What do we use boron in? Because you were going on for a while earlier. I mean, don't spend another 10 minutes on it. But what are some of the things it's used in?

[Sami Roth]

So boron is used in more than 100 different applications. So, yes, I'm not going to try to rattle off 100 of them. But the big ones are borosilicate glass. Now, the reason you add boron to glass is it makes it harder and it stops it cracking when it shrinks and expands when heat is applied to it. So any glass that gets hot, so a cooktop, an oven, a Pyrex dish, Corningware that gets hot and is made of glass has boron in it.

[Denise Callahan]

I will admit, before today, I didn't know a ton about boron. I've learned a lot from our conversation.

[Sami Roth]

Yeah. So borosilicate glass is the biggest. The glass on your mobile telephones, on your computer screens, on your TV screens. Any thin, strong glass that needs to be very durable has boron in it.

[Denise Callahan]

So it sounds like when I drop my phone and it doesn't break, or when a rock hits my windshield and it doesn't immediately shatter when I'm on the freeway. I have boron partly to thank for that.

[Sami Roth]

Exactly. You do. It's an essential ingredient and there is no substitute for it. So hence it's incredibly important material for everyday life, even if people have never, ever heard of it. It's in many, many things that you have in your house. It's in many, many products that are in your car. It's used as a micronutrient in agriculture because a lot of soils are Boron deficient. And it's important for growing fruit and vegetables. It's used in for simple things like detergents. It's used as a fire retardant in, it's used as termite proofing. Wooden timbers. So railway sleepers, wooden houses. The timbers are treated with boron.

[Denise Callahan]

Boron's important.

[Sami Roth]

Boron's important.

[Denise Callahan]

So the one mine in the United States today is in the California desert, in the aptly named locality. I don't know if it's really a city, but it's basically just the boron mine in Boron, California, right off of I40.

[Sami Roth]

Yes, that's right. And the reason it's called boron, by the way, is because that is where many of the boron minerals, including our own solar site, were originally identified and described. So really the boron, the global boron industry started in California.

[Denise Callahan]

So we need lithium, we need boron. You've got your federal permit. You're planning to start construction later this year. Although we'll talk about what some of the barriers might be to that. The main concern that's been raised about this project, and I think one of the reasons it's been in the news so often is environmental concerns. This endangered wildflower teams buck wheat. There are environmental groups that have consistently said that they think that Rhyolite Ridge would threaten the existence of this wildflower. You disagree with that? Talk about why. What do you think some of these environmental groups and some of the biologists that have studied this project, what do you think they're getting wrong?

[Sami Roth]

I think when we started working on this project back in 2016, we were aware that there was a sensitive species at the site. So right from day one, we integrated that protection and management into our everyday operations and have continued to do that. But what we also know back then was that there was a real knowledge gap in relating to that plant. Why was it growing, where it was, what soils did it like, what soils didn't it like? And there was very, very little data. No one had researched it before. And so what we've done, in collaboration with the University of Reno, Nevada, Reno UNR, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service, we have spent approximately $2.5 million researching that plant. So we know way more about it today than we knew in 2016 and 2017. The reason why we're so confident that the two can coexist, pretty simple really. When it boil it all down, we're going to avoid the plant. So no direct impacts to the plant. So we put buffer zones around where it Grows, it doesn't grow over the deposit as you've seen. It grows on the edge of one side of the deposit on the western side. So we put buffer zones around and we avoid it. Okay. And then we have conservation measures incorporated into our mine plan to make sure that we do active conservation programs in conjunction with our mining activities to ensure the long term viability of that plant population. Things like growing plants in from seeds, which we've done a lot of. We've grown thousands of plants now in a greenhouse taking those seedlings and having second generation plants grown from seeds collected from the plants that we've grown from seeds. Now we're, I think we're at our third or fourth gen will be fourth generation plants this year. So we're doing a lot of work around that and we're going to be planting out some of those seedlings in back into the wild and, and we're confident that we will be able to establish new populations of the plants. We're going to be doing extensive monitoring. So it's all about avoidance and protection, conservation efforts and then monitoring our impacts to make sure that we're not having any detrimental impact on any of the plants. And if our monitoring picks up any impacts, then we will very quickly be able to address and mitigate for those impacts. So we're very confident. It's not rocket science. It just takes a commitment to do it and we are clearly committed to do it.

