DOE grants $375M loan for lithium battery recycling plant
The U.S. Department of Energy will provide $375 million in loans to a battery recycling company to build its first, and one of the first, lithium ion battery recycling plants in North America
The effort to satisfy a vast demand for lithium for electric vehicle batteries moved one step forward with a $375 million loan from the Department of Energy to Li-Cycle, a battery recycling company, to build a lithium-ion battery recovery plant near Rochester, New York.
Monday's announcement is the third in the U.S. recently. Last Tuesday the large recycling firm Ecobat said it will build its first battery recycling plant in Casa Grande, Arizona.
Earlier this month, the DOE Loan Programs Office also announced a conditional $2 billion loan to Redwood Materials to build a battery recycling facility outside Reno, Nevada. It will also make new EV battery cells out of recovered copper foil and other electrochemical materials.
The Rochester facility is expected to support the battery needs of about 203,000 electric vehicles per year.