Image: Tesla
Tesa is a great boon to Texas, USA. The company is creating thousands of jobs and will create even more through the construction and operations of its new lithium refinery near Corpus Christi.
On May 8, Tesla held a groundbreaking ceremony for its lithium refinery. It will be located at Robstown near Corpus Christi, Texas, USA. Tesla CEO Elon Musk and other company executives joined in, along with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and other local, state, and federal leaders, cheering the facility's founding. Tesla plans to invest $375 million to build the refinery. Once completed, the facility will represent a $1 billion investment in southwest Texas.
This investment is critical to Tesla's mission to accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy. The company aims to significantly increase its supply of lithium hydroxide, which is critical to battery production. Tesla is also seeking to source its lithium specifically in North America so that it is not dependent on overseas suppliers.
The 1,200-plus-acre site will be the site of the first industrial deployment of acid-free lithium refining. In the process of achieving this, the use of hazardous reagents that pollute the environment is eliminated. In addition, there are no byproducts that are not useful. As a result of Tesla's new method of lithium extraction, the byproducts will be a mixture of sand and limestone. Both are used in the production of building materials, which means they can be used efficiently.
“There's no toxic emissions or anything -- you could live right in the middle of the refinery and not suffer any ill effects,” Elon Musk said during the event.
Tesla tweeted:
“This facility will also prioritize the elimination of a challenging refinery byproduct (sodium sulfate).
Instead, the byproduct is a mixture of sand & calcium carbonate-a viable additive in the production of construction materials, allowing us to make use of this waste stream.
In the future, we will also process other intermediate lithium feedstocks, including those from recycled batteries & manufacturing scrap.”
In the future, Tesla expects the facility will also process other intermediate lithium feedstocks, including those from recycled batteries and manufacturing scrap.
The construction work will create about 1,000 jobs. This is great news, as providing jobs is very important. In addition, Tesla Lithium will need 250 full-time employees, including process technicians, operations managers, and engineers who will support the ongoing maintenance and optimization of the plant.
© 2023, Eva Fox | Tesmanian. All rights reserved.
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Article edited by @SmokeyShorts; follow him on Twitter
About the Author
Eva Fox
Eva Fox joined Tesmanian in 2019 to cover breaking news as an automotive journalist. The main topics that she covers are clean energy and electric vehicles. As a journalist, Eva is specialized in Tesla and topics related to the work and development of the company.
