[ars]

Transportation uses very very little energy compared to everything else that needs to be done.

You will not find your magical technology in shipping.

Additionally ocean shipping is cheap enough that it can take less energy to ship something to the other side of the world than to the other side of Nevada.

[lotsofmangos]

I had a dig around, you are right that transport of lithium is relatively negligible in the energy budget (back of an envelope calculations suggest around 0.5 kwh for a 1 kwh capacity battery), transport of other material such as nickel is actually more important, but even when you add them all together it is only maybe a couple of percent or so of the energy involved.

It seems that the drying process is the one to target as it accounts for around 50% of the energy budget and uses big electric ovens. Electric ovens are something that respond very well to economies of scale though, given the losses are a function of the volume versus the surface area, so you could see significant reductions there with a factory this size.