Disseminated on behalf of Surge Battery Metals.
Lithium Americas (LAC) has officially broken ground at Thacker Pass, Nevada. The project is advancing toward its first production target in 2028. LAC CEO Jonathan Evans said in the company’s news release that the project should be mechanically complete by the end of 2026. Commissioning will happen through 2027, with commercial production starting in 2028.
For investors watching Nevada clay lithium, this milestone is more than an update. It’s a market signal that could change the investment landscape.
De-Risking the Clay Lithium Category
For years, clay-based lithium has faced a single recurring objection: “It has never been done at a commercial scale.” Unlike brine or hard-rock lithium, sedimentary clay deposits presented a technological and operational unknown. Investors and lenders were cautious, capital costs were higher, and early-stage projects struggled to secure financing.
Thacker Pass changes that narrative. Once LAC makes battery-grade lithium carbonate from sedimentary clay at a commercial scale, it reduces risks for the whole category. Projects in Nevada now have clear proof that clay-based lithium can be mined and processed effectively.
The historical precedent is instructive. In Chile’s Atacama region, the first brine lithium projects proved the chemistry and cost-effectiveness of large-scale lithium extraction. Later projects attracted capital more easily and on better terms. This created a ripple effect, speeding up the region’s lead in global lithium supply.
Thacker Pass is playing that same role for sedimentary clay. Its success is not just a win for LAC. It marks a key milestone for the whole Nevada clay lithium sector, including the Nevada North Lithium Project (NNLP) of Surge Battery Metals (TSX-V: NILI | OTCQX: NILIF).
Understanding the Technical Landscape
Thacker Pass Phase 1 has lithium levels of 1,500–2,500 ppm. They plan to extract it using sulfuric acid leaching to create battery-grade lithium carbonate. The project is important both geographically and operationally.
It features a large pit, a big processing facility, and integrated infrastructure. This covers access roads, water supply management, and energy sources that meet Nevada’s rules.
While Thacker Pass shows commercial viability, it is crucial to note that NNLP and Thacker Pass are not technically the same. NNLP employs a different beneficiation approach and reagent chemistry to optimize recovery.
NNLP: The Higher-Grade, Next-Generation Project
Thacker Pass shows clay lithium on a large scale. NNLP positions itself as the next evolution of this asset class, with clear geological advantages:
- Grade: NNLP averages 3,010 ppm lithium, significantly higher than Thacker Pass Phase 1 material. Recent drilling results show that step-out drilling found a 31-meter intercept with 4,196 ppm lithium from surface. This gives NNLP a potential extraction advantage.
- Strip Ratio: NNLP’s 1.16:1 strip ratio is among the lowest in the sedimentary clay peer group. This indicates that it has favorable material movement requirements relative to ore recovered.
- Operating Costs: NNLP’s estimated OPEX is US$5,097/t LCE, lower than Thacker Pass guidance of ~US$6,200/t C1. It suggests that it has competitive economic positioning within the peer group.
Both projects produce battery-grade lithium carbonate using sulfuric acid leaching. However, each method is customized for the specific geology of the project. NNLP is not a copy of Thacker Pass. Rather, it is a next-generation clay project designed to leverage lessons learned while improving key parameters.
Moreover, infill drilling showed a steady, thick, high-grade core. It included intercepts like 116 meters at 3,752 ppm Li and 32 meters at 4,521 ppm Li. These results support future resource expansion. They also highlight the project’s scale, quality, and technical readiness as it prepares for a Pre-Feasibility Study.
- SEE MORE: Surge Battery Metals Strengthens Nevada North With High-Grade Expansion and Infill Success
Why Category De-Risking Matters for Investors
In emerging resource sectors, de-risking is often more valuable than the resource itself. Projects that validate a new extraction method or commodity unlock several market advantages:
- Lower financing risk: Investors are more willing to fund projects once proof of concept exists.
- Improved capital terms: Lending rates and equity expectations can improve when technology and economics are validated.
- Accelerated project development: Developers can move faster, reduce contingencies, and focus on optimization rather than proving viability.
Thacker Pass’s progress effectively removes the “first-mover risk” from sedimentary clay projects. NNLP has higher grades, near-surface mineralization, and competitive OPEX. Now, it can be assessed on its own merits, not on doubts about large-scale clay processing.
Strategic Significance in the U.S. Lithium Market
The timing of Thacker Pass’s construction and NNLP’s development aligns with broader policy and market trends. Lithium is a critical input for electric vehicles, grid-scale storage, and advanced defense technologies. The U.S. government has emphasized domestic lithium production as a strategic priority.
