Lithium battery manufacturer opens 2nd factory in the valley

Nov 08, 2024

HENDERSON (KTNV) — Lithion Battery, a company manufacturing lithium-ion battery cells in Henderson, just held the grand opening of its second factory on Thursday.

Our state is home to the only operating lithium mine in the United States and it's an element in high demand across the world.

“I think we’re going in the right direction," said Henderson resident David Olszens.

Olszens uses lithium battery-powered tools every day. He says having more companies manufacturing these batteries is great.

“The lithium is really great, it’s a quarter of the weight, lasts longer, charges faster," said Olszens.

Lithion Battery is a company that was founded in 1998 in Canada. It originally built primary battery cells for oil and gas applications like downhole drilling.

The company started in the rechargeable battery space in 2019 to set up an iron phosphate battery cell manufacturing facility in Henderson.

Shortly after that, they purchased a battery company building battery packs in China. They moved the manufacturing site to Henderson off of Wigwam Parkway, which they still use.

Lithion purchases smaller battery cells and welds them together to create significantly larger batteries for all types of applications.

“We don’t do any EVs, we don’t do any passenger vehicles, but we try to electrify everything from rail cars to home energy storage to marine vessels to everything in between," said Lithion Battery President & CEO Tyler Armstrong.

Armstrong tells Channel 13 with the two factories currently open, they have 140 employees all together. He says they plan to have over 250 employees by 2026.

More electrification is coming.

The U.S. Department of Energy says that in Nevada, State agencies have several deadlines they must follow regarding zero-emission vehicles.

They must transition their light-duty vehicles to zero-emission vehicles by 2040 and their medium- and heavy-duty vehicles to zero-emission vehicles by 2050.

Along with state agencies, car manufacturers must meet zero-emission production and sale requirements starting now during the production of 2025 models.

Nevada has an abundant supply of this precious element.

Nevada's current mine is the only one in the U.S. and one of only 34 lithium mines in the world. Armstrong tells Channel 13 China is one of the countries supplying the most lithium worldwide.

How safe are lithium batteries?

There's a lot of different types of lithium ion batteries, what we do primarily is Iron-phosphate, so Lithium-iron phosphate, which is inherently safe," said Armstrong. "It goes up in temperature but it won't catch fire."

While Lithion Battery executives say they do not know what exact batteries were being transported during recent truck crashes earlier this year causing hazardous lithium fires shutting down the I-15 and US-95.

They mentioned it was more likely an unstable lithium battery using other elements which they don't.

“It is a lithium-ion battery, so they all kind of get grouped into one, but it’s really the cobalt in those batteries that make them a little bit more unstable and unsafe," said Armstrong. "They're great for EVs because they're high-powered, high energy density but they could be very volatile if put into the wrong situation."

Senior Vice President of Power Sources at Lithion Battery David Hodge says those batteries are useful, though. They are mainly used in cellphones and electric vehicles.

"The energy density is substantially higher than the phosphate-based material," said Hodge. "Say if your cellphone had a lithium iron phosphate battery in it, it maybe holds a charge for 5 hours instead of 8 hours. Battery life is critical for those kind of applications."

He says some electric vehicle companies are moving away from that type of battery, though, and are experimenting with safer phosphate-based batteries.

Hodge says the lithium in the battery actually helps stabilize it.

"It's unstable not so much because of the lithium because all lithium ion batteries have lithium to solve level in them, lithium-iron phosphate does too," said Hodge. "It's more the other ingredients, the cobalt-oxide, manganese-oxide, nickel-oxide. Actually, the lithium stabilizes that material."

Hodge says they continue looking for safer, more efficient ways to create and run these batteries.

As technology advances, so does the option to recycle the batteries.

"Lithium and everything that goes into the active materials in the battery don't go away with age," said Hodge.

He says this could lead to cheaper production and more ways to widen the spread of lithium batteries.

Mining in Nevada is expected to continue as well.

Two months ago, we told you of a proposed hub near Tonopah that could be the site for a new lithium mine.

Now conservationists and a Native American tribe are suing to stop the project over an endangered desert flower.

According to the Center for Biological Diversity, this is the only area in the world where the "Tiehm Buckwheat" is known to exist.

U.S. Wildlife experts say the flower has been in danger of extinction since 2022.

The lawsuit also names the mining project as a threat to cultural resources and a potential disruption to groundwater.

The "Rhyolite Ridge Lithium-Boron Mine" could employ up to 500 construction jobs and would require up to 350 employees to operate.

According to the Bureau of Land Management, the project may produce enough material to supply over 300,000 electric cars yearly.

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