New Arizona factory to add $330M to economy making elements for 470K electric cars yearly

A small town in Yuma County will be the new home of the only cobalt processing facility in North America and will bring hundreds of jobs to the county.

Evelution Energy plans to develop a solar-powered, carbon-neutral facility to process cobalt sulfate for electric vehicle batteries. Construction is expected to begin next year with completion projected in 2025 or 2026.

On March 6, the Yuma County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a special-use permit for the company to develop its facility on a 138-acre-lot in Tacna.

Cobalt is a highly sought-after mineral used in ion-lithium batteries. About 70% of the world’s cobalt is produced by the Democratic Republic of Congo. The cobalt is then sent abroad and processed into cobalt sulfate for electric vehicle batteries, with more than 70% percent of cobalt sulfate refined in China and most of the remainder processed in Finland and Indonesia.

The newly formed Yuma-based company wants to bring battery-grade cobalt processing stateside.

“We want to bring this product to America … and process it here and sell it to North American electric vehicle battery manufacturers and carmakers,” Navaid Alam, Evelution Energy’s co-founder, president and CEO, said.

According to an economic impact assessment published by the Greater Yuma Economic Development Corporation, Evelution Energy is estimated to generate $330 million in positive economic impact in the county related to the development of the facility, from construction to road improvements and labor.

In addition, the company will create 60 jobs and generate $3.6 million annually in payroll, as well as an average of $2.5 million in local and state taxes per year. The company will bring 300 additional jobs to the area including trucking and supplier jobs, as well as other jobs needed to support the plant.

Construction of the facility is estimated to bring in over 1,229 jobs and $55 million in income.

Julie Engel, the president and CEO of Greater Yuma Economic Development Corporation, reiterated these numbers are merely estimates, as this facility is the first of its kind in North America.

To help the local community, Evelution Energy said they will provide free training programs for their workers at the Arizona Western College campus in Wellton, with the help of the Arizona Commerce Authority.

The facility will be green, using solar power and recycling water

The site where Evelution Energy will build its plant is located between Tacna and Dateland. It was previously owned by Alam and his family and already fully permitted for intensive industrial use as an Ethanol Processing Facility, which was never built due to the drop in ethanol prices.

The cobalt processing plant will run on renewable energy, producing more solar power than it can use. In turn, the company plans to sell its excess energy to local utility company Wellton-Mohawk Irrigation and Drainage District at cost for the farming community to use.

Evelution Energy expects to produce 33,000 metric tons of electric vehicle battery grade cobalt sulfate per year to support the domestic production of approximately 470,000 electric vehicles annually, according to a company press release.

Gil Michel-Garcia, the company's co-founder executive vice president and general counsel, said their product will have a smaller carbon footprint than cobalt sulfate imported from other countries.

Whereas much of the world's cobalt is exported from Africa for processing in China before being sold in the U.S., cobalt used by Evelution Energy will be sent from Africa straight to Ensenada, Mexico, before being trucked three and a half hours to the Yuma processing facility.

To process cobalt sulfate, the company plans to use 74 million gallons of water per month, sourced from groundwater wells, according to a Yuma County staff report about the project. However, it is estimated that 70% of the water used in production will be recycled and reused.

The company also aims to have a carbon-neutral facility. According to its website, the company will measure and report greenhouse gas emissions annually, and implement decarbonization strategies such as "efficiency improvements, renewables, and designing for circularity."