Tesla's Texas Lithium Refinery Will Require Millions of Gallons of Water Daily
Investing.com -- Tesla Inc is nearing the completion of a lithium refinery located twenty miles outside Corpus Christi, Texas. As part of the effort to establish a more robust domestic supply chain for electric vehicle batteries, the refinery may require up to 8 million gallons of water per day. However, the company has yet to sign a contract for the water needed to operate the facility.
The $1 billion project was announced in December, and Tesla has stated that it has begun testing lithium processing capacity at the new factory. However, the absence of a water contract could pose a challenge for CEO Elon Musk's goal of converting lithium into chemical products for battery production.
Tesla's plans have raised concerns among some residents in the region, known for its dry conditions. Residents are worried not only about meeting the water demand of a large factory but also about the availability of water for their own needs.
In 2022, Tesla estimated that the lithium facility would require 400,000 gallons of water per day, with peak usage reaching up to 800,000 gallons per day. By 2024, that estimate had dramatically increased. According to records from the South Texas Water Authority, a Tesla employee informed the consulting firm Raftelis that this figure could rise to as much as 8 million gallons per day.
Water is regulated by the South Texas Water Authority, but Tesla is negotiating water supply contracts with Nueces Water Supply Corp, a water supply company. Neither organization has commented on the negotiations.
To put Tesla's potential water usage into perspective, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average American household uses about 300 gallons of water per day. For Robstown, which has 3,804 households as of 2023, this equates to about 1.1 million gallons of water per day. Tesla's upper estimate of 8 million gallons per day is equivalent to eight times the average residential water usage in Robstown. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, this amount of water would be enough to fill eight swimming pools, each ten feet deep and roughly the size of a football field.