[Denise Callahan]

Have you had experience with this sort of thing with other projects or is this sort of a new experience for you dealing with an endangered species?

[Sami Roth]

No. If you work in the mining industry in the southwest of the United States, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, you're used to it. And we've got a big team of people who are working on this who have done this many times before.

[Denise Callahan]

And it's worked out in the past.

[Sami Roth]

Yes. Yeah. And it's not just on mining activities either. You know, roads, power lines, solar farms. I mean many, many development projects get impacted by and have to, you know, coexist manage with endangered or sensitive species. It's pretty common.

[Denise Callahan]

Yeah, it's a tension that I write about a lot, especially with renewable energy. I mean, obviously infrastructure development on public lands in the west that's been intentioned with conservation for a long time. But it's, for me at least it's been especially interesting to think about with regards to renewable energy. And I mean, lithium is part of that because of course you need lithium for electric vehicles and batteries where, you know, how do you think about the development of stuff that you need to address climate change. That you need to address. I mean, climate change is a huge biodiversity threat. And then you've got projects that in some cases could have impacts on biodiversity. I know you're saying in this case, no, you can coexist. How do you think about that tension writ large? I mean, is that something that you spend a lot of time thinking about?

[Sami Roth]

Well, I do, but of course, mostly specific to our project. But we didn't know everything, and we still don't know everything, of course, today, but we knew even less five or six years ago. So I'm very much, and our company is very much of the attitude of, well, to address something that's a concern to people, you've got to understand the issue first, you've got to break it down into the basic components. And more often than not, it's not as complex as people might first believe or like people to believe. And so I think ours is a great example. When you break it down, it's not that complex. It's easy to avoid, it's easy to mitigate, it's easy to have additional conservation efforts. And what's happened is, and we've done this voluntarily, we've put the onus back on our company to do the conservation work. Now, that means that the government or some other NGO or taxpayer money does not have to do that. We're taking on that responsibility. No one was funding any conservation efforts for Teams Buckwheat before we came along. So we see ourselves as a solution to the problem. But I think also that, you know, often these things are not as difficult as people would sometimes like you to believe. And I'm not saying that applies to every instance, but in many cases, I think that is the case. And if you're prepared to sit down and actively consult and come up with solutions, which inevitably will mean some form of compromise from both sides, then solutions can be had. So I think it's probably pretty rare where you actually face with a situation where you have to choose one or the other, you can't have a coexistence that happens, but it happens way less than what people would really think.

[Denise Callahan]

Right. And in terms of compromise, you were telling me you, you know, you moved the. Where you're going to be digging so that it, I mean, it's pretty close, what it's 10, 15 something, it's close to one of the subpopulations, but you moved it so that it's not actually overlapping.

[Sami Roth]

Yes. And we've also delayed that for a long period of time. So we're starting as far away from where the buckwheat are growing as we possibly can. And that will give us additional time to be outplanting and growing more plants in the surrounding areas, including on the site. So we're sort of staging our work so that we have done even more of the conservation efforts before we actually get close to any of the buckwheat. But again, you're right, there is a time in the future where we will get close. And as we get close, we will do additional dust suppression, we'll have additional monitoring so that if there is any impact, if we're seeing, starting to see any impact on those buckwheat, we will address them. And dust mitigation is probably the key one. And dust mitigation is not a difficult thing for modern science to deal with. I mean, if that's the biggest, you know, hurdle that we have to tackle, then I'll, I'll happily do that because it's, it's not that difficult to, to control dust.

