This Toxic, Drying U.S. Lake Could Turn Into the ‘Saudi Arabia of Lithium' | WSJ
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- The region surrounding California’s toxic Salton Sea is a treasure trove of lithium - a critical ingredient for powering the country’s clean energy future. The estimated 18 million metric tons of lithium suspended in hot geothermal brine is enough to power more than 375 million EV batteries. So what kinds of new tech are companies using to get to this lithium despite the corrosive conditions?
WSJ takes you behind the scenes to understand how companies are building entirely new ways to extract lithium from the area and what it means for the future of domestic lithium production.
Chapters:
0:00 Salton Sea
1:10 Extracting the lithium
4:15 Why it’s so challenging
5:19 Community and environmental concerns
8:28 What’s next?
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#EV #Lithium #WSJ
The US just seem to keep having every energy they need, before it's finding enough oil and natural gas for Americans, and than now lithium. Geography just keep giving the US everything they need.
For real.
America is literally half of a continent end to end it’s crazy
@@abinodattil6422 It's still extremely resources rich even considering its size. The only other places that can compare, like Russia, typically have to deal with the resources being in very inaccessible and hostile regions (like Siberia). The US is blessed in having most of its resources within easy reach. It was blessed even early on, with plentiful fertile soil as well.
@@ArawnOfAnnwn hmmmm u think so?, but even then it has crazy cost barriers to overcome, producing anything in usa is bound to be the most costly in the world, so they have to be on the extreme ends of availability and efficiency.
any thoughts?
Americans are once again late to the game
👇
Sodium batteries: is China sparking a new revolution in the electric vehicle industry?
The EV industry is set to be the first to benefit as Chinese companies start mass-producing sodium-ion batteries
The easy access to sodium worldwide means production of the new batteries is much easier than the existing lithium-ion models
the Salton Sea drying up isn’t “fueled by drought”, it’s because it’s not supposed to be there: it was created by an accidental water diversion…
Incorrect.
It is fueled by heat/climate change. More heat causes the lake to evaporate and the playa to become exposed. The playa has toxic dust due to decades of agricultural runoff that can be released into the atmosphere.
I’ll decide what is supposed to be there
@@justsomeguy6474 From the CA Gov fish and wildlife website: "The Salton Sea, located in southern Riverside and northern Imperial counties in Southern California, is California' s largest lake (map at right). Although large seas have cyclically formed and dried over historic time in the basin due to natural flooding from the Colorado River, the current Salton Sea was formed when Colorado River floodwater breached an irrigation canal being constructed in the Imperial Valley in 1905 and flowed into the Salton Sink. The Sea has since been maintained by irrigation runoff in the Imperial and Coachella valleys and local rivers."
Oh, look... An ACCIDENTAL WATER DIVERSION. I'm not going to say I didn't have to Google who was right here, but honestly it took about 20 seconds. Would it kill you to make sure you know what you're talking about before you speak?
In places nestled against rocky hills/mountains such as La Quinta one can observe the ancient ocean waterline still visible. Many people don’t know the story of Salton Sea, myself included, and it’s many facets. I grew up in the valley and took it for granted. The smell of the stagnant water and feet thick of corvina fish didn’t do much for it. Sonny Bono’s attempt to revitalize Salton Sea motivated me to learn more of it. Always a fascinating subject.
Pretty wild that a region with 3” of annual rainfall has an agricultural industry. No wonder the Colorado river doesn’t make it to the sea.
Or maybe the golf courses in the deserts of Arizona and Utah 🤷. At least the farms are providing food to Americans
@@TubeNLubeNot all of it is for us. A lot of the alfalfa goes overseas.
ProPublica did great reporting on who in the Imperial Valley receives most of the water from the Colorado River. Most of the water goes to legacy farming families with long-standing water rights to the Colorado River.
Yeah golf courses in deserts are part of why I laugh when a rich person calls a poor person irresponsible
No AZ and Colorado don't get the water. California has all the water rights, uses it for their golf courses etc., and dump what they don't use into the ocean instead of letting states that need the resource use it.
No one's gonna talk about the fact that the Salton Sea is an accidentally manmade body of water that is not sustained by natural runoff and never will be, regardless of climate change? Maybe the Salton Sea shouldn't be "restored," given that it was created by an irrigation canal construction accident in the first place.
The problem is not restoring it. The problem lies with the residents who live near the water. If you do not 'restore' this body of water it will affect millions of people negatively from health, economics and food. The agriculture business in this region is 2.6 billion dollars, wiping that much money instead of spending a few extra millions to fix it is irresponsible.
Did you watch the video? Nobody is suggesting that the Salton Sea body of water should be restored.
