An enormous Lithium deposit has been found beneath the Salton Sea in California. FOX Enterprise Correspondent Max Gorden discusses the plans for extraction and issues over the environmental influence.
An enormous lithium discover in California’s Salton Sea area may assist increase home provides of the mineral, which performs a important position in manufacturing of electrical automobile (EV) batteries.
The Salton Sea area of Southern California is at present dwelling to important geothermal electrical energy era. An evaluation by a California state fee in 2020 discovered that the area’s lithium focus within the geothermal brines which are a byproduct of electrical energy era is believed to be the best on this planet.
The Division of Vitality introduced in November 2023 that an evaluation by the Lawrence Berkeley Nationwide Laboratory discovered that the Salton Sea area may have assets to provide over 3,400 kilotons (or 3.4 million tons) of lithium – sufficient to assist greater than 375 million EV batteries. For context, that is greater than the entire variety of automobiles on U.S. roads.
The evaporation of parts of the Salton Sea has minimize into the area’s tourism economic system in current many years, and including lithium mining to its rising geothermal vitality era may very well be a wanted increase for the world. Nevertheless, some have raised environmental issues in regards to the venture.
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California’s Salton Sea area has seen the expansion of geothermal vitality manufacturing, which has led to the invention of huge lithium reserves. (David McNew/Getty Photographs / Getty Photographs)
FOX Enterprise Community’s Max Gorden spoke with Rod Colwell, CEO of Managed Thermal Assets (CTR), which is shifting ahead with a venture to extract and course of lithium within the area whereas being powered by geothermal vitality.
CTR’s venture has acquired funding from automakers GM and Stellantis, whereas different corporations even have lithium vegetation deliberate for the area.
“I would say, think about maybe the early days of big oil,” Colwell stated. “This is a very similar process, clean and green.”
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Managed Thermal Assets is planning a lithium processing facility within the Salton Sea area. (David McNew/Getty Photographs / Getty Photographs)
A pair of advocacy teams, Earthworks and the Comite Civico del Valle, have filed a lawsuit to decelerate the venture to implement extra stringent safeguards concerning the environmental influence when it comes to water use and dealing with hazardous byproducts from lithium manufacturing.
“It will set the precedent for how these projects move forward, whether they follow high environmental safeguards and respect for communities,” Earthwork’s Jared Maimark stated of the venture and lawsuit.
The lawsuit is at present pending, and a listening to is scheduled for Thursday.
The authorized course of taking part in out surrounding lithium mining in California comes as a current evaluation by the U.S. Geological Survey discovered that the Smackover Formation in Arkansas may have between 5 million and 19 million tons of lithium reserves.
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The U.S. at present imports greater than 25% of its lithium. A USGS report famous that from 2019 to 2022, U.S. lithium imports got here primarily from Argentina (51%) and Chile (43%), with notably smaller quantities imported from China (3%) and Russia (2%).
Australia’s lithium mines have been the world’s best, adopted by Chile and China, per the USGS report. The world’s largest lithium reserves have been Chile with 9.3 million tons, Australia with 6.2 million tons, Argentina with 3.6 million tons and China with 3 million tons, in response to the January 2024 report. For comparability, U.S. reserves have been 1.1 million tons of lithium.
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Measured and indicated lithium assets within the report have been 14 million tons for the U.S., lower than Bolivia’s 23 million tons and Argentina’s 22 million tons, although that determine exceeded Chile’s 11 million tons, Australia’s 8.7 million tons and China’s 6.8 million tons.
The USGS report famous that around the globe, lithium’s essential finish use is for batteries (87%), adopted by ceramics and glass (4%), lubricating greases (2%), air therapy (1%), steady casting mildew flux powders (1%), medical (1%) and different makes use of (4%).