[Denise Callahan]

It's an interesting way to think about it, that maybe it doesn't have to be so difficult for this type of development and these species to coexist when you do need to have them both. And I would like to think that's the case because obviously we need lithium, we need boron, we need to protect endangered species. I guess part of what I'm trying to wrap my mind around is just some of the unknowns involved, because clearly you've got some environmental groups and some tribal activists as well, which we should talk about. The Western Shoshone Defense Project is one of the groups that's litigating here too, who rightly or wrongly feel confident that there are going to be impacts to teams Buckwheat here that are, that are unavoidable. And, you know, you're expressing pretty strong confidence here, based on the science that you've commissioned and the work that you've done with you and Reno, that there aren't going to be impacts and that the species is actually going to thrive and be able to live very well side by side with the mine. But a lot of that, you know, we're just going to have to watch and see what happens once you start working, because this hasn't been done before, right? I mean, this is a species that just exists in this one spot and there isn't a mine in this spot right now. You know, let's say you, you know, you start construction, you, you know, you start to dig, dust comes up, you're grading more roads, I imagine that if there, there are impacts that are worse than you expect, your response is probably not going to be, well, we were wrong, let's shut the mine down. I mean, you're going to have to deal with that in a different way. That's why I asked the question about how do you think about the trade offs and the tensions. Because there is an element of unknown here. You can have all the confidence in the world that you've got the science, right, but ultimately you're going to have to see what happens once you start, you know, once you start digging and there's, you know, there's going to be a little bit of, well, how do we respond if something doesn't go exactly the way we think it will?

[Sami Roth]

Yes, I understand your point. And what I would say is that firstly, when, when we design a mine, you know, we're not starting from scratch. Okay, yes, you're right. There's no mine out there. So in that sense, we're putting a mine into an area where there isn't a mine today. But our team, our collective team has built and operated hundreds of mines around the world. Okay. And many mines have similar issues around dust, noise, light. I mean, they're all very similar, those issues. And there's very good strategies that have been developed over quite a long period of time on how to monitor for those things so that you know whether you've actually got a problem or not. And if you've got a proper monitoring program in place and you're getting early detection of any unwanted indirect impacts, because these are not direct, these are indirect impacts, then you can mitigate for those, you can deal with them. And dealing with them for the most part does not mean, of course, shutting down a mine. That's a pretty dramatic mitigation step. Generally speaking, there's a way to deal with it. And again, dealing with additional dust suppression or noise or light suppression has been done before. So again, I'll say it's not rocket science. It might mean some extra money, some extra monitoring, some extra programs put in place above and beyond what you've incorporated into your basic design. But it would be highly, highly unusual that those unwanted or unexpected impacts could not be dealt with.

[Denise Callahan]

It seems like one of the biggest obstacles here to your starting construction later this year, as your plan is, is that a couple of months ago, Sibanier Stillwater, your private equity partner, they were supposed to contribute $500 million in equity to this project. They pulled out. What's your plan right now to get the Money that you need to start construction.

[Sami Roth]

So firstly I would say that we have a loan which has been closed with the U.S. department of Energy for a billion dollars. So that remains in place.

[Denise Callahan]

But you can't use that money until after you spend the private equity, right?

[Sami Roth]

That's correct, that's correct. But I just wanted to make it clear that that is still valid in place. So what we are focusing on is replacing Sibonier with an equity with a project partner. So we're not expecting to develop this project on our own. We're expecting that we will have a partner. It'll be a joint venture type structure similar to what we were proposing with Sibanier. There could be one partner, but it's also possible there could be two. But we will sell down a stake in the project, or as I say, it might be to two parties. We will maintain ownership majority. So for example, we might sell 40% and keep 60 ourselves. But we want to. And we will maintain the majority ownership and the operatorship management of the project. So we've got Goldman Sachs working with us. They were, they helped us with the first process when we selected Siboneye. So we're doing that again basically and looking for a new partner. Very different circumstances today as compared to back in 2021 when we were negotiating with Sibanier. Today we have a fully permitted project. We have a billion dollars in debt approved from the US government for 20 year term.

[Denise Callahan]

And that's low interest rate.

[Sami Roth]

Low interest, yes. 10 year treasury rates fixed for the life of the tranche as we draw on the loan. So the, the fact that it's permitted, the fact that it's got that loan approved in place, the fact that we've got a much, much larger resource. We're about to announce a new reserve this month which will be materially larger.

[Denise Callahan]

Meaning that you're going to show that it's. You have more mineral than you thought you did originally.

[Sami Roth]

Yes, a lot more.

[Denise Callahan]

So it sounds like this should be easy to find new money.

