The Salton Sea (English Salton Sea) is with an area of nearly 1000 square kilometers, the largest lake in the US state of California. The lake is located in the Colorado desert in southern California west of the Chocolate Mountains.
Lithium, the key metal of the future
Demand for lithium will boom over the next few years, and the United States intends to increase its share of the world market for the metal used in electric vehicle and cell phone batteries, energy storage and other consumer goods.
Bloomberg NEF predicts that global demand for lithium to 2025 will double to around 800.000 tonnes. Electric vehicle batteries will account for most of this demand, followed by consumer electronics and energy storage. In the face of this booming demand, the US wants to dominate the lithium production market.
San Diego-based EnergySource is addressing this challenge by launching a new lithium recovery technology that can lower lithium production costs while importing metal from a handful of global markets that keep costs high. It also provides a targeted lithium supply that companies have been trying to use for decades.
The Saltonsee was created artificially. After the Imperial Valley Channel (Alamo Channel) 1905 did not drain enough water from the Colorado River into the valley, the operating California Development Company came up with the idea of creating another overflow from the Colorado River to the Channel.
This supply takes place under geothermal power plants, which interlock in the immediate vicinity of one of the largest geothermal hotspots in the world - the Salton Sea in the Californian desert, where the systems have been in operation since the 1980s. The market is so tight that Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently made an offer for a competitor - Simbol Materials - for $ 225 million. The company went bankrupt shortly afterwards and Tesla and its competitors had to wait for another supplier from the precious metals market.
Major lithium projects currently underway in the US include Piedmont Lithium's hard rock lithium project in North Carolina, Arkansas Smackover lithium lithium salt project by Standard Lithium and Lithium Americas lithium rock project Thacker Pass in Nevada. Last year's production also comes from a salt mill in Nevada, probably in the Clayton Valley, home to Albemarle's Silver Peak Mine.
Actual production in the US can only be estimated as the leading lithium producers in the US withhold investment news production numbers to avoid publishing proprietary data. The US is one of the nine largest lithium producers in the world, with Australia, Chile, China and Argentina leading the global industry.
It was the focus of a conference in Washington in May, speakers from Tesla, the US Department of State and the Department of Energy and Standard Lithium Ltd. and other companies working on the development of US lithium mines.
Tesla, Volkswagen, other automakers and battery manufacturers are expanding their EV and lithium-ion battery performance. They are disappointed that they depend on mineral imports without having a significant impact on the development of domestic mines and processing plants.
US Senator Lisa Murkowski, the Alaska Republican, chairing the Senate's Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said at the May conference that she would introduce the American Mineral Security Act with Senator Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat , Legislation has been drafted to simplify regulation and to enable requirements for the development of mines for lithium, graphite and other EV supply chain minerals. Senators see it as part of a plan to balance China's dominance in the global marketplace.
At times, the entire water of the Colorado River flowed into the Salton Valley. There formed a 70 km long and 30 km wide lake in the otherwise dried pool, which belongs to the Imperial Valley. The water collected at the lowest point of the valley. It took until 1907 until the floods could be brought under control by construction of the Southern Pacific Railroad and the Colorado flowed again in his old bed.
“Our main job is still to understand the weakness we have as a nation when it comes to relying on others to preserve our minerals,” Murkowski said.
The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources is reviewing an amended version of the American Mineral Security Act. A similar version of the law is currently being examined in the House of Representatives.
The production of electric vehicles was costly, mainly because of the battery packs and precious lithium used in almost all vehicles. Solid-state batteries and other options for EV batteries are being developed, but lithium is expected to dominate EV battery storage for years to come. It is expected that the extraction of this metal in the US will be an important step in the competition with the huge Chinese EV market.
As lithium production in the US slowly gains in importance, breakthroughs such as the development of the Salton Sea could lead to a radical change in the industry. Berkshire Hathaway's Energy Department has been working with the US Department of Energy to solve the challenges that have stalled lithium production on the Salton Sea, so we could see a real American lithium revolution in the near future.
By Jon LeSage for Oilessene/ISE - October 2019
