Environment solution: New metals refinery for nickel and cobalt opens in Ohio

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Mining raw materials, like nickel, for batteries harms the environment, and new mines are very difficult to get approved, so the search is on to recycle metals that have already come out of the earth

In a step forward for efforts to acquire the metals crucial to addressing climate change, on Monday a new plant that can extract nickel and cobalt from scrap material opens in Fairfield, Ohio. The resulting metals will be used in new batteries and other clean energy markets.

Extracting metals out of old material avoids the environmental damage of open pit mining and prevents the metals from ending up in the landfill. Many see this as the future, even if it takes decades to become reality.

Climate change is largely caused by burning dirty fuels for two broad purposes: to make electricity and to move vehicles. Batteries can substitute for both much of the time, but this changeover is still in its infancy and the need for more minerals is great.

The metals refining company Nth Cycle builds systems that yield nickel and cobalt from a form of shredded lithium ion batteries and nickel scrap from electric vehicles and consumer electronics. There are a growing number of companies, including Redwood Materials and Li-Cycle, that are expanding the young U.S. battery recycling industry.

Currently, even when battery materials are collected for recycling in the U.S., they're mostly shipped overseas to be refined. Building a traditional metals refinery in the U.S. could cost upward of $1 billion, but Nth Cycle uses a modular design it says is ideal because it can be added onto existing manufacturing facilities.

“We have no refining capacity in the U.S. at all for these types of materials,” said Megan O’Connor, CEO of Nth Cycle. “We will