California’s infamous Salton Sea has been a known hotbed of lithium for years, but no one had a sense of how much “white gold” was found there. Now a new study quantifies that, and it’s impressive: The huge underground reserve of scorching hot brine located underneath the lakebed contains enough lithium to build batteries for 375 million electric vehicle batteries, making it one of the largest lithium brine deposits in the world.
A new study from the US Department of Energy released this week is the first to quantify how much valuable metal is down there, and it’s a lot more than previously thought. Researchers from the Lawrence Berkey National Laboratory say the reserve can support the production of 3,400 kilotons of lithium, enough to build batteries for 375 million electric vehicle batteries, according to the DOE. The US currently has roughly 2.4 million registered EVs (and that data hasn’t yet been updated for this year). Some say that the EV market is set explode by 2030, with predictions that we could face a lithium shortage as soon as 2025.
Read Article