It’s baking hot in the summer at the Salton Sea, a large inland salt water lake in California that often smells of dead fish. It is a genuinely weird and strange place.
But a mining company thinks they might be able to extract lithium, as well as other elements, from geothermal wells there, and do so cheaper than elsewhere. Lithium is used in batteries, EVs, and consumer electronics.
Five geothermal wells exist in the Salton Sea and there is potential for 50 more wells in the area. The first Simbol plant could be capable of generating millions of dollars’ worth of lithium a year, Green said. The region as a whole could ultimately produce billions of dollars’ worth of minerals.
(I took the photo in Feb. of this year and blogged about the area)