Starting Monday, Aug. 17, a dozen massive superloads carrying crystallizer components will begin a historic, nearly 600-mile trek from Plymouth, Utah to Thacker Pass along U.S. Route 50, closing out more than a year of transportation planning.
One of several crystallizers manufactured by Great Basin Industrial (GBI), a fabricator based in Plymouth, Utah, is ready for its journey to Thacker Pass.
Starting Monday, Aug. 17, drivers across Nevada and Utah may spot something unusual on U.S. Route 50: a series of a dozen massive superloads carrying crystallizer components bound for Thacker Pass. Over the next several weeks, 12 of these oversized shipments will make their way from Utah, across the Nevada desert, closing out a nearly 600-mile transportation planning effort that's been more than a year in the making.
These crystallizers are being manufactured by Great Basin Industrial (GBI), a fabricator based in Plymouth, Utah. Lithium Americas is proud to strengthen domestic partnerships while advancing our project by sourcing this critical equipment from our neighbors in Utah.
About the Crystallizers
Crystallization is the final step of the Thacker Pass processing flowsheet, where dissolved lithium in solution is converted to solid lithium carbonate. The front-end of the process is designed to extract lithium from incoming ore and produce a lithium-rich solution, which is further purified and concentrated. This solution is fed to the crystallizers in combination with soda ash to make lithium carbonate, the lithium compound used to manufacture batteries for electric vehicles and other technologies. By precisely managing temperature, timing, and chemistry, the crystallizers produce high purity, consistent lithium carbonate crystals, which are then separated, washed, and dried into the final product made at Thacker Pass.
Why U.S. 50?
Known as "The Loneliest Road in America", U.S. 50 wasn't picked for the scenery, though there's plenty of it. The route was chosen specifically because it offers a path through Nevada with the fewest possible disruptions to everyday traffic, avoiding busier corridors and structures that couldn't accommodate loads this large. "We didn't just pick a route. We built one," said Keith Lincoln, LAC Transportation and Logistics Consultant.
The GBI crystallizer superload nearly 600-mile route from Plymouth, Utah to Thacker Pass, Nevada.
"Every time we encountered an obstacle during mapping, whether it was a bridge, a utility line, or a mountain pass the loads couldn't clear, the team went back to the drawing board.
We changed equipment configurations, worked with state agencies to adjust operating conditions, and in some cases explored building new infrastructure, all to find a path that worked for the project and for the communities along the way."
A yearlong logistics puzzle
Getting these crystallizers to Thacker Pass wasn't as simple as mapping a route on GPS. Some of these loads approach 20 feet wide and 20 feet tall laying on their sides, dimensions that ruled out countless roads due to bridges, overhead power lines, tunnels, and wildlife crossings. The team physically inspected roughly 1,300 miles of roadway across Utah, Idaho, Oregon, and Nevada, using field measurements and advanced modeling to determine, inch by inch, what could actually work.
What to expect
Travelers along the route may see law enforcement escorts, staging trucks overnight in designated areas, and temporary traffic pauses as loads move through.
In Utah and Idaho, the route follows:
- From Plymouth, Utah: north on I-15 to Malad City, Idaho
- ID-38 in Malad City, Idaho, to Holbrook, Idaho
- S-21000W to Snowville, Utah
- US-30 to the Nevada state line
In Nevada, the route follows:
- SR-233 from the Utah border to I-80 at Oasis
- I-80 west, then south on US-93 from Wells to Ely
- US-50 from Ely, through Eureka and Austin
- SR-305 from Austin to Battle Mountain, then to I-80 and on to Winnemucca
- US-95 from Winnemucca to Orovada, then NV-293 from Orovada to Thacker Pass
This kind of large-scale transport isn't unheard of. Earlier this year, a superload led curious residents in rural Colorado to wonder what was rolling through town. LAC wants communities to have the full picture from day one: these are Thacker Pass components, moving safely under permitted coordination with the Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT). Safety for the traveling public remains the top priority throughout.
The team is also working with Nevada's Burning Man travel restrictions in mind (roughly Aug. 28 – Sept. 7), which limit oversized loads on state highways during that window.
Superload shipment timeframes will be posted by NDOT to NVRoads.com before transportation day. Lithium Americas will also share shipment updates in our weekly community newsletter so Nevada residents and travelers can plan ahead.