May 12, 2022—Could a remote saline lake near the California-Mexico border provide enough lithium to power electric vehicles in the United States for decades?
According to CNN Business special report shared by the Seattle Medium, the Salton Sea could have enough lithium in the groundwater to power enough EV battery production to move the auto industry’s electric future forward.
“Geologically this is an interesting place. The Colorado River has cut canyons in the West. All of those minerals, all of those deposits have made their way here. There certainly is a lot of lithium potential here. You could calculate approximately a little over 100,000 tons of lithium battery products. I think there is a potential to double that,” said Derek Benson, chief operating officer of Energy Source Materials, one of the companies exploring the Salton Sea’s lithium potential.
He believes there is enough lithium on-site to supply EV batteries for a long time.
To get to the lithium, geothermal facilities will extract it from the abundance of brine below the sea as a method of “clean energy creating clean energy,” says the report.
Automakers from around the country have been spotted visiting the area. Italvolt has announced plans to build a production facility in the area to produce enough lithium to provide batteries for up to 650,000 EVs per year.