In March 2025, President Trump signed an executive order called “Immediate Measures to Increase American Mineral Production.” This order directs federal agencies to speed up permitting and support domestic projects. It also aims to lessen dependence on foreign supply chains for critical minerals.
Projects like Thacker Pass and NNLP benefit from this policy. They provide secure domestic sources that boost the lithium supply chain.
Nevada is central to this strategy. Its clay deposits are among the largest and best in the U.S. They provide a stable base for domestic lithium production, which supports electrification goals and helps reduce reliance on imports.
Thacker Pass’s progress also sends a signal beyond the Nevada clay sector. It demonstrates that investors and capital markets are willing to back sedimentary clay projects at scale. That validation reduces perceived risk for future projects. It also speeds up permitting and development timelines as well as strengthens valuation metrics.
NNLP, with its superior grade and shallower resource, stands to benefit disproportionately. It is no longer constrained by questions of category viability. It can now be evaluated based on its geological quality, operational efficiency, and potential returns.
NNLP’s advantages, combined with the category de-risking effect of Thacker Pass, position it as a next-generation investment opportunity in Nevada’s clay lithium space.
Looking Ahead: Domestic Lithium’s Role in Energy Transition
Lithium demand is set to grow rapidly as electric vehicles, battery storage, and renewable systems expand. Securing a high-quality, domestic supply is critical to maintaining U.S. leadership in clean energy technology.
Thacker Pass proves that commercial-scale sedimentary clay lithium is achievable. NNLP demonstrates the potential for even higher efficiency and superior economics within the same category. Together, these projects show how local resources can support the energy transition while providing compelling investment opportunities.
NNLP’s higher grades, near-surface mineralization, low strip ratio, and competitive OPEX position it as a leading asset within a now-validated category.
For NILI investors, the message is clear: the clay lithium category is no longer theoretical, and NNLP is positioned to capitalize on the proof-of-concept success. The best news of the year is here—and it’s grounded in both science and strategy.
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Nature-based carbon investments deserve consideration when they address a specific business dependency and produce outcomes you can measure. Imagine Moonbucks, a global coffee roaster planning next season’s espresso blend. It is considering natural Grade 4 coffee from Jimma, in southwestern Oromia, Ethiopia. Its sourcing decisions affect the roasting schedule and the cash tied up in coffee purchases. Moonbucks needs to understand which measures could protect that supply, what they would cost and how it would judge the results.
1. Define the sourcing problem before choosing a project
Moonbucks needs a dependable component for its espresso blend. Its procurement team wants continuity of volume and an agreed cup profile. Replacing a shipment at short notice could require new sample approval and changes to the blend, and given the schedules for cultivation, processing, and freight delivery, is practically impossible. Moonbucks needs to get this right, and its initial concern is inconsistent deliveries. It commissions an assessment of the supplying farms and post-harvest chain. The questions cover land condition, harvest availability and whether drying or storage problems are affecting saleable lots.
This distinction changes the investment brief. A tree-planting proposal cannot be assumed to fix drying problems. Better storage cannot restore eroded land. The team must establish which problem exists before selecting the response.
CCC’s guide to finding nature-based solutions in your supply chain explains where to look. Here, the next task is to turn a broad concern into a testable proposal.
2. Develop nature-based carbon investments around the actual supply chain
The assessment would trace Moonbucks’ purchases back through the exporter and supplying producer groups. Which farms supply the contracted lots? Who controls land-management decisions? How long does the buyer expect to maintain the purchasing relationship?
Furthermore, Jimma natural Grade 4 cannot be treated as interchangeable with every Ethiopian coffee. Moonbucks would need to test any substitute against its own blend and quality requirements.
Suppose Moonbucks’ assessment identifies an opportunity to maintain shade trees and restore vegetation along exposed streambanks. The IPCC describes agroforestry as a way to store carbon in vegetation and soil, with potential benefits for erosion control and water quality.1 Moonbucks would need local advice on species, growing conditions and maintenance before deciding how these measures fit its sourcing plan.
The proposal now has a defined sourcing connection and a candidate intervention. The next steps are to test its effect on production, assess carbon eligibility and build the financial case.
3. Compare the proposal with other ways to protect supply
WBCSD’s Nature-based Solutions Blueprint recommends comparing nature-based options with other responses across their benefits and costs.2 For Moonbucks, that means evaluating the landscape proposal alongside drying improvements, storage controls and alternative sourcing arrangements.
