The world’s energy and critical minerals supply chain have become incredibly interconnected between countries with dissonant ideologies. While this progress is in some ways positive, it also carries with it serious risks. Geopolitical tensions with energy and critical mineral controlling countries pose a threat to national security and technological progress. This was starkly highlighted by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and subsequent fears that Russia might “turn off the tap” of natural gas which Europe so heavily relies on.

At the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine, Europe depended on Russia to supply 40% of its natural gas demands. No one country could offset European reliance on Russian natural gas. This conflict makes plain the necessity for a rapid, focused effort to reduce Europe’s energy reliance on Russia. One way European countries can and are working towards this goal is by deploying more geothermal energy, especially for cooling and heating of buildings and industry.  A diverse and environmentally conscious clean energy portfolio is an important part of energy security and energy independence, which is why geothermal should make up a larger percentage of electricity generation in America. Geothermal provides clean firm energy that pairs well with solar and wind when it comes to alleviating intermittency due to weather. Energy security in the United States will benefit from having a diversity of technologies. Geothermal is able to generate power for national transmission networks and distributed regional systems in partnership with other low-carbon technologies like solar, wind, hydro, battery storage, and nuclear. 

Critical minerals, such as lithium and manganese, are integral to technological progress and the clean-energy transition because of their use in solar panels, batteries, wind turbines, and more. Existing lithium supply chains are harmful to the mineral security of the United States and are rife with uncertainties. The Russo-Ukrainian War in and increasing ties between Russia and China underscore the geopolitical implications of the mineral-intensive clean energy transformation. China is the leader of lithium processing and actively procures lithium reserves from other major producers. Chinese state-mining operators often own mines in other countries from which vital clean energy minerals are sourced like cobalt and nickel. A domestic source of lithium from geothermal brines will greatly improve American energy and mineral security. 

Geothermal technologies are on the verge of unlocking vast quantities of lithium from naturally occurring hot brines beneath places like the Salton Sea, a two-hour drive from San Diego, California. Battery-grade lithium may be recoverable from naturally occurring geothermal brines after heat and steam are extracted for electrical generation. Accordingly, three geothermal operators at the Salton Sea geothermal field are in various stages of designing, constructing, and testing pilot plants for direct lithium extraction (DLE) from the hot brines, which are unique in their high concentrations of dissolved solids. Once DLE is proven and scaled up to full production capacity, the 11 existing power plants near the Salton Sea (generating 432 MW of clean electricity) could also produce about 20,000 metric tons of lithium metal per year, equal to 106,000 metric tons of Lithium Carbonate Equivalent (LCE) per year. 

The annual market value of this LCE would be over $5 billion at current prices ($48,000/ton). This amount of lithium would supply ten times current U.S. demand for lithium metal (2,000 metric tons per year), with enough left over to support a new and self-sufficient domestic lithium battery manufacturing capacity as well as supply lithium exports to the rest of the world. The implications on energy and mineral security, global supply chains, and geopolitics may soon be positively impacted by geothermal technology and innovation like critical mineral recovery from geothermal brines.

Geothermal is unique in its potential to reduce two geopolitical risks with one stone: energy supply, but also critical mineral security. The same hot brine that is used to generate reliable, resilient electricity also contains critical minerals America needs for the clean energy transition, which will ultimately increase our energy independence and security.

Global use of electric vehicles (EVs) is expected to rise significantly as countries try to reach their net zero CO2 goals. Market forecasting from BloombergNEF estimates that by 2030 over half of vehicle sales will not be solely using the internal combustion engine, and by 2040 that figure will have risen to over 80%.

That transition will help feed a tenfold increase in battery demand through 2030, equating to a global demand for 1.5 million metric tons of lithium carbonate equivalent.

This upswing in the demand for batteries is expected to create a competition to control the lithium supply chain. As U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm has observed, "America is in a race against economic competitors like China to own the EV market—and the supply chains for critical materials like lithium and cobalt will determine whether we win or lose...If we want to achieve a 100% carbon-free economy by 2050, we have to create our own supply of these materials, including alternatives here at home in America. And we must scale up new American industries that will create millions of good-paying union jobs to do it.” (DoE press release)

The Imperial Valley has such vast lithium potential that California Governor Gavin Newsom referred to the area as "the Saudi Arabia of lithium" as he recently announced the state's new budget proposal, dubbed the "California Blueprint".

To take advantage of this opportunity to develop lithium from the Imperial Valley area, the Blue-Ribbon Commission on Lithium Extraction was established last year through California state legislation and directed to review, investigate, and analyze opportunities and benefits for lithium recovery and use in the state.

In the Imperial Valley, minerals like lithium are transported in the geothermal brine extracted from the hot rocks at depth. By co-producing the mineral and heat recovery together it strengthens economic arguments for both, provides a more environmentally friendly method of obtaining the critical minerals than conventional mining techniques, and uses clean renewable energy for the processing.

Three geothermal energy operators in Imperial Valley are already at the pilot plant development and demonstration phase with each forecasting 10s to 100s of thousands of metric tons production per year depending on demand -- enough to meet a significant proportion of that global need. One such project is Controlled Thermal Resources' Hell's Kitchen project, an artist's impression of which can be seen below.

