WASHINGTON – The Responsible Battery Coalition (RBC) today celebrated the announcement of a $7.4 billion critical minerals processing facility in Tennessee led by Korea Zinc with significant U.S. government participation, marking a major step forward in securing responsible and resilient supply chains for battery technologies and other strategic sectors. The project represents the largest single private-sector investment in Tennessee’s history.
"This investment marks a significant milestone in America’s long-term effort to build secure, responsible critical mineral supply chains to build the batteries we rely on for our national and energy security,” said Major General William “Bill” Crane (Ret.), Chair of the Responsible Battery Coalition’s Critical Minerals Leadership Roundtable. “We commend the Trump Administration’s innovative approach to give the American people a durable, resilient supply chain of battery materials through joint ownership in this project. This is the type of bold, forward-looking collaboration that reduces U.S. dependency on adversarial sources.”
According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, the company’s smelter will produce 540,000 tons per year of essential materials, including gallium, germanium, indium, antimony, copper, silver, gold, and zinc. These minerals are vital for manufacturing batteries used in grid storage, transportation and defense applications.
The investment directly advances priorities outlined in President Donald Trump’s recently released National Security Strategy, which emphasizes that economic security is fundamental to national security. The strategy specifically calls for expanding American access to critical minerals, countering predatory economic practices by adversaries, and reindustrializing the American economy through re-shoring industrial production.
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About RBC
The RBC is a coalition of companies, academics, and organizations committed to the responsible management of the batteries of today and tomorrow. Members include: Advance Auto Parts, AutoZone, Capital City Ventures, Clarios, ENTEK, FedEx, Honda and O’Reilly Auto Parts. RBC was created in April 2017 to advance the responsible production, transport, sale, use, reuse, recycling and resource recovery of transportation, industrial and stationary batteries and other energy storage devices. For more information: https://www.responsiblebatterycoalition.org/
