Canadian Mining Journal - Carl A Williams

Excerpt:

While geothermal lithium brines currently make up only about 3% of known global lithium resources, extracting lithium from geothermal waters has a minuscule environmental footprint compared to hard rock mining and salars.

The Salton Sea in Southern California is the largest-known geothermal lithium brine resource globally. According to David Hochschild, chair of the California Energy Commission, the area “has the potential to supply 40% of global lithium demand … [and] will allow for the greenest way to recover lithium that exists in the world.”

Working in the Salton Sea geothermal field in Imperial Valley is Controlled Thermal Resources. The privately-held Australian company is advancing its Hell’s Kitchen lithium and power project, which will combine DLE with renewable geothermal energy to produce an environmentally sustainable source of lithium and renewably generated electricity.

Rod Colwell, Controlled Thermal Resource’s CEO, says the project “will not only provide a significant supply of battery grade lithium to meet the expected increase in demand, but the project also offers an environmentally sustainable source of lithium when compared to pit mining and evaporation ponds.”

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