SALTON SEA, Calif. — With the Salton Sea becoming a hot spot for the lithium in electric vehicles, an EV battery startup announced this week that it has purchased a 135-acre site in nearby Imperial Valley. The land will be the location of a new Gigafactory that is expected to produce batteries for as many as 650,000 EVs per year.
Los Angeles-based Statevolt has partnered with Controlled Thermal Resources in the Salton Sea to supply it with lithium derived from geothermal power. Controlled Thermal Resources is one of three companies currently developing geothermal lithium extraction technology in the area.
“The development of lithium-ion batteries is crucial for the U.S. to meet its goals to transition to net zero,” Statevolt founder Lars Carlstrom said in a statement announcing the partnership with Controlled Thermal Resources last year. “Today we face a significant shortage in the amount of lithium that is required to meet the demand for electric vehicles. We are pioneering a new, hyper-local business model which prioritizes sustainability and resilience in the supply chain to solve this issue.”
The Biden administration has set a goal that half of all new passenger vehicle sales in the U.S. be electric by 2030. The federal Inflation Reduction Act signed into law last year provides incentives for battery production in the U.S. to reduce the country’s dependence on lithium from other parts of the world.
Lithium is a key component of the lithium-ion batteries that power electric vehicles, but 95% of the global supply currently comes from Chile, Argentina, Australia and China, using environmentally destructive practices such as open pit mining and evaporation ponds.
The Salton Sea has the potential to meet 40% of global lithium demand, according to California Assembly member Eduardo Garcia (D-Coachella). Garcia authored AB 1657, a bill that passed last year and established the Lithium Valley Commission within the California Energy Commission, to explore strategies to develop the industry.
Known as Lithium Valley, the lithium in the Salton Sea is produced through a process called direct extraction and is integrated into the geothermal energy generation process, which uses steam from hot water reservoirs below the Earth’s surface to produce electricity. As part of a geothermal brine containing multiple types of minerals, the lithium is recovered using a closed-loop system powered with the renewable energy that geothermal generates.
The Salton Sea is home to 11 geothermal energy plants. Lithium extracted from geothermal brine generates 4% of the greenhouse gas emissions compared with lithium produced by Chinese pit mines, according to Controlled Thermal Resources.
California is the national leader in electric vehicle adoption as well as production, with more than 30 EV manufacturers and more than 1.3 million EVs sold in the state since they first came on the market in 2010. Electrics currently account for 19% of all new passenger vehicle sales in California — a number that is expected to grow exponentially following Gov. Gavin Newsom’s 2020 executive order mandating that 100% of new passenger vehicle sales in the state by zero emissions by 2035.
With many car companies announcing plans to entirely phase out cars that run on gasoline, the rush is on for the lithium that will be necessary to make the batteries that will replace the fossil fuels used by internal combustion engines. More than 2 million tons of lithium will be needed every year to meet demand, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.
Lithium derived from the Salton Sea would not only help meet that demand but offer other key benefits, including reduced emissions from transporting materials. Producing lithium locally eliminates the transportation constraints of mining lithium in foreign countries and shipping it to battery makers in Asia, who then ship the batteries to EV makers in California.
Producing and sourcing lithium close to where it will ultimately be used helps reduce the environmental footprint of its production. Co-locating that lithium supply with battery and EV manufacturing in a single area can further reduce environmental impacts, Statevolt says.