Of course, there is an opportunity here for not just the recovery of lithium from these geothermal brines, but to build on top of that an entire battery and electric vehicle ecosystem in an area of central Southern California that has suffered from economic hardship.

"Electric Vehicle Outlook 2021" by BloombergNEF (link: https://about.bnef.com/electric-vehicle-outlook/ )

"California Banks on Lithium Extraction and Geothermal Holds the Key" by Lisa Howard-Fusco (link: https://geothermal.org/our-impact/blog/california-banks-lithium-extraction-and-geothermal-holds-key)

"Drilling for 'White Gold' is Happening Right Now at the Salton Sea" by Sammy Roth, Los Angeles Times (link: https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-11-15/drilling-for-white-gold-is-happening-right-now-at-the-salton-sea )

"Salton Sea is Key to CA's EV Future, Contains 1/3 of Global Lithium Supply" by Susan Carpenter (link: https://spectrumnews1.com/ca/la-west/environment/2021/05/27/salton-sea-is-key-to-ca-s-ev-future--contains-1-3-of-global-lithium-supply )

"CTR Commences Drill Program at Hell's Kitchen Lithium and Power" from Controlled Thermal Resources website (link: https://www.cthermal.com/latest-news/ctr-commences-drill-program-at-hells-kitchen-lithium-and-power )

"Competitiveness of Direct Mineral Extraction from Geothermal Brines" by Anna Wall (link: https://publications.mygeoenergynow.org/grc/1034175.pdf)

“California has the potential to be the leading supplier of lithium in the world,” said California Energy Commission Chair David Hochschild.

It’s a bold statement from the state level, but one that is backed by both a growing demand for the metal and the development of new geothermal extraction technologies.

Lithium is a key ingredient in lithium-ion batteries that are not only used in many everyday personal tech items like laptops and cell phones, but are crucial to the operation of electric cars and the storage of energy that helps burgeoning renewable industries that cannot generate power 24/7. For example, new solar farms in California are being built with lithium- ion batteries, which can provide a few hours of electricity after sundown. And many major original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in the auto sector and EV battery manufacturers have been seeking a secure U.S. lithium supply. Yet currently, it is China, Japan, and South Korea that produce 85 percent of the lithium chemicals required to power electric vehicles.

“We’re on the brink of a boom in the geothermal industry,” explained Will Pettitt, PhD, during his talk at the USEA 16th Annual State of the Energy Industry Forum in Washington, DC in January of this year. “It also means there are significant opportunities for collaboration across industries, and geothermal is at the center of that. Combine this win-win situation for the renewable energy sector with the benefits that geothermal can bring to the oil and gas industry, and development of critical mineral recovery, then it means that geothermal can facilitate collaboration across wide and disparate parts of our energy and mineral sectors for the benefit of everybody.”

Geothermal power can provide both the baseload 24/7 power and the brine that is rich in lithium. Though extraction is not new to the geothermal industry, it has had its challenges in the past. “One of the issues with previous attempts was ‘bolting-on’ lithium extraction systems downstream from existing power plants. These systems were basically ‘force-fed’ spent brine which was not ideal, “explained Controlled Thermal Resources (CTR) Chief Operating Officer Jim Turner, who has managed geothermal plants in the Salton Sea region for over 20 years.

On March 16, CTR formally announced its technical partnership with direct lithium ex- traction specialists Lilac Solutions, which has recently developed a new extraction technology using unique ion exchange beads developed by its team in Oakland. This is a significant deviation from prior efforts within the industry, where the focus was to adapt conventional aluminum- based absorbents that did not perform well.

“Lilac Solutions’ technology offers exceptionally high lithium recovery and lithium selectivity, enabling low cost production,” said Turner. “The Lilac team has proven these results with thousands of hours of test work on the Salton Sea geothermal brine chemistry.”

Lilac also confirms that it has conducted numerous large-scale tests on brine samples from around the world and received independent verification on the performance of the technology, which is significantly cleaner, faster, cheaper, and more scalable than existing mining technology. CTR hopes to create a major new domestic source of this mineral and is currently negotiating additional contracts for power and lithium sales.

In fact, the amount of interest that has been generated within the state around lithium extraction was reflected in the proposed awards announced on March 20 by The California Energy Commission (CEC).

CTR was awarded net funds of $4,460,334 for two projects related to its Hell’s Kitchen Geothermal LLC Lithium & Power Project: improved silica removal for enhanced geothermal plant performance and its Geothermal Lithium Extraction Pilot.

BHE Renewables, part of Berkshire Hathaway Energy, also won a $6 million grant funding opportunity award to build a lithium recovery demonstration project at their Salton Sea Geothermal Lithium Recovery Demonstration Project near Calipatria.

In addition, Materials Research LLC, based In Palo Alto, had a proposed award for pilot scale recovery of lithium from geothermal brines for $1,878,634.

These awards signal an endorsement of the emerging lithium industry by California’s government, and a commitment to supporting emerging geothermal-related solutions that could power the world’s technologies.

As Pettitt reflected in his talk at the USEA Forum, “We are now inside an energy revolution. Society will need a mix of renewable and clean energies as well as a huge leap in energy efficiency and heat management. An “all-of the-above” clean energy strategy. It’s clear that society needs geothermal now.”