There's a new battery recycling plant coming to Fernley. American Battery Metals Corporation broke ground on the site on Winston Lane last month. Chairman and CEO Doug Cole says there are a lot of opportunities here.
"We're building a first-of-its-kind lithium ion battery recycling plant to harness all that," he said. "Only 1% of all those batteries are recycled today, so we have a very unique thing that's going on here, and I have a very solid team."
The company has invested in the technology for years. Now, they're investing in Nevada. Construction and operations should bring 100 new jobs to the area in the next six months.
"We chose Fernley because it's in Nevada, it's in a great county, and the town of Fernley is so welcoming and so supportive," Cole said. "But we picked Nevada for the attitude."
The operation, he says, will be a green one.
"The building will go up fairly quickly, the structure is steel with solar panels on the roof," he said. "Then, let's say we have a Tesla battery. We run it through our process and in three hours, it turns into nine different chemicals that can immediately go back into the supply chain as battery grade. So it's really unique, and 100% green, really clean."
Construction should take a couple of months; the hope is to be up and running by the first quarter of next year.
"We're going from development to execution," Cole said. "We're going from an expense report to revenue. My best day will be that first little quarter of black mass that comes out of the plant, because then you know it's working. It's no different than a mine; an exploration mine is nothing until they produce an ounce of gold. Once you do that, it's a whole different deal."
He estimates the pilot plant will process 20,000 metric tons of recycled material a year.
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