One of the most important materials needed for our most in-demand products, including electric vehicles, mobile phones, and wind and solar power, is lithium.

Lithium carbonate is a main component in the manufacture of batteries. To extract the lithium, natural brine is pumped from under the salt flats to a series of evaporation ponds.

During an 18-month process, the liquid is concentrated through a series of ponds, eventually turning from blue to yellow with a lithium concentration of 6 percent.

The evaporation process produces large quantities of salt byproduct, much of which is then reprocessed and sold.

The U.S. needs lithium and they have found a lot. As it stands now, the U.S. gets a majority of its lithium from imports.

So finding a lithium-rich reserve in the U.S. backyard would help relieve a heavy burden: It's estimated that annual global demand for lithium will exceed 2 million metric tons by 2030.

That's why a recent discovery by Lithium Americas could be a game-changer for the U.S. energy landscape. A supervolcano may hold a huge lithium deposit.

The corporation recently detected what it believes are 20 million to 40 million metric tons of lithium below a supervolcano in Nevada. The area contains more than double the concentration of lithium seen in any other bed of clay globally.

"When the ancient supervolcano erupted around 16 million years ago, hot liquid magma gushed through the ground's cracks and fissures and enriched the clay soil with lithium, according to experts from Lithium Nevada, the University of Oregon, and the New Zealand research institute GNS Science," Science Alert reports.

As of 2022, one metric ton of battery-grade lithium carbonate price cost around $37,000, which means the supervolcano could be home to roughly $1.5 trillion of the material.

Lithium Americas said it will move forward with a dig by 2026 and continue work for the next 40 years, then refill the area when it's done.

Lithium is a very valuable material, and it makes sense to close the loop and have a full cycle from extraction, refining, incorporating into electric vehicles, and at the end of life for those batteries, they get recycled.

To do that effectively, it’s very important that all this material stays in the United States so we have oversight of that closed loop.

Lithium mining in Nevada will look different than mining operations for precious metals such as gold, silver and copper because – the ability to create a closed loop doesn’t really exist with those commodities. Once they are brought out of the ground and refined, they leave the state.

Lithium is a massive opportunity that can become a pillar of Nevada’s economy.