What Will It Take To Recycle Millions of Worn-Out EV Batteries? | News & Community

Thirty miles east of Reno, Nevada, past dusty hills patched with muted blue sage and the occasional injury-lawyer billboard, a large concrete structure rises prominently in the desert landscape. When fully constructed, it will be a pilot for a business that entrepreneurs envision as a major facet of America’s future green economy: lithium-ion battery recycling.Construction manager Chuck Leber points out bays where trucks will drop off batteries, and deep drains in rooms to catch leaking chemicals. He shows me a two-foot concrete slab under the building — a hefty foundation so that workers can move equipment and adapt the plant while refining the recycling process. Later this year, the first batteries will pass through the facility; the goal is to ramp up to handle 20,000 metric tons of batteries a year.The 60,000-square-foot plant owned by the American Battery…

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