Beneath the Salton Sea in California is a lithium deposit with reserves of up to 18 million tons, enough to last the United States for decades to come.
Salton Sea from above. Photo: Wikipedia
Southern California’s Salton Sea has attracted companies large and small looking to cheaply mine the lithium dissolved in the scalding brine that flows beneath its southern tip. But new research funded by the US Department of Energy (DOE) has found that the basin holds even more lithium than previously thought. The study found that up to 18 million tons of lithium could be mined from the Salton Sea, enough to meet US demand for decades, the Mail reported on December 4. That makes the Salton Sea the world’s largest lithium reserve, surpassing Chile’s 9 million tons.
Lithium currently costs $29,000 a ton, making the Salton Sea’s supply worth more than $540 million. The DOE says the lithium there could power the batteries of more than 374 million electric vehicles. Lithium, or “white gold,” is a key metal in the batteries used in everything from smartphones to electric vehicles to solar panels. China has dominated the market for decades, accounting for 90 percent of the world’s lithium supply.
The Salton Sea is 35 miles long, 15 miles wide and 50 feet wide, located in Riverside and Imperial counties in California. Three companies are currently seeking to be the first to mine the white gold. Berkshire Hathaway Energy (BHE), one of them, received a $14.9 million grant from the DOE in 2021 to study how to use lithium from the Salton Sea to produce lithium hydroxide, a special metal compound that makes batteries more efficient and durable. The company owns 10 of the 11 geothermal power plants in the Salton Sea. Lithium hydroxide can be easily mixed with nickel to create batteries, unlike regular lithium. Adding nickel increases the battery's energy density.
In addition to BHE, EnergySource has also received funding to accelerate the development of a mining platform at the lake. Controlled Thermal Resources announced in January that it had extracted lithium from geothermal brines and planned to build a large-scale plant in the area. They provided more than 22 scientists with samples of the brines to analyze and determine the potential supply beneath the lake. The team’s analysis found at least 4 million tons of lithium based on the portion of the geothermal lake that has been drilled. Estimates suggest that the amount of lithium could reach 18 million tons if the entire lake were drilled to produce more geothermal energy.
Unlike other lithium mines in the U.S., the Salton Sea is a geothermally active area that holds large amounts of the rare metal, allowing companies to use hyperbaric steam, which involves drawing hot water from deep within the Earth and converting it into steam to power turbines that generate electricity. Currently, most lithium is mined from solid rock or underground brine reservoirs. Much of the energy used to mine and process lithium comes from fossil fuels that emit CO2. Hyperbaric steam is more environmentally friendly than other mining methods, which require large amounts of water and land, according to the DOE.
Initial estimates indicate that lithium extraction requires about 3% of the region’s available water supply. The extraction process involves drilling thousands of feet below the Salton Sea floor, then pumping the hot brine to the surface. Along with the lithium, other metals such as iron, magnesium, calcium, and sodium are also extracted and separated.
An Khang (According to Mail )
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