A California lake could lie above a “white gold” mine after a federally funded study found the Salton Sea has the world's largest lithium supply.
The Department of Energy (DOE) shared results from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which determined that the underground pool could hold 18 million tons. Enough to meet US demand for the precious metal for decades.
The price of one ton of lithium is currently $29,000, putting the supply value in the Salton Sea at more than $540 billion.
While the Salton Sea has long been known to contain lithium, this is the first analysis to show the size of the supply, which the Department of Energy said could potentially… Supporting more than 375 million electric vehicle batteries.
Lithium is a crucial component in the batteries that power everything from smartphones to electric cars and solar panels. China has dominated the market for decades because 90% of the extracted metal is refined in the country.
The Department of Energy (DOE) shared results from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which determined that the underground pool could hold 18 million tons — enough to meet U.S. demand for the precious metal for decades.
The Salton Sea is 35 miles long, 15 miles wide, and 51 feet deep, and is located in Riverside and Imperial counties at the southern tip of California.
Jeff Marutian, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy He said: Lithium is vital to decarbonizing the economy and achieving President Biden's goals of 50 percent electric vehicle adoption by 2030.
“This report underscores the once-in-a-generation opportunity to build a domestic lithium industry at home while also expanding clean and resilient electricity generation.
“Using American innovation, we can lead a clean energy future, create jobs and a strong domestic supply chain, and strengthen our national energy security.”
The Salton Sea is 35 miles long, 15 miles wide, and 51 feet deep, and is located in Riverside and Imperial counties at the southern tip of California.
Three companies are competing to be the first to exploit the white gold mine.
Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Energy, one of the companies working to pull lithium from the lake, was awarded a $14.9 million grant in 2021 by the Department of Energy to study how lithium in the Salton Sea region is used to make lithium hydroxide, a specialized type of mineral. Which produces more efficient and longer-lasting EV batteries.
The company owns 10 of the 11 geothermal power plants in the Salton Sea.
Three companies will use lithium extraction power plants to pull superheated brine from the Earth
Controlled Thermal Resources announced in January that it had recovered lithium from a brine geothermal source, and is set to build a massive plant on the site (pictured)
Lithium hydroxide can be easily synthesized with nickel, which increases the battery's energy density when the cathode materials are installed.
EnergySource has also secured investment to accelerate the deployment of its extraction platform at the lake, and Controlled Thermal Resources is one possibility for the mine.
Controlled Thermal Resources announced in January that it had recovered lithium from a geothermal brine source, and is set to build a massive plant at the site.
The companies provided more than two dozen researchers with brine samples to analyze and identify potential supplies lurking beneath the lake.
The team's analysis, funded by the Department of Energy, found at least four million tons of lithium based on the portion of the geothermal reservoir that had already been drilled.
There is also an estimated 18 million tons of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) if the entire reservoir is drilled to produce more geothermal energy.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has referred to the Salton Sea as the “Saudi Arabia of lithium production,” but extracting it on a large scale could be difficult.
Unlike other lithium mines in the United States, the Salton Sea is an area of geothermal activity that contains significant amounts of the precious metal.
According to the Department of Energy, extraction is more environmentally friendly than other mining practices that leave large gaps or require large amounts of water and land.
Along with lithium, other mMinerals such as iron, magnesium, calcium and sodium will also be extracted and separated during the process and returned to the Earth.
The brine boiling from the ground contains a mixture rich in many dissolved minerals and lithium.
“It comes out at over 100 degrees Celsius,” said Will Stringfellow of Berkeley Lab, who led a recent study on extracting lithium from geothermal brine water.
“So, you have to deal with the heat. And it's very, very salty — about 25 percent by weight. There's a lot of salt, and that means a lot of sodium and chloride.”
“There's also a lot of calcium and magnesium and other things like iron and silicon.
“These are all substances that can interfere with the extraction process.”
However, experts believe that separating lithium from geothermal brine is less invasive than blasting and other hard rock mining processes.
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