Category: Salton Sea

April 8, 2022

REMINDER: Meeting set for Monday on

Water Importation Feasibility Study Screening Report

California Senator Feinstein just crafter a letter to the Army Corp of engineers to mitigate the States responsibility for owning 8.5 acres around the Sea. In the letter, please note it claims the sea is shrinking due to conversation “changing agricultural practices” rather than the sale of water to be transferred to San Diego.

Letter

David Fessler | February 22, 2022 – Source ProfitTrends

The electric vehicle revolution just got a big boost.

It came from this year’s Super Bowl ads, seven of which were for EVs.

U.S. automakers are all retooling their assembly lines to make EVs. That is a big deal because automakers and their suppliers make up the country’s largest manufacturing sector, comprising 3% of U.S. gross domestic product.

But their EV supply chains are all missing one critical link: battery-grade lithium.

Right now, all of the lithium that U.S. automakers use comes from outside the U.S., which could become a problem.

So American EV makers want to get their lithium from mines closer to home. And that could happen soon.

The Salton Sea to the Rescue

California has an abundance of geothermal energy resources and has been producing geothermal energy for decades.

The Salton Sea is one of these resources. Today, there are 11 geothermal power plants along the sea.

Under tremendous pressure, superheated brine flows to the surface. It immediately flashes to steam. This super-heated steam drives a turbine, which in turn drives an electric generator that’s connected to the grid.

Powerful pumps then inject the cooled brine back into the underground field. There, the brine is reheated.

And here’s the good news for EV makers: The brine is rich in minerals that contain lithium.

In fact, the sea holds more than enough lithium to make all the batteries American EV makers need. There could even be enough left over to export.

To top it all off, the electricity generated at the Salton Sea is carbon-free. That makes the lithium-extraction projects there “green.”

Largest Deposit in the World

California Gov. Gavin Newsom recently called the Salton Sea the “Saudi Arabia of lithium.”

And for good reason.

The U.S. Department of Energy believes the Salton Sea brine region could supply 600,000 tons of lithium annually. That’s more than the current U.S. demand. And some geochemists believe the field could hold 1 million to 6 million metric tons of lithium.

That would make it the largest lithium brine deposit in the world – big enough to potentially provide 50 to 100 years’ worth of lithium.

The biggest problem is figuring out how to extract that lithium from the brine. Scientists are also trying to figure out how much of the lithium is in the brine versus the surrounding rocks. That will determine how much lithium can be recovered.

And all of this has caught the attention of some big players.

Berkshire Hathaway Energy, a division of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A), is working with the private company Controlled Thermal Resources to extract lithium from the cooled brine. Berkshire Hathaway Energy owns 10 of the 11 geothermal plants operating along the Salton Sea.

General Motors Company (NYSE: GM) is also invested in Controlled Thermal Resources. It’s one of the many American automakers that want to get their lithium from the Salton Sea.

Controlled Thermal Resources runs the Hell’s Kitchen Lithium and Power project. This is the first Salton Sea geothermal power plant to be combined with a lithium-extraction facility. And its pilot operation should be up and running in 2024.

(Here’s a short video explaining how it works.)

The company estimates the plant’s annual capacity will be around 300,000 tons once it’s fully constructed.

To put this into perspective, Controlled Thermal Resources CEO Rod Colwell says the annual worldwide production of lithium today is around 400,000 tons.

He indicated that the process can be easily replicated by just drilling more wells. And like every new technology, this one will get even better as engineers collect more data and refine the process.

Once Controlled Thermal Resources and others ramp up production at the Salton Sea, the U.S. will have its missing link in the critical EV supply chain.

Good investing,

Dave

• by Betty Miller Source Desert Review

EL CENTRO — Imperial Irrigation District has been negotiating with Hell’s Kitchen Geothermal, LLC (HKG) to transfer land near the Salton Sea to the company, plus allow geothermal drilling of the heated brine and mineral extraction.

Recently, IID entered into negotiations with HKG to transfer approximately 3,144 acres, which includes the 1,880 acres currently under lease with HKG. Documents showed at the IID’s regular Feb. 15, meeting that under the proposed transfer, IID would retain its rights to all subsurface resources, including geothermal and mineral resources.

“You have the largest geothermal reservoir in North America and, globally, the largest lithium reserve,” said HKG Chief Operating Officer Jim Turner. “There are a lot of other valuable minerals in the brine, besides lithium. This is a very important project for us, the Imperial Valley, California, the United States, and the world.”

HKG would only own rights to the surface of the land. This transfer would allow HKG to develop and construct geothermal and mineral extracting facilities on the surface of the land and lease IID’s subsurface resources.

Turner applauded IID’s decision to sell the land. “To let us acquire the surface, this will expedite our progress. Our first wells are constructed, and we plan to start production in 2023,” Turner said. “Time is our biggest hurdle. As the shoreline recedes, we will be right there mitigating dust, wherever we touch the surface, we will be stopping the dust, we will knock the dust down. We live here, too.”

