Lithium Americas has announced that should it satisfy certain requirements, it will be receiving $2.26 billion in loans from the US Department of Energy to build phase 1 of its lithium mining project in Thacker Pass, Nevada. Alongside a $650 million equity investment from General Motors (GM), the loan will provide most of the funding required to bring phase 1 of the project online, as it aims for scale production of 40,000 tons of lithium carbonate per year from 2027. The DoE claims production from phase 1 could translate to 800,000 EVs per year, eliminating the consumption of 317 million gallons of gasoline per year. When finalized, the loan is going to come from the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing program…