A few years ago, the idea of manufacturing EV batteries in the US was fraught with hurdles, the key issue being the absence of a domestic lithium pipeline. The US had earned a reputation as the biggest producer of lithium in the world, as well as the biggest user of lithium in the world (it was even used in the drink 7Up), but this growth stopped over health concerns and the US dwindled down to just one operation by the time the EV market took off.
The lithium supply chain is still problematic to the extent that it involves digging new surface mines, but an alternative solution has been emerging in the form of geothermal brine, and the US Department of Energy is pulling out all the stops to promote it. In 2020, the US Geological Survey identified five states with major deposits: Arkansas, California, Nevada, North Carolina, and Utah.
The Salton Sea in California has been one key focus of Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) activity in the US, and now the Department of Energy has put some hard numbers on the lithium resources at hand in this area. The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that new DLE technology could lead to the production of more than 3,400 kilotons of lithium, or enough to manufacture more than 375 million EV batteries.
Source: CleanTechnica: Read The Article
PSR Analysis: While the presence of lithium has been known for years, this is the first time it’s been properly analyzed and quantified. While this is great news, the problem that remains is the lack of refineries to process this into the lithium used in batteries. PSR