[Sami Roth]

It should be. It's a fantastic deposit. I think that, you know, apart from those things that we just mentioned, I think the thing that it has that puts it, you know, over and above all other lithium projects is the fact that it's a boron project as well. And so yes, lithium is a, you know, we see very volatile pricing regime around lithium and we expect that to continue for the foreseeable future.

[Denise Callahan]

Lithium prices have. There's a lot more lithium right now on the market than people are buying. So prices have dropped off at the moment, yes.

[Sami Roth]

Yeah. And it's not a very big market, so that's why it's volatile. I mean, you know, if the bigger a market becomes, the less volatile it often becomes as well. And that's because if you've got a small market, it's easy to either have oversupply or under supply. And when you have either of those, you're going to get wild swings in prices. So just to put some numbers around that, when we started working on this project in 2016, the world market, the total world market for lithium was 300,000 tonnes. Okay. And it's grown to be, you know, towards a million tonnes. It's not. It's around that levels now.

[Denise Callahan]

So why do we have some. Why is wire prices so low? Why is there this quiet?

[Sami Roth]

Well, a million tonnes is still a small amount of material. When you think about that, for the entire world. I mean, you compare that to other commodities, it's tiny, it's a tiny market.

[Denise Callahan]

But why is there so much more supply? Is someone just flooding the market?

[Sami Roth]

Well, when prices spike like they did because there was not enough lithium in the market a couple of years ago, you had a price spike. Okay? And a price spike then incentivizes expansion. So what we had was a lot of expansion. And in actual fact, where most of that expansion came from was my home country of Australia. And the reason for it was that there's a lot of lithium deposits there. Many of them were on existing mining leases, so they were very quick and easy to permit and put into production. So you had a supply response. So if you get a spike in prices, a high pricing environment, you're gonna stimulate new supply. And similarly, when you get low prices like we now, you are disincentivizing new supply and eventually the balance between supply and demand will come back into equilibrium. And if there hasn't been enough new mines built, and yet you've got this nice steady growth in demand, you'll have a shortage of supply and the price will respond. And that will inevitably happen again in lithium.

[Denise Callahan]

Right. It seems pretty obvious that so many more electric vehicles are selling. I mean, especially in California, places like that, Colorado too. Now, I assume that a lot of the market, I mean, Ford is going to be buying lithium from your project. California and other places are adding a lot more batteries to the grid. I mean, demand for lithium is going to go back up. It seems pretty inevitable that prices will. Given that, and given that you have this boron too, which is a stable commodity, that helps your economics. Why do you think you lost your 500 million. And why haven't you found a new equity partner yet? I mean, I hate to put you on the spot like that, but it seems like this is. I mean, you've made it sound like it's a pretty obvious one.

[Sami Roth]

Yes, good question. So firstly, why did we lose our equity partner? Well, unfortunately for Sabanier, they are one of the world's largest platinum and palladium producers. And the last five or six years have been extremely difficult times for platinum and palladium producers because the price of those commodities has halved. So they were approximately 15 billion market cap company when we struck that deal with them. 15 billion US dollars, market capitalization. Today they're around 2 and a half to 3 billion.

[Denise Callahan]

So that was really specific to the economics of that company.

[Sami Roth]

Yes. And it was very much related to the pricing, the underlying pricing of platinum and palladium.

[Bernard Roe]

Okay.

[Sami Roth]

And they weren't in a position to move forward on this project. Did the underlying lithium prices, low prices, have anything to do with it? I'm sure they did, but ultimately, you know, they were, and they said this publicly, they did not know how they were going to fund their $500 million. So it was unfortunate. Not the outcome we wanted, but it was just the reality of the situation. Why, you know, why is it taking a long time? It's not really a long time. We, you know, I think it was in back in February when we announced that they were departing the project. We're actually right in the middle of finishing an updated reserve with updated economics. So we're not actually actively out looking for a partner today. We're preparing for it. And as I said, we've got Goldman Sachs working with us and preparing for that. But our priority has been to actually finish the updated reserves and project economics, which we will complete this month, and then we will more aggressively and actively pursue that partnering process. But we're very confident it's a great project. It's in the United States, it's fully permitted, and it's got that wonderful combination of lithium and boron.