@@Nainara32 The video repeatedly mentions funds being directed towards Salton Sea restoration efforts. Perhaps it is you who should have listened more closely.
@@Brendissimo1 Yes, but it is you who failed to listen to the report well enough to understand the reasons behind restoring the sea. The bed of the sea is toxic due to the chemicals from the agricultural runoff. if the sea were to continue drying, it would leave the toxic bed exposed, winds would carry the toxic dust up into the air affecting the health of surrounding communities and perhaps even further out.
You don’t goto WSJ for news. They’re owned by an Australian white nationalist called Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch’s father openly advocated for white supremacy in Australia.
It seems to me that a contingency of allowing corporations to extract the lithium would be that they also must extract the toxic chemicals at the same time. This whole tax idea just screams of grift and corruption.
Keep in mind that unlike Owens Lake where the Los Angeles Metropolitan Water District was forced to mitigate the dust pollution the evidence that the Salton Sea is toxic is irrelevant. The dust created for millenia in the Salton Sink is the culprit here. Chlorine in Owens Lake is what was devastating. If they had never flooded the Sink it would be contained in an area 1/10th the present size without billions of dead fish bones breaking down into airborne dust. All they have to do is bulldoze the surface like they did Owens Lake. Pushed it into lines of small dikes and use a very small amount of water to keep it solid.
Graft/grift, both mean the same thing, to acquire money dishonestly so Graft and Corruption in service of helping the poor IS California's modus operandi. They could mitigate the Salton Sea's problems quite easily, but there's no money in it. The MWD is not a wholly government entity and mitigated Owens Lake as cheaply as possible. If they were ordered to mitigate the Salton Sea all the bogus trying grab a piece of the Mitigation Pie would end. The MWD as part of the State's Water Project is in charge of the Imperial Valley's water and could be ordered to deal with it and they would if the politicians stay out of it.
I was thinking the same thing. Just more propaganda spin.
The toxic chemicals are in the water of the salton sea. The lithium is in the brine 1000 feet below the earth’s surface. The mining companies arent interacting with the surface water and so they dont have the technology to “clean” the sea water …. I still agree that the profitable lithium extraction companies have a duty to give back to the community, in terms of taking care of workers, restoring sensitive ecosystems, and direct aid to communities, including indigenous communities.
Lithium extractors paying for the damage farmers inflicted is faulty logic.
@@chinguunerdenebadrakh7022 you’re misinterpreting me. I DO think agriculture companies/farms should provide community aid, and be responsible for restoration too. It’s not an either/or of who i responsible. Anyone extracting profit from the poorest place in California should give back to the community. But in terms of the profit margins, lithium is clearly going to make a lot more money than farming. In my mind, the bigger the profits, the bigger the responsibility to give back to the community. Money to restore/clean the lake is just one way to give back. Health services, colleges, job-training sites, grocery stores, infrastructure - these are all desperately needed in Imperial County. Taxes and direct aid from profitable companies could help the communities in many ways.
The lithium isn’t actually in the lake, the mineral is in the brine reservoir located beneath the surface (lake or no lake). The geothermal power plants extract the hot brine and use the heat to run the power plants and then inject the brine back into the ground. Sort of a continuous loop. The Salton Sea itself isn’t part of the geothermal power or lithium extraction process.
PS - Imperial Valley Water District has the most senior water rights to Colorado River water which is used by industrial sized farm corporations to raise all types of agricultural products. Basically the corporate farmers have exploited cheap farm labor for years. Also why upper Colorado river basin states hate California a lung other reasons.
PS2 - Video mixes and matches a hold host of facts and issues and doesn’t produce a clear picture on anything. There are several great stories to tell about this area and this video barely scratches surface in a very confusing way. WSJ has done a shoddy job for some reason.
Its the WSJ. They're attracting investors
Would be good if you can cite sources or your facts to support your observations. Thanks for the insight
How much fresh water is required for all these geothermal power plants and lithium mining?
Non-US companies should not be allowed to own or operate resource extraction companies that operate within the United States.
Why is that???
If that’s the case, US companies should not either be allowed to own or operate resource extraction companies that operate outside the United States.
And keep in mind US companies own or operate way more resource extraction companies outside the US then inside the US.
Why not? How else are politicians gonna profit?
Then the same should apply to US companies extracting resources from other countries.
America resources should be owned by the American people not billionaires who bribed politicians to give it to them instead.
The media and academics have talked for decades about how the Salton Sea drying will release fine toxic dust into the wind that will destroy air quality in SoCal, AZ, Baja Norte. All that talk seemed to just go away when the size of the lithium deposit was discovered, and the Sea contracting became pretty convenient for mining.
