Where Is There More Lithium to Power Cars and Phones? Beneath a California Lake.

[dalton99a]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/where-is-there-more-lithium-to-power-cars-and-phones-beneath-a-california-lake-11644037217

Where Is There More Lithium to Power Cars and Phones? Beneath a California Lake.
The U.S. race to secure a material known as ‘white gold’ turns to the Salton Sea, where energy companies hope to extract lithium from a geothermal reservoir
By Alistair MacDonald and Jim Carlton
Feb. 5, 2022 12:00 am ET

CALIPATRIA, Calif. — In the U.S. hunt for lithium, an essential component of the batteries that power electric vehicles and cellphones, one big untapped source might be bubbling under a giant lake in Southern California.

The U.S. currently imports almost all of its lithium, but research shows large reserves in underground geothermal brines—a scalding hot soup of minerals, metals and saltwater. The catch: Extracting lithium from such a source at commercial scale is untested.

At California’s Salton Sea, three companies, including one owned by Warren Buffett’s conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway Inc., are pushing ahead with plans to do just that. Those efforts are backed by money from governments eager to secure supplies of critical minerals that are key to several modern technologies. Prices of lithium recently rose at their fastest pace in years as supply-chain bottlenecks mounted and demand from electric-vehicle makers such as Tesla Inc. intensified.

The plans could turn this southeastern corner of California into one of the largest producers of what some call “white gold” at a time when most of that material comes from Australia, Chile and China. The geothermal reservoir under the Salton Sea area is capable of producing 600,000 metric tons a year of lithium carbonate, according to estimates from the California Energy Commission. That level of output would surpass last year’s global production.

[2naSalit]

1. Kind of dicey...

Given the location between two major quake faults and the unknown possibilities of other danger. The process sounds rather benign, hope so if they go forward. It sounds less impactful than digging up cobalt around a major wilderness area in Idaho. to which I object.

[bahboo]

2. this area could really use an economic boost...

just hope they don't fuck it up, it is austerely beautiful....

[pfitz59]

3. For those who don't know

the Salton Sea is a man-made mistake with a strange history.

[dalton99a]

4. Yep

In 1900, the California Development Company began construction of irrigation canals to divert water from the Colorado River into the Salton Sink, a dry lake bed. After construction of these irrigation canals, the Salton Sink became fertile for a time, allowing farmers to plant crops.

Within two years, the Imperial Canal became filled with silt from the Colorado River. Engineers tried to alleviate the blockages to no avail. In 1905, heavy rainfall and snowmelt caused the Colorado River to swell, overrunning a set of headgates for the Alamo Canal. The resulting flood poured down the canal, breached an Imperial Valley dike, and ran down two former dry arroyos: the New River in the west, and the Alamo River in the east. Over about two years, these two newly created rivers sporadically carried the entire volume of the Colorado River into the Salton Sink.

The Southern Pacific Railroad tried to stop the flooding by dumping earth into the canal's headgates area, but the effort was not fast enough, and the river eroded deeper and deeper into the dry desert sand of the Imperial Valley. A large waterfall formed as a result and began cutting rapidly upstream along the path of the Alamo Canal that now was occupied by the Colorado. This waterfall was initially 15 feet high, but grew to 80 feet high before the flow through the breach was stopped. Originally, it was feared that the waterfall would recede upstream to the true main path of the Colorado, becoming up to 100 to 300 high, at which point it would be practically impossible to fix the problem.

As the basin filled, the town of Salton, a Southern Pacific Railroad siding, and Torres-Martinez Native American land were submerged. The sudden influx of water and the lack of any drainage from the basin resulted in the formation of the Salton Sea.

https://www.raremaps.com/gallery/detail/58339/reconnaissance-map-of-the-salton-sink-california-1906-us-geological-survey

[standingtall]

5. True it's an accidential Lake

but it's my understanding that there was once a natural Lake there too that dried up, because it had no water flowing into it, but going back further it was believed to be linked to the Sea of Cortez. They could build a canal from the Sea of Cortez flowing into the Salton Sea and that would be a permanent fix. Question is do they want to invest the money into such a costly project? Could actually cost more in the long run than not doing it?