[Denise Callahan]

We talked briefly earlier about that lawsuit, and I just want to bring that up one more time. I mean, it's the center for Biological Diversity, Western Watersheds Project, and the Western Shoshone Defense Project that are suing, not you guys, but the federal government to try to overturn the permit that you guys have from the Bureau of Land Management. Do you have any worry about that spooking away potential investors? Because they are trying to revoke the permission that you guys have to Build this project?

[Sami Roth]

No, I'm not concerned about it. I mean, it's part of developing a mining project in, you know, in this part of the world. And we've done the work, we've spent lots and lots of time and effort in, you know, coming up with solutions around the environmental concerns, you know, making a better project at the end of the day, through that whole NEPA process, through all the consultation we've done with Fish and Wildlife and other government agencies. So, no, no, we're not. We're not concerned about that. It has to play out, obviously, but we feel that we're in a good, strong position and particularly as it relates to Teams Buckwheat, we've done all the work that I've described to show very clearly that the two can coexist. And the Fish and Wildlife did their Section 7 consultation process, which concluded that the project and the plant can coexist, just as we've been saying. So I think we're in a good place, we're in a good standing there, and we just got to let that run its course.

[Denise Callahan]

And the environmentalists working with these groups who are just so convinced that Teams Buckwheat is going to get wiped out, do you think they're just wrong? I don't think they're acting in bad faith. I mean, I've interacted with them, I've talked with them. I think they're really sincere and they just strongly, strongly disagree with, you know, some of the conclusions that you guys have had and seen. I don't know. What do you make of it? Do you think they just. Are they anti. Do you think they were just anti mining or what's your take?

[Sami Roth]

Well, I can't really speak for them. Better to ask them.

[Denise Callahan]

But you've been in mining a long time and you've dealt with environmental activists who I'm sure have opposed other projects for reasons you've disagreed with. I'm just. I'm curious what your thinking is when you hear from them.

[Sami Roth]

I think that in the case of Thames Buckwheat, which has been the center for the concern, then, you know, five or six years ago, we had very little data and people quickly jumped to conclusions about why the plant was growing, where it was and what sort of soils it liked and didn't like, et cetera. And we've spent $2.5 million researching that. And what that has shown is that it's actually quite easy to grow the plant. It's easy to collect seeds, it's easy to grow those plants from seeds, it's easy to propagate, and those plants and they happily grow in all a range of different soil types. So I think that, you know, we've put the effort into doing what I said I see as essential, and that is listening and understanding the concerns, being prepared to sit down and come up with solutions which inevitably will involve compromise. But ultimately, you know, there are solutions to be had. That's what we've focused on. And, you know, I think that that is what has put us in the position that we are today, where we're working on sound scientific basis to say that the two can coexist. If other people have difference of opinion, they're entitled to that, of course. But I would like to see, as a scientist, I would like to see that scientific data and I would like to see it assessed now. That's what the Section 7 consultation that the Fish and Wildlife undertook over a period of several years was all about. So it's work's been done.

[Denise Callahan]

If I come back here in a year, will construction be underway? Would you make that prediction?

[Sami Roth]

I'm hoping so, yes.

[Denise Callahan]

Bernard, thank you very much for being with us on the Boiling Point podcast.

[Sami Roth]

Thanks very much. Pleasure to be here with you today.

[Bernard Roe]

Thank you for listening to Boiling Point. I'm your host, Sammy Roth. My producers are Mary Knoff and Jonathan Shiflett. Sound design and original music by Jonathan Shifflet. Elijah Wolfson is our editor.

[Denise Callahan]

Denise Callahan is our studio manager.

[Bernard Roe]

Ben Church is our production manager. Nick Norton is our engineer. Special thanks to LA Times Studio Press President, Anna Magzanian, President and Chief Operating.

[Denise Callahan]

Officer of the Los Angeles Times, Chris.

[Bernard Roe]

Argentieri and Executive Editor of the Los Angeles Times, Terry Tang. Boiling Point is executive produced by Darius.

[Denise Callahan]

Derekshon and created by me, Sami Roth.