EDIT: I don't know why some commenters below are having so much trouble understanding what I said here. The Sea contracting uncovers toxic seabed dust but also makes the lithium mining easier.
You mean people focus on the latest thing? Wild.
@@caseymasters8801 I think he was going for something more like, the media pretends to care about people and the environment but forgets all about it when ordered to by big business interests.
They literally talked about it in this video
There is absolutely no connection between the extraction of lithium from geothermal brine and the Salton Sea (the Mistake Lake). None. It is coincidently located nearby
@@Juneisthebestmonth How on earth did you come under the impression I was implying that kind of connection? The only thing they have to do with each other is, and I said above, that the Sea contracting makes the mining easier.
Amazing, a toxic lake turned energy goldmine! 🌎💡
California baby!
NOT!
The brine is thousands of feet underground, and would still be there if the lake was never created. The lithium's original source is very hot water rising up from magma that's not that deep.
@@stevopusser9093 Correct. There is absolutely no connection between the Mistake Lake and the lithium projects
One day the Toxic Avenger will rise from the brine and dust.
Why is the US so lucky. It has all of the world's resources.....oil, gas, gold, diamonds and now lithium
Bcz its such a huge landmass, i bet russia and china also have all the resources US has, they just haven’t accessed these areas yet
@@abdu_jilani China is okay, but nowhere near as fortunate as the US. Russia has lots of resources yes, but they're mostly in VERY inaccessible and hostile territory (Siberia mostly). Canada is more like Russia. The US has everything in easy reach.
We're God's Chosen People, despite what Israel claims.
Diamonds?
@@ArawnOfAnnwn Australia is probably the most fortunate. They have more untapped resources with easier access, small population, no major mountains, lakes or forests to protect.
The USA should’ve been on this years ago
Lithium prices were not high enough to justify doing it.
Maybe 50 years from now there would something else that isn’t being processed right now that would benefit us.
@@franwex "Maybe 50 years from now there would something else that isn’t being processed right now that would benefit us."
Graphene
@@MK_ULTRA420yeah we need grippier bike tyres
@@thedownunderverse Also better batteries, and windows that can double as solar panels, as well as thousands of other uses.
We were, 26 years ago. The development process was kept relatively quiet. Investors and engineers were busy
Love this videos, keep up with great work 😊
There are also large deposits in Nevada. I also just saw an ad for nickel mines in Alaska. The deposits are huge. The US also has plenty of "rare earth" metals.
In the past many US companies have concentrated on exploitation overseas. Two reasons were often given. One has to do with environmental restrictions. Of course, the result is that pollution is just exported. The second, often given for oil drilling, is that we should exhaust the external sources before draining our own. This was often given as a justification during the oil price shocks of the 1970s.
This is always short sighted. The pollution will always come back to bite us. Imports of raw and processed materials adds to the trade deficit. This is a result of the unrestricted free trade mindset, which is, of course, the editorial stance of the WSJ. Security is often ignored. Security has costs, both explicit and implicit.
The fact that the idiot governor has added a tax on lithium has scared off many investors. CA just shot itself in its foot once again. As an insider, I am infuriated
@@Juneisthebestmonth Well, they need the money, don't they. Scaring off rich people seems to be having a detrimental effect on government revenues. They have to get it somewhere.
Alaska is a goldmine of rare earths but all of it is under heavy protection. It’s like a doomsday reserve which we can tap in case all else fails just like you said exhausting external sources before our own. If we really wanted the US has an OP geography that allows for complete self sufficiency. We just choose not to do it.
@@JuneisthebestmonthCalifornia used to be the place where you took risks. While I agree with the sustainability goals of the state overreaching can be disastrous to their own gials
x222 they already ARE. California is emptying out of industry. Affluent people are rushing to move elsewhere in such numbers that, for the first time ever, California lost Representatives in Congress! They now are down to 50 electoral votes and after 2030 will be in the 40s.
The lithium is found in brine pools under or near the Salton sea, not the sea itself. They plan to use geothermal energy to bring it up and then filter the lithium from the brine. The brine then gets pumped back underground. All good so far.
But that brine will grt more concentrated over time. It's already pretty toxic but it will slowly get more worse. As the video says it's pretty corrosive to machinery.
Eventually they will need fresh water to continue extracting lithium. The only sources for that fresh water will be the Colorado River or the Salton.
The Colorado river is already completely allocated to farms and communities.
The Salton already has high salt concentrations but nowhere near the levels of the underground brine so it will probably be useful for lithium extraction.
Of course this will continue to lower the sea level and expose more salt beds to the wind.
