See this headline from The Reno Gazette-Journal from yesterday, 2 October 2021:

Welcome to Reno, the Biggest Lithium City | Reno Memo

Tesla is celebrating the production of its 1 millionth battery pack at the Gigafactory, a little less than five years after production began in the desert east of Sparks. Carson City-based Redwood Materials landed a $50 million investment from Ford last month to work on recycling electric vehicle batteries. Lithium Americas has plans to mine the largest known lithium deposit in the U.S. up near the Oregon state line. And now Aqua Metals is adding a facility for battery recycling technology at the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center (details below). 

Is lithium our thing now? Will we have to put up with all the lithium-related stereotypes now? Are there lithium-related stereotypes? Discuss among yourselves while we get to the news.

'Oh, you're into acid jazz? I've been listening to a lot of Aqua Metal lately'

Drive in any direction from Reno/Sparks and you won't get too far before you run across one of the region's many lithium-ion battery recycling operations. (You also won't get too far without having to stop and charge your car for a few hours.) The latest addition to the local battery-recycling scene is Aqua Metals' Innovation Center, aimed at perfecting its AquaRefining technology before licensing the process to other parties. The company had been performing the recycling itself at its 136,000-square-foot facility, but it shifted its philosophy to licensing deals after a significant fire at the facility last November.