The Economic Development Authority of Western Nevada this week announced that Nanotech Energy is expanding to Northern Nevada with a 517-acre, multiple building manufacturing facility in the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center east of Reno-Sparks. According to a Nov. 10 press release from EDAWN, the Los Angeles-based company — billed as “the world’s leading manufacturer of graphene and the only producer of non-flammable, graphene-based batteries on the market” — plans to fill more than 1,000 jobs over the next five years at the Storey County campus. “The high-volume facility will significantly increase Nanotech Energy’s manufacturing capacity to produce and scale its patented, non-flammable … batteries and other graphene-powered products, including EMI (electromagnetic interference) shielding, transparent conducting electrodes, conductive inks, conductive adhesives and silver nanowires,” according to the release. “Nanotech Energy’s proprietary, graphene-based, nanotechnology overcomes the safety, limited storage capacity and recharge speed challenges of traditional lithium-ion batteries, and our new Northern Nevada facility will manufacture energy storage that will help power the world,” Nanotech Energy Chairman and CEO Dr. Jack Kavanaugh said in a statement. “Nanotech Energy is the first and only producer to break the 50% content barrier by reaching 98% monolayer graphene, the wonder material that powers our products. We’ve already developed groundbreaking energy storage using technology that has the high capacity of a battery and the power performance of supercapacitors in a single solution.” Founded in 2014 by Kavanaugh and UCLA scientists Dr. Richard Kaner and Dr. Maher El-Kady, Nanotech Energy is a privately held company backed by Multiverse Investment Fund, Fubon Financial Group and other investors. Nanotech also owns a manufacturing plant in Chico, California. According to a Nov. 10 story from the Reno Gazette Journal, the company plans to move its home office to Florida before eventually domiciling in Nevada for tax and legal purposes once major construction is done on its new facility. Nanotech recently announced $64 million in Series D funding at a $550 million post-Series D valuation, bringing the company's total amount of funding raised to date to $94.9 million. EDAWN reports the 517-acre campus at TRIC would include multiple buildings; the first, at 225,000 square feet, is slated to open in the fourth quarter of 2022. Of the more-than 1,000 jobs planned, “a significant number” will be engineering and research positions. “The expansion of Nanotech Energy to Northern Nevada is a potential game-changer that aligns closely with our energy and economic development initiatives, bringing a significant number of high paying, engineering jobs to our community,” Mike Kazmierski, CEO of EDAWN, said in a statement. “The future of generations to come depends on technological advances that harness renewable energy and implementation in products that have the potential to impact and benefit countless aspects of our lives. Nanotech Energy is leading this charge and I couldn’t be more excited to welcome them to Nevada. “A special thanks to the Governor’s Office of Economic Development for supporting this project.” According to past reports, the GOED board in December OK’d $20.7 million in tax abatements for Nanotech Energy over the next decade to do business in Northern Nevada; in return, the company will produce $21.8 million in tax revenues. Initially, according to the GOED application, the firm’s estimated economic impact over the next 10 years was pegged at $586 million and included 302 jobs — a number that increased significantly with last week’s announcement.