So far the lithium companies and the state say that they will remediate the Salton but offer absolutely no details on how this will be done and of course what will happen to the toxic waste that the brine will become.
More than likely the companies will extract the lithium till it's no longer commercially viable and then leave the clean up to the taxpayers.
The United States is just so absolutely overpowered man, they have every single energy source ever!
Very informative video 👍
How did you find out about the paste that binds to Lithium ?
chemistry class
As if there gonna tell you lol
Keep trying stuff with educated guesses until something works.
I reckon it was ulcer cream
Toxic dust: can’t they just get a giant dust buster? Seriously, toxic dust is a world-wide problem, the formerly large Aral Sea being the worst case.
Power Metals Company in Canada has discovered very large Lithium and Cesium Deposits in Ontario. Deposits are in Quartz formations which are easier to extract and process.
Lithium production should ramp up so that when production is maximised, they can use lithium as leverage to combat China's dominance in rare earths production.
Or at least, make us completely self sufficient for a while.
The US will never have significant market share in Lithium, so won't be able to use it as leverage. As for rare earths, they aren't actually rare, plus BMW and the next Tesla avoid them in their motors.
Lithium isn’t rare. Tesla is building a new plant in Texas.
It's rare but not rare earth. OK, it isn't actually that rare, but it's expensive to recover and the question is whether we can ramp up production quickly enough to meet the demand.
@@colinmacdonald5732let’s hope not.
-lithium miner investors
This is a resource that can tremendously benefit the area where it's located. It's win-win-win as the economic benefits can help clean up the environment, provide vital jobs and supply a raw material with a wildly growing demand around the world!
Lithium mining and processing is NOT a huge job creator. Even manuf. isn't, which would NOT be based here anyway. Even in Canada, rare earth processing and related metals are processed.............under contract, in Asia.
@@user-zp7jp1vk2i Who's to say that arrangement remains static? If you've been to Imperial County, you'd know every bit of industry, is going to help down there, especially when some of the money from it, will help mitigate the toxic effects of that drying lake.
The US just keeps winning due to its Geography like if you think US has:
Oil,
Coal,
Natural Gas,
Lithium,
Rare Earth Minerals recently found in Wyoming.'
Agricultiral Land,
Pretty much everything it needs. Only other places that can compare would be Middle East or Russia.
To be fair, the United States is extremely large compared to most countries so it makes sense
Maybe Russia with the agricultural land and all the other resources but definitely not the Middle East haha. They do not have a lot of good agricultural land. And i don't think a lot of minerals.
but like half the world oil, natural gas, and some minerals in Saudi Arabia with a very few populations do count to something, there king's families are Trillionaires for a reason. Russia definitely and some African countries if you look into Congo and Nigeria e.t.c Even Brazil and Australia would count to something in this case. @@deut
And, how a lot of the coal is several thousand feet above the users -- empty trains go uphill, full trains return.
I'm from Congo and this is very good news. I hope you find all the minerals you need plus more in ocean mining for the world to leave us alone.
A toxic lake with pesticides, toxic dust and other chemicals. Now lets put people to work on that environment.
Just here before they tell what they use, I am assuming they are using evonik joint venture membrane seperation
i see the lab there using ICP-AES and a lithium std possibly for calibration.. 4 years of chemistry and physics combine in 3secs of glory... 1:00
yup
Is there a way to recycle/reuse the lithium we already have?
No need to; it's a salt. the problem is with the batteries just like computer "gold" and metals: costs more to reclaim it that it costs to produce.
Yes! There is a growing battery recycling industry that is expected to become a billion dollar industry in the next decades.
As more EV batteries are created, there will be more demand for battery recycling. Some companies have already started to do this, such as Redwood Materials.
Good question! Lithium ion battery recycling is a fast growing industry. Ones with dying cells (say your car is only getting 85% of the original range after 300k miles) can be repurposed for longterm storage as battery backups. Spent ones can be largrly broken down into its base components. So yes, they can be recycled.
There is LITERALLY no reason for utility energy storage Lithium, it's a complete waste of resources... There are several battery companies including Form Energy and ESS, that have moved us past Lithium Batteries for Utility Storage!
i love the cycle of learning information from online reporters about 1 year or 6 months before Legacy Media reports on it.
Meanwhile desalination plants in the US are dumping their brine in the ocean even though sea water also has a lot of lithium
Concentration is the key here. Sea water holds 0.2ug/litre Li or say 0.6ug/litre in reverse osmosis brine from a desal plant. The Li concentration i Salton Sea brine is as high as 400mg/litre. Thats almost 1million times higher concentration. If I did the math right...
still the volume dumped into the ocean isn't negligible , and the technology to refine it exists and its economically viable and will eventually be adopted . the main issue issue is the market right now has cheaper lithium mined from excavation in Africa so why would a desalination plant bother extracting lithium if their final product is more expensive than what is available in the unregulated market @@KabonkNo1
@@KabonkNo1you are right
They are extracting the Lithium using fresh water. Fresh water is scarce in the desert. Most fresh water used in the Coachella Valley and Imperial Valley come from the Colorado River.
