Can California’s lithium valley power a US EV revolution?

the sultan c geothermal field in california potentially holds enough lithium for all of north america's electric car and battery storage needs so is this the answer and what actually is going on here hello my friends welcome to the electric viking my name is sam evans great to have you here on the channel welcome to all you new subscribers welcome back everyone else we've done a thousand videos over the past eight months so thank you for subscribing to the channel and for supporting the channel thank you for jumping on patreon and supporting us that way or simply through liking commenting on the videos i really appreciate all of your support means a lot now what is happening here in this amazing place in north america the salton sea geothermal field in california potentially holds enough lithium to meet all of america's domestic battery needs with even enough left over to export some of it but how much of that lithium can actually be extracted in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way and how long will the resource last these are just a few of the questions that researchers are hoping to answer in a new project sponsored by the us department of energy now the u.s department of energy says there are currently 11 commercial plants at the salton sea field producing geothermal energy a clean renewable form of energy in which hot fluids are pumped up from deep underground and the heat is then converted to electricity normally the cooled fluid would simply be re-injected underground but the idea is to first extract the lithium from the brine before injecting it back underground with the push by california and many other states and countries to expand adoption of electric vehicles the demand for batteries and the lithium needed to make batteries will skyrocket battery deployment this year was 115 more than the previous year that's huge with nearly 1.2 million in support from does geothermal technologies office scientists from lawrence berkeley national laboratory or berkeley lab uc riverside and geological geothermal inc will work together to quantify and characterize the lithium in this hyper saline geothermal reservoir located far beneath the surface of earth near the sultan sea in imperial county the project is the first comprehensive scientific effort to map out california's so-called lithium valley and attempt to gain a detailed understanding of the mineral-rich underground brine at the sultan c geothermal system now obviously the idea here is to do what america has done with energy become energy independent of course currently america north america in particular doesn't have anywhere near what they could claim is true energy independence because what we need for that to really happen is enough lithium to build all the batteries that america needs right not just north america i'm talking about not just the us i'm talking about canada alaska the united states mexico you know the entire continent obviously there's a lot of lithium in south america but currently very little is being actually produced or mined in the u.s now using an electron microscope and other advanced analytical tools for example they hope to learn the mineral sources of lithium and whether the rocks will recharge the brine with lithium after it has been extracted from the produced fluids the project team are also investigating potential environmental impacts to quantify how much water and chemical usage is needed for lithium extraction air quality during the extraction process and potential induced seismicity from the associated geothermal energy production we're excited to fund berkeley lab to develop this rich and detailed analysis of the lithium resource potential at the salton sea this project will provide critical insights about the subsurface that will help us secure a domestic lithium supply chain using the most environmentally responsible data-driven pathway said alexis mckittrick program manager for hydrothermal resources geothermal technologies office so as you can see there's still a long way to go before we can actually work out whether or not we can extract all that lithium the sultan c geothermal system is the primary potential geothermal resource for lithium in the united states and it's a world-class resource said pat dobson the berkeley lab scientist who is leading the project he said there is a wide range of estimates in terms of the size of the resource and also not a great understanding of where the lithium actually comes from the rate at which it would decline over time with extraction of lithium from the geothermal brines and whether it would be replenished by the remaining lithium in the host rocks that's important currently most of the world's lithium supply is either mined from open pit mines which are common in china and here in australia or it's extracted from sailor deposits or salt lake flats in south america lithium is obtained from these huge deposits the largest sailor located in bolivia is the size of the big island of hawaii simply by pumping up the shallow ground water and letting it sit for a year or two while the sun evaporates the water leaving the lithium behind both of these methods though have serious environmental issues associated with them we think geothermal lithium is one of the least environmentally impactful ways of obtaining lithium so that's the good news this could be a much better option than the way it's currently being done this is what dobson said he's an expert in geothermal energy and a key contributor to berkeley labs lithium resource research and innovation center we want to understand how to mitigate any environmental side effects to make it even more benign in other words they're looking at how can we basically have almost no impact on the environment is that possible might be the saudi arabia of lithium the potential size of the lithium resource at the salton sea is staggering governor gavin newsom recently called california the saudi arabia of lithium and the state established the lithium valley commission last year to research