The product’s natural-process designation matters. Moonbucks should examine the drying and dry-milling chain alongside land conditions. Its team would check storage practices, contamination risks and incoming-lot quality to see whether problems arise before or after the coffee leaves the farms.
The revised proposal might combine land stewardship with separate post-harvest controls. Each component needs its own purpose and budget. A sustainability label should not obscure which activity is expected to solve which problem.
The project develops as the evidence improves. Its scope should follow the diagnosis rather than preserve the first idea unchanged.
4. Establish what the carbon outcome could count toward
Moonbucks’ sustainability team now tests the proposed carbon case separately from the sourcing case. Is the objective a measurable change in Moonbucks’ value-chain emissions, verified credits for separate voluntary use, or distinct outcomes under carefully defined arrangements?
Scope 3 covers value-chain emissions. A purchasing relationship alone does not prove that a farm intervention can be included in Moonbucks’ inventory. The team needs an applicable accounting method, defensible boundaries and evidence supporting attribution.
SBTi’s FLAG Guidance (forest, land and agriculture), version 1.2, says purchased credits used as offsets cannot meet near-term FLAG or energy and industry targets. Eligible land-based removals are subject to accounting requirements.3 Moonbucks needs to test its proposal against those rules before including an outcome in its targets.
For Moonbucks’ Jimma proposal, maintaining existing trees and establishing new vegetation could involve different carbon questions. Specialists must examine the baseline and additionality, meaning what changes because the project proceeds. They must also assess measurement and the risk that stored carbon is lost. CCC’s MRV and additionality article introduces those tests.
Until that work is complete, Moonbucks should not budget an assumed Scope 3 reduction or credit-sale receipt. Direct emissions reductions remain the priority.
5. Build a financial case that survives weaker assumptions
Moonbucks’ finance team would now build a multi-year budget. UNEP’s State of Finance for Nature 2023 compares current finance with the investment needed to meet climate, biodiversity and land-restoration goals.4 The company would cost its proposed activities, farmer participation and ongoing monitoring. Verification, where required, is a separate expense. Maintenance and responsibility for replacing failed plantings must remain visible after the initial establishment budget ends.
Operational benefits need equally careful treatment. If fewer rejected lots reduce emergency purchasing, count that saving once. Do not add “supply resilience” as another financial benefit when it represents the same avoided cost.
Moonbucks should compare a base case with slower benefits, higher implementation costs and no carbon revenue. It should also distinguish production outcomes from quality and shipment outcomes. A single good harvest would not prove that the landscape intervention caused better delivery performance.
A project can remain worth funding even when its carbon case needs more work. That decision must rest on the operational evidence and the company’s objectives, without unsupported environmental claims.
6. Fund a pilot with a clear expansion decision
Moonbucks’ first approval would fund a bounded pilot, rather than commit the entire sourcing program. Before spending, Moonbucks would agree on participating farms, responsibilities and the evidence needed at review.
Its scorecard could track farmer participation, implementation costs and plant survival, alongside accepted coffee volumes and lot-quality results. Carbon measurements would follow the selected method. Farm-level traceability must connect the intervention to the actual sourcing relationship.
Suppose Moonbucks’ review later finds that storage changes explain most quality improvements, while the land measures need longer observation. Those findings would shape the next decision: expand the proven component, adjust the landscape work or pause further spending. They would not justify crediting all improvements to tree planting.
This gives nature-based carbon investments a practical place in a multi-year strategy. Funding increases as the evidence supports it, and the project can change direction before a larger commitment.
Discuss a sourcing opportunity with CCC
Carbon Credit Capital’s nature-based supply-chain investment service uses its Dual-Value Model to examine supply-chain economics alongside potential sustainability outcomes.
Schedule a consultation to discuss your sourcing exposure and the questions to resolve before allocating capital.
Sources
- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change, Chapter 7, Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Uses, section 7.4.3.3 (Agroforestry).
- World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), Nature-based Solutions Blueprint, 5 June 2024.
- Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), Forest, Land and Agriculture Science-Based Target-Setting Guidance, version 1.2, March 2026, section 3.1.4, pp. 37–38.
- United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), State of Finance for Nature 2023, 2023.
A plastic credit funds the collection of plastic waste in places where no formal system exists to collect it. Each credit represents a measured, independently audited quantity of plastic taken out of the environment or returned to use, tracked on a public registry.
EU carbon credit claims changed on 27 September 2026, the day the Directive (EU) 2024/825 began to apply across the European Union. The change is narrow. It changes how a company can talk about the credits it buys. A product can no longer be called neutral on the strength of compensation alone; however, every specific, evidenced statement about what a company measured, reduced, and funded stays fully available.