Wrong! 🙄
@@user-ke9yk5qp3u
The filters used are flushed using fresh water. It is a fact.
@@RC-ot5nw ok!
We have known about the lithium for decades, but until just recently didn’t know how to use it. Letting the Salton Sea die was an intentional act to prevent further human activity in the area thus preventing the need to evict/buy out property owners.
They should give the mines as many greenlights and make development easy... but in return, they must swear to fix the toxic dust issue.
Speaking of Saudi Arabia, as of 2017 they have 100% ownership of the largest oil refinery for North America in Port Arthur, TX! How is this making America great again???
People just don't realize things like this. People dont realize we are losing our assets. How about those hay fields in AZ? They are Saudi owned. The Saudis are almost as bad as the Chinese.
I wish they were as strict with the oil industry as they are with the lithium industry.
Well, the oil industry is a success. We're still waiting to see if California will regulate these businesses out of business.
They have more corruption payments to politicians
Seems odd that a few years ago you could almost get property for next to nothing in that area... Now its Billions of Dollars Worth of Lithium to be extracted ?
Gotta be a charged silicate as the extraction binder.
And if they mixed nickel it would be a 30-year battery in outer space... But they don't want it to last that long.
There were studies about bringing salt water from the Pacific to the Salton Sea. Why don't they invest in that? It will mitigate the toxic dust thus ensuring for a safer community that can work at the lithium extraction plants.
This is a very good idea!!!
The idea of using seawater to flood lowland dessert areas would also help midagate sea-level rise, and develop new sea harbor communities.
Can we do Houston next?
Run the numbers. It would be very expensive and require huge energy inputs.
@@weirdshibainu What are the numbers?
@@denniscrannie1126 The Pacific?? how are you going to get Mexico on board???!! Make them a dessert??
Excellent, lith gold, strip mine, geothermal energy, awesome. Needs both
Warren Buffett invested in this years ago. Turning the pooerest part of California into the next enegery source is welcoming news
This is a win win situation. The area around the Salton Sea is terrible. There are very few people that live there and the closest city is about 30 miles away with 20k people. This will help the entire area and state in terms of financial stability.
Let's hope it turns out that way. Unfortunately it seems like the govt of CA is starting to do what it does best and ruin a good thing. Hopefully they don't tax/regulate this project into oblivion. Also I paused to read the text of that tax bill and apparently the revenue goes to the state government then the state gets to decide where the money goes - why not just let the county handle the tax directly?
California practices modified trickle down economics, they just add an extra step at the beginning where they suck it all up before trickling it down.
San Diego/imperial is one of the most beautiful parts of USA ⛪
1:39 “mined for ‘green’ energy” LOL
Mining lithium affects perhaps 1% of the world. Burning fossil fuels affects 100% of the globe. See the difference?
@@aztronomy7457 Big oil just had its best year ever. It's future is bright.
@@Juneisthebestmonth it’s a finite resource. The game won’t last forever.
@@aztronomy7457 Oil resources are growing. Giant new finds off the coast of Brazil are not even being considered - just laying back and waiting for 20 - 50 years or so. It will be around for generations
@@Juneisthebestmonth by future, you must be assuming the next century. Perhaps. I am thinking long term, the next 100-500 years. Oil is finite. It is not growing. There is a limited supply on earth. That’s a fact.
This is very interesting, and if possible should reduce a lot of the environmental impacts of lithium mining. Now if cobalt can be done better.
Except that it is NOT drying - it is filling up at this moment.
Then this is good news. The toxic dust would be covered with toxic water.
The lake will be a shallow sump and lagoon in about 15 years. It is going away
450,000 oil refineries worldwide in cities causing 50% air pollution. LIthiium at least in desert away from cities
Right next to the food and crops you eat and depend on. Yea who cares if the ground and water is poisonous, as long as our air is safe and it doesn't get to hot! 🫠
How much water is needed to recover the lithium?
Enough to forget about the "water shortage"
2:40 not a misspelled word
Is is amazing how blessed our country is!
Lithium doesn’t power anything, it just allows you to store energy produced elsewhere!
Food doesn't power anything, it just allows chemical energy to be stored.
Ketcup is not a sauce it is just tomato salad
@@oursimplearts🤣
@@oursimplearts He has a point. Your tomato's rebuttal is off though. You will still need to recharge the lithium batteries from other sources of energy.
