The Salton Sea was once a famed desert oasis. Southern Californians would flock to the Imperial Valley to soak up the sun and spend time with family and friends.
Now it could see renewed prosperity.
“I’m optimistic of the outcome,” UC Riverside Professor Michael McKibben, Ph.D. said.
Companies like Energy Source Minerals are mining lithium under and around the Salton Sea.
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Lithium is needed for electric vehicle batteries and other battery-powered products.
“There’s tremendous interest in the brines that are a mile or two beneath the Salton Sea, because they represent a tremendous potential source of lithium that would be domestic and get us off of that reliance on a foreign supply chain,” McKibben said.
Experts predict there is enough lithium in the geothermal field to fuel the U.S.’s domestic lithium demand.
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“If we could produce all the lithium possible out of the Salton Sea geothermal field, that would be equivalent to somewhere between one-third and one-half of global lithium production. So, we would literally dominate or at least exert a major influence on the global lithium market by doing that,” McKibben said.
The lithium extraction is expected to not only fuel electric-powered cars, but the local economy.
“Our investment is going to be roughly 150 direct and indirect jobs, meaning about 70 on-site, and then about 80 more that are service providers to the site, whether it's people driving trucks, those kinds of things, but the ripple effect of that, you've got people that work in restaurants and open the kind of support for that group of people,” Energy Source Minerals CEO Eric Spomer said.
Partnerships are being formed to educate the local workforce.
“We're working with the governor's office with Imperial Valley College. UC San Diego is looking at putting a campus in Brawley for chemical engineers and the kind of people that we need for this process to get an educated workforce in the Valley,” Spomer said.
Local businesses are planning for more economic activity in the community.
“The revenue coming from lithium, you're going to help the town spawn more people coming to town and people start living here,” Buckshot Deli & Diner owner Ruben Hernandez said.
Experts predict that once mining production is in full operation there is enough Lithium for the foreseeable future and the growth will be sustainable.