and write a report on the actual opportunities there you you see riverside geochemist michael mckibben who has been studying the sultan c geothermal field since the 1970s agrees with the incredible potential he said if you do a back of the envelope calculation you can convince yourself there's somewhere between one and six million metric tons of lithium in that field alone he said that would be the largest brine source of lithium in the world period bigger than any individual south american sailor deposit so it's a big big number and it means the potential is there for a gain back of the envelope calculations something like 50 to 100 years worth of lithium production those figures are insane given a professor emeritus and maurizio browns an assistant professor in the department of earth and planetary sciences lead the uc riverside effort in this project right now browns a petrologist by training will use instrumentation to map out whether lithium is located within the reservoir rocks and what form it's in i find it kind of ironic that a former petrologist so someone working in the industry of you know oil basically is now doing something else is now basically working the field of batteries and renewable energy the geochemical characterization will then be incorporated into models to assess the rate of resupply of lithium to geothermal fluids so the idea is we only take up out enough that it can actually replenish itself to some degree we'll look at how quickly might you expect the resource to be regenerated is it centuries decades brown said those chemical reaction rates will depend on where in the rock lithium is stored pretty strongly so we can help create a predictive tool this work will complement geochemical studies being conducted by researchers in europe who are also investigating the potential of geothermal brines for supplying lithium this project has really strong industry support that's the interesting thing to see several companies have started pilot operations at the salton sea to extract lithium including berkshire hathaway energy bhe and controlled thermal resources berkeley lab projects with both under grants from the california energy commission for this new project berkeley lab and uc riverside will use data from companies active in the area as well as publish documents and field data from the state of california's geologic energy management databases we need better data on the chemistry of the brine's and their lithium content and how it's distributed in terms of position and depth in the geothermal field mckibbit said we've asked the geothermal companies to share their brain data with us pat and his group will put that in a database then if we can use the database to correlate lithium concentration with things like temperature chlorinity and other physical and chemical parameters we can actually predict how much lithium might be in brine in parts of the field that haven't been completely drilled out yet bhe has pledged to work with the research team bhe renewable supports this research effort and looks forward to assisting lawrence berkeley national laboratory with this important study said jonathan weisgal bhe's vice president of government relations the vision is that lithium from the geothermal field located near the sultan sea will one day form the basis for a new domestic battery industry in the u.s generating much needed economic growth in imperial county the county with the lowest per capita income in california and also giving the us true energy independence we need to get students to understand they can have very lucrative careers involving green energy mckibben said this is one opportunity to do that now obviously tesla is taking a different approach they have a field where they are aiming to extract lithium from clay if you combine both of these if both of these options actually worked out well we'd have more than enough lithium than we need than we need right now for at least the next 20 30 years that's the good news here now the same thing is going on right now in germany near frankfurt where an existing thermal power station will be transformed to extract lithium energy wise it's going to provide more energy to produce the lithium that it actually needs to extract it now when it comes to batteries i don't think we're ever going to really have a shortage of lithium why is that while it's true we might have a shortage of many things including cobalt nickel maybe even phosphate one day although i don't think so lithium is unlikely to be one because there's so many different places it can be found even can even be extracted from seawater now while lithium is abundant the search really comes down to cost the cost to extract the lithium and also the cost on the environment in other words the impact and the ease of processing lithium into its final product in order to be cost competitive now the great thing about these kinds of projects though is that the energy needed to pump the fluid in other words to extract the lithium is clearly trivial compared to the thermal energy that's actually stored in the fluid or it would not actually be a thermal energy plant in the first place the lithium is just the additional profit as the brine was pumped to the surface to extract the heat not the lithium so the great thing is this lithium is really basically a byproduct of the thermal energy plant itself now while this is one of just many different projects going on around the world and even one of many different projects going on to extract or potentially extract lithium in the united states the reality is that lithium production is increasing drastically so if you've ever wondered is there not enough lithium for batteries well actually there is and we shouldn't ever really have a problem with having enough lithium that's the great news i hope you have a great day and i'll see you again on the next video bye

Channel: The Electric Viking

Views: 10,397

Keywords: electricvehicles, evs, #electriccars, electricfuture

Id: OLhZlT4U_Kc

Length: 12min 26sec (746 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 05 2022