@@youme1414 You said nothing new, show me a person on this planet that doesn't know that batteries needs to be charged? It like stating water is wet and sun is shining.
DDT? 6:03 I was told DDT decomposes in a short time and it was not carcinogenic!
I’ve lived in three different border communities, every one of them had poverty , high unemployment, and Governments that didn’t care about them. Eagle Pass Texas, El Centro Ca, and Ysleta Texas .
Ah, the secret sauce
The USA has a very resource rich land, also has a very strategic location and topography making it hard to invade them. God bless 'Merica.
From one unintentional environmental disaster, to another - lithium also produces waste, and battery lifetime is too short, then creates another waste stream.
I thought Ca is going through a devastating drought? Where are they getting fresh water from? 🤔🙄🤷🏽♂️🤦🏽♂️🤦🏽♂️🤦🏽♂️
The important thing is that Gavin Newsom looks good throughout this whole situation
It may have been outside the scope of the news story, but I did note that very little was said about the process to turn the Purified Lithium Chloride (the liquid) into solidified lithium for use in batteries. How enviromentally sound is that process? At times it appears we are just trading one evil for another.
I also could not help but notice that a significant portion of the noncorrosive parts required for the lithium extraction were made from plastic....all made from petroluem.
Lithium chloride? The intermediates are lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide. Both are salts dissolved in water and do fine in inexpensive plastic pipe. Just like your home!
"At times it appears we are just trading one evil for another." That's all we ever do in pursuit of a cleaner Earth.....
Lithium is going to be mined either way whether it's on US soil or in another country. Might as well develop an industry for it here in the US to help support our economy. According to the video they are developing new techniques that hopefully keep the environmental impact minimal.
@@cjoin83 LOL, I was a part of the development over 15 years ago....
Significantly more environmentally sound than drilling for oil.
Can not see how they could deal with the dust.
Don’t give any of these tax dollars to any of these so called “Salton Sea Restoration” agencies. I remember they got a $1M bond to examine the New River as part of the Salton Sea and all they did was go look at the river, and then go out to dinner. The money was completely mismanaged!
And the toxic byproducts of lithium extraction will be dealt with how?
none really - just silicates (sand)
For all those people living there make sure these companies follow thru on mitigation/prevention & corrective actions before they do anything.
Learn from past natural resource extraction (coal, oil, gold) what happens when companies arent held accountable for their waste in pursuit of $$$
Great news, by the time production ramps up batteries will use something else that's cheaper
Should look into a place called Manono
Real questions should be regarding the environmental impact an operation of that scale would have on nearby communities. Initial development alone will devastate the water shed. Then you have operational logistics, including disposal of toxic byproducts. Where will all this go? How much “green” would this operation really yield in the long term?
Everytime we consume something, it has negative impacts somewhere.
However, in this case, the alternative of not having lithium is having to extract always more oil, which is by far the worst industry in the world in terms of environmental impact.
So while extracting lithium obviously isn't 100% "green", it for sure has a much lower impact than having to extract oil.
I think when people complain about in every alternative, they forgot just how pollutive oil is in every single step. Far worse then this.
This is literally removing a toxin that is blowing in the dust and impacting nearby communities and people are still like "hold on now...."
Nono….didnt you hear? The area is toxic so this consumption is okay, unlike the other one.
It’s greener then the lithium mined by children in third world countries.
One more reason to get Mega jealous of California
It's yet another industry that will both make California money and be hated by liberals.
We're going to sustainably power our cities off hater hate! Everyone who left for Texas or Knoxville is black listed... no backsies!
California will possibly have two major industries emerging at the same time, lithium and AI. California already has 35 of the top 50 AI companies in the world. Maybe AI can assist in developing the technology needed to extract lithium and also improve the agriculture industry in the area without the use of pesticides.
Pretty big gift for us here in the states. I just hope we do it right this time and protect the workers that will be extracting this stuff. Learning from coal mines and even the shale revolution here in west Texas, the workers were exposed to some really nasty pollution that took years if not decades off their lives.
The lesson learned is that the federal government will let the companies get away with it
"Look, Morticia, toxic waste. And it's all ours!". Gomez
Wait, didn't all the naysayers said we would never have enough lithium for all the EVs.
New tech no need
@@qjtvaddict Fine then no buy.
With the depressed prices of lithium I highly doubt any large scale (metric tons) lithium operation will take root there. With the advent of alternatives such as sodium ion and sulfur batteries it is going to get even tougher.
A lot of factors, but cost is related to supply plus well applied, acquired knowledge.
