A massive lithium find in California’s Salton Sea region could help boost domestic supplies of the mineral, which plays a critical role in production of electric vehicle (EV) batteries.
The Salton Sea region of Southern California is currently home to significant geothermal electricity generation. An analysis by a California state commission in 2020 found that the region’s lithium concentration in the geothermal brines that are a byproduct of electricity generation is believed to be the highest in the world.
The Department of Energy announced in November 2023 that an analysis by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that the Salton Sea region could have resources to produce over 3,400 kilotons (or 3.4 million tons) of lithium – enough to support more than 375 million EV batteries. For context, that’s more than the total number of vehicles on U.S. roads.