A California lake could sit on top of 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 the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory results, which determined the underground pool could hold 18 million tons – enough to meet the US’s demand for the valuable metal for decades.
One ton of lithium is currently priced at $29,000, making the supply in the Salton Sea worth more than $540 billion.
While the Salton Sea has long been known to hold lithium, this is the first analysis to show the extent of the supply, which the DOE said could support over 375 million electric vehicle batteries.
Lithium is a critical component for batteries that power everything from smartphones to electric vehicles and solar panels – and China has dominated the market for decades because 90 percent of the metal mined is refined in the nation.
The Department of Energy (DOE) shared the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory results, which determined the underground pool could hold 18 million tons – enough to meet the US’s demand for the valuable metal for decades
The Salton Sea is 35 miles long, 15 miles wide and 51 feet deep, and located in Riverside and Imperial counties at the southern end of California
Jeff Marootian, principal deputy assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy, said: ‘Lithium is vital to decarbonizing the economy and meeting President Biden’s goals of 50 percent electric vehicle adoption by 2030.
‘This report confirms the once-in-a-generation opportunity to build a domestic lithium industry at home while also expanding clean, flexible electricity generation.
‘Using American innovation, we can lead the clean energy future, create jobs and a strong domestic supply chain, and boost our national energy security.’
The Salton Sea is 35 miles long, 15 miles wide and 51 feet deep, and located in Riverside and Imperial counties at the southern end of California.
Three companies are vying to be the first to tap into the white gold mine.
Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Energy, one of the companies working to pull lithium from the lake, was given a $14.9 million grant in 2021 by the DOE to study how Salton Sea-region lithium could be used to make lithium hydroxide, a specialized type of the metal that produces more efficient and longer-lasting EV batteries.
The company owns 10 of the 11 geothermal power plants at the Salton Sea.
Three companies will use power plants to extract the lithium to pull superheated brine from the ground
Controlled Thermal Resources announced in January that it had recovered lithium from its geothermal brine resource and is set to construct a massive plant at the site (pictured)
Lithium hydroxide can be easily synthesized with nickel, increasing the battery’s energy density when formulating cathode materials.
EnergySource has also secured an investment to accelerate the deployment of its extraction platform at the lake, and Controlled Thermal Resources is also a prospect of the mine.
Controlled Thermal Resources announced in January that it had recovered lithium from its geothermal brine resource and is set to construct a massive plant at the site.
The companies provided more than 22 researchers with brine samples to analyze and determine a potential supply lurking beneath the lake.
The team’s analysis, funded by the DOE, determined there are at least four million tons of lithium based on the portion of the geothermal reservoir that has 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 power.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has referred to the Salton Sea as ‘the Saudi Arabia of lithium production,’ but extracting it at a large scale could be challenging.
Unlike other lithium mines in the US, the Salton Sea is an area of geothermal activity that happens to contain large amounts of precious metal.
According to the DOE, extraction is more environmentally friendly than other mining practices that leave gaping holes or require large amounts of water and land.
Along with lithium, other minerals like iron, magnesium, calcium and sodium will also be extracted, separated through the process, and returned to the earth.
The brine boiling from the subsurface contains a rich stew of many dissolved minerals and lithium.
Berkley Lab’s Will Stringfellow, who led a recent study on extracting lithium from geothermal brine, said: ‘It comes out at over 100 degrees Celsius.
‘So, you have to deal with the heat. And it’s very, very saline – about 25 percent by weight. There’s a lot of salt, meaning 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 materials that could potentially interfere with the extraction.’
However, experts believe separating lithium from geothermal brine is less invasive than blasting and other hard rock mining.