@@bmaciii and lithium from Argentina will ALWAYS be cheaper but I doubt Lith. is oging to be the go-to for very much longer. too many alternaives coming on line.
These facilities also have massive strategic value. If china tries to pressure the world by increasing lithium prices, the USA can ramp up production to keep prices down and invalidate china's leverage. That way, we dont have to worry about brutal dictatorships like china forcing us to do or accept anything.
Been there. Didn’t know it had lithium
This video doesn't even cover how the salton sea was once a test area for dropping nuclear weapons. There's a lot of waste there that should also be cleaned up. I also believe that community projects and resources need to be focused on by these companies trying to profit off the valley's natural resources
I'm sure California will find a way to prevent this valuable resource from being extracted.
they already have - they added a Lithium Tax which has already scared off many investors and they have turned to the new finds in tax-free Nevada
@@Juneisthebestmonthlol no. The amount of Lithium underneath the Salton Sea easily overshadows what’s in Nevada. The very conservative estimate was $75 trillion worth of lithium were in the brine underneath the Salton Sea-hence the given nickname the “Saudi Arabia of Lithium”
@@lawlkings sir, perhaps you do not realize I was a Director involved in the original process and discoveries. Ignore the hype used to attract initial investors. Most of it is not recoverable as it requires a geothermal plant's exhausted feed. With the idiot governor approving a lithium tax to burden any profits - this issue is moot. And yes, there have been giant new finds in the past year in Utah, Nevada and even Maine. Never, ever allow Newsome to run for public office again. He is the absolute worst thing for California and the country. California is emptying out, losing representatives in Congress (for the first time ever) and after the census in 2030 you are going to be shocked
@@Juneisthebestmonth I actually work for Berkshire who owns a power geothermal and lithium extraction plant in the Salton sea area and the outlook is really good. They plan on expanding more.
People keep saying droves of people are leaving California, but I’ll believe it when real estate properties value start dropping in California due to decreasing demand. A 50-year old 2 bedroom 970 sq ft condo near me is now worth $750,000 today in southern California, up 50% since 2018. That property has been getting 30 offers per month. No other state in the US offers a Mediterranean climate like the western coastal states do. The southern states gets too hot and humid for me in the summer, northern states get too cold for me in the winter. Being able to go surfing at the beach, snowboarding up in the snow, and then go visit a desert all within the same day is amazing. The seasons in California are unbeatable
The solution to the Salton Sea is well known and simply. Pump storage between the Salton Sea and the Gulf of California / Pacific Ocean. Pump water out at night using geothermal power. Turbine water in during the day when the power is worth more. Yes salt water is corrosive but they have materials that can handle this. Pump storage would maintain a well defined shoreline and equalize salinity between the Salton Sea and Pacific Ocean.
Mexico will want a big cut, and already dont like us since we use all the river water for farming on thisside
the "Gulf" of California. Do you mean the Mexican side of the bay??? You think this might happen?? The Colorado river used to end up in the gulf of Baja California, until the USA STOLE all the water!!
The Salton Sea is toxic, you cant pump that water anywhere, especially not into wildlife ecosystems!
never...even if free
Where is the lithium discarded once it is spent because what I remember from college is that lithium is highly toxic after it’s spent? 375 million EV batteries is nearly 18 million metric tons of waste. That seems like you should leave it encased in the geothermal brine where it is not leaking all over the world. You know what it occurs to me this is a money grab at the cost of the environment. I basically just watched a commercial produced by investors of EV batteries.
There is quite a bit of activity with lithium reprocessing going on right now. Become an investor!
The Salton Sea, a major health hazard for everyone in the surrounding area that only gets attention when people realize there's money in it. Classic.
"Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown"
All the lithium in the world isn't gonna make any difference, because EVs also use a crapton of copper and the global mining capacity for copper is like a tenth of what it would need to be to make EVs affordable at scale. Go look up Mark Mills, he's been talking about it for years now.
Why do people worry about this stuff? Same with “oh, no, we can’t have so many EVs because we don’t have the electrical grid”. When someone pays for it, they will make more of it. Why worry?
copper is common and supply is elastic
Lithium price expected to drop further
To get rid of the toxic dust, you have to fill the Salton Sea back up to it's previous level. You could just use ocean water, via the Gulf of California.
Or divert water from the Colorado River.
also stop extracting ground water would help. Surface water and underground water are connected.
that will NEVER happen, it is purposely being drained for the past 20 years. You cannot convey ocean water, below sea level, over fresh water aquifers, in an active earthquake zone. Besides, adding ocean water to a trapped lake is just plain dumb.
Whats the holdup ? I heard that proposal 2y ago.
Then there's CA's business hostile environment.
