FASTER, PLEASE: Federal bureau approves lithium mine expansion.

The mine sits alongside the roughly 250 person town of Silver Peak and has been in operation since 1965 by international mining company Albemarle. It pumps water from local brine water aquifers into open air ponds, then distills the lithium down with solar evaporation. Annually, the mine produces around 5,000 tons of lithium, according to the American Association of Petroleum Geologists.

“I don’t have any issues with the expansion of the mine,” Shaaron Netherton, executive director of the Friends of Nevada Wilderness, told The Center Square of the mine, which employs roughly 60 people. She added later, “It’s sort of the lifeblood of the little town of Silver Peak.”

Netherton also said that the environmental disruption to the Silver Peak area had already been done over the mine’s past 60 years of operation, which would likely see minimal new damage from the expansion.

The Silver Peak mine expansion has been billed as a matter of national security, with less than 1% of global lithium production coming from within the U.S., according to the Dallas Fed.

Speed up rare earths, too, please.