@@michaelcap9550 California reminds me a lot of Germany. Germans love to import everything that's bad for the environment and then point the finger at the country's they exported their polution to.
Toyota said there is not enough lithium for EVs. I guess they were lying.
Toyota lie everytime, but in fact they never said it was a quantity problem, we know there is enough lithium, the real difficulty is the rate at which we can mine it
well actually there is enough lithium to power everything that we can think off, its other rare earth elements thats the issue
@@firefistace6407 there is no rare earth element in batteries
Or copper. Or rare earths.
A farming disaster, turned into ecological nightmare, turned into a green technology opportunity. In every disaster there is an opportunity.
The newest generation of EV batteries don't even use exotic metals. The need for lithium will not increase exponentially as they originally predicted.
It’s a tonne, not a metric ton. Derrr.
But is it a short ton or a long ton?
@@georgewashington7829 It’s a tonne😏
@@seanlander9321 r u talking about ur girlfriend or mom?
@@alquinn8576 Your wife
@@seanlander9321 oh snap! but joke's on you: i'm too stupid and ugly to have a wife
I hate that the U.S is basically cheating when it comes to geography
This may sound stupid to ask but how are lithium batteries recycled once they can't hold a charge anymore?
There are places that are recycling them. There are even TH-cam videos on this.
Wow, it’s so amazing ❤❤❤
I like how the guy's main concern at 6:10 is that employees with chronic asthma will be inefficient. Who cares the employees are sick, we will lose money ! Very american
well i think he was saying, that it would be hard to mobilize a workforce due to ease of getting asthma because of the toxic environment.
I think you totally misinterpreted that, but no surprise there.
I think he's arguing that even from a profit focused business POV the energy/lithium companies should spend money on the mitigation of the toxic dust
That doesn't mean he is focused on the business profits
@@ghajik.😅maybe using robot or human operator using oxygen tube for work ?
I hope Congress seeks an antitrust suit against Berkshire Hathaway.
Why? They got there first when the Salton was worth nothing
Can you extract lithium with plant rooting at all?
Not at a scalable level. While plants can be used to as mineral prospectors, theyres not much use in bulk harvesting anything short of the value of gold.
Are the atmospheric rivers filling it up?
😅Wanna be like the Saudi Mars Landscape. Love Saudi so much
I am amazed that the solution to the problem is to tax the industry in charge of deploying new technologies and give the money to the most inefficient organizations ever created ( the government) to mitigate the ecosystem problem. Very clever! Very proud of those who think that’s the solution 😂
It's the LOCAL government/representatives that we're talking about here.
@@Dave05J the state of California has a long record of ineffective regulations
Yes the corporation is very efficient... at providing a profit to it's shareholders, not at protecting the environment, you need the government to enforce environmental regulations so the workers and the people living in the town do not die of asthma cuz the company doesn't care if that happens
@@ravtej4468 my apologies for my disbelief but no history book has shown me a place in time where the good intentions of the government ended in something good, to the contrary, every area of life that we give it to the government to control goes to trash, I mean everything ( healthcare, logistics, wealth, planning, innovation, and including ecosystem). If there is profit to be made by cleaning the lake and proving lithium without a high toll on health while mitigating the ecosystem damage, many companies will compete to do it. Leave it to the government to over regulate businesses and only arbitrary place regulations that the large corporations can follow.
the lithium tax has scared investors who have looked elsewhere - mainly to tax free Nevada. Idiot Newsom has effectively killed the future in CA.
Name me one community that has been left in better shape than they started by a mining company 🤷♂️
This is not mining. Read better
The world’s largest Rare Earth Mineral deposit was just discovered in Wyoming. This find helps free the US from buying REM from China and Russia.
How does the world expect to green everything is paradoxical 😂😂
Sadly, the lithium batteries are not the future for EVs, as they are unstable and dangerous.
Lithium leads for mobile devices. EVs pack to much to tight in more volatile use cases from weather and accidents. There r other more stable uses other than EVs.
Congolese cobalt slave: 😢
LFP (lithium iron phosphate) is not unstable and dangerous, and it still needs a lot of lithium.
They are also some of the most energy dense and charge-discharge efficient power-storage solutions we have.
The batteries in your phone, tablet, and laptop are made of lithium 🤣
They need to pipe in salt water from the Sea of Cortez. It could also be used to supply a desalination plant and nuclear.
never, ever. Besides, if you make pure water - the VERY LAST thing they are going to do is dump it into the Mistake Lake - that is going away
I mean I guess. Most people don't buy EVs. They kinda suck unless you live in town, don't go far or live somewhere where winter is a big deal
Lithium prices have nosedived