However, the transfer will be subject to three options whereby IID may reacquire title to the land if certain milestones are not met by HKG. The first is that by July 15, 2024, the commercial operation of a 49.9 MW geothermal plant must be operational. The second is the operation of a 200 MW and 20,000 tons of lithium product be established and royalties to IID from the geothermal and lithium by 10 years after the transfer.

“This will ensure the land remains in production,” IID President Jim Hanks said. “If milestones are not met, IID can rebuy the land. We will make sure the land will become productive.”

The last milestone is for a complete drainage system or funds given to IID to complete the work by 10 years from the transfer.

The proposed sale is for $500 for 3,144 acres, but a significant amount of royalty payments will be paid to IID for the successful production of the subsurface geothermal and mineral resources.

“We will pay property taxes,” Turner said. “IID as a non-profit, doesn’t pay property taxes on the land, we will. This helps the County with revenue. Geothermal plants are the County’s single largest property taxpayer and most of it goes to schools. As improvements are made on the land, that will increase the tax rate we pay. We will pay higher taxes.”

Hell’s kitchen Geothermal, LLC entered into a geothermal lease agreement with the IID on March 15, 2016, which was subsequently amended on May 25, 2017; May 21, 2018; and May 26, 2020. Under the lease, HKG has a leasehold interest in approximately 1,880 acres of the surface and subsurface areas of the IID-owned land.

Desert Sun Editorial Board

The underground chemical stew beneath the Salton Sea is believed to hold enough lithium to power millions of cars and homes with green energy. But only if — a big if — enough of that scalding “geothermal brine” can be brought to the surface and the lithium sifted out.
That’s an incredibly complex process. And it’s just about as hard for those who live around the sea to separate reality from dreams when it comes to the impact of all that lithium.
In the best case, we’ve heard over the years, a lithium boom could generate billions of dollars; bring thousands of badly needed jobs for those living near the sea; spur an environmental revival; and give clean energy to a region, the state and beyond. 
Quite a list.
The simple fact is we don’t know how much of it, if any, will come true.
As big drilling projects get underway, excitement over the potential of the Salton Sea lithium deposit is ramping up, leading to recent local and national media attention.
But as a top environmental scientist just told The Wall Street Journal, it will be a few years before it’s clear whether the kind of brine there can be a major source of usable lithium.
The reason that matters is the world’s immense appetite for rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. Among many other uses, they’re in mobile phones and electric cars, and they can store the power generated by solar panels for later use.
In other words, lithium can power a green energy revolution — if we can get enough of it.
And a report from the California Energy Commission said the Salton Sea area alone could generate more than 600,000 tons per year of lithium carbonate. That’s more than the entire world produced last year, The Wall Street Journal reported.
It would make the region the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” as Gov. Gavin Newsom recently said.
But no one knows whether it will be possible to extract anywhere near that much of the lithium under the sea.
It’s a long road from talk and pilot projects to real change.
Back on the surface, that’s long been true about the Salton Sea itself as it shrinks and becomes more of an environmental disaster by the day. Toxic dust exposed as the shoreline recedes has devastating effects on people and animals.
When it comes to solutions, people are used to studies and promises — and not much more. There are positive steps, like a habitat restoration pilot project recently announced. But we should be well beyond pilot projects by now.
It’s no wonder the growing talk about the promise of lithium seems like welcome news.
Elected officials, labor leaders and others are planning how to make sure nearby residents, including people of color and the low income, get a large share of the jobs that could come.
It’s wise to be skeptical for now of how many jobs that will be. But it also makes sense to be prepared for them, especially because area residents might not yet have the needed skills.
Even if the Salton Sea doesn’t turn out to be the new Saudi Arabia, the process of finding out could hold some potential for the region.
Local colleges may be able to train people in some of the skills companies will need as they do hundreds of millions of dollars in exploratory work. Those would likely not be six-figure engineering jobs, but any decent jobs would be welcome in the area around the sea.
Meanwhile, the state needs to strike a delicate balance between encouraging lithium exploration — as it has with millions in grants — and not regulating it to death, as California too often does.
There are ways for regular people to get involved, too. One is to watch meetings of the state’s Lithium Valley Commission, which includes members from industry, tribes, advocacy groups and local and state government. Its mission is to explore the opportunities lithium presents and make recommendations to the state.
The commission’s next meeting is Wednesday at 9 a.m. and will include a workshop, during which members of the public can speak. The commission’s final report is due to the Legislature by Oct. 1, and you can learn more at tinyurl.com/LithiumValley.
If — that word again — yes, if Salton Sea lithium does turn out to be huge, it could finally spur the long-needed action to halt and reverse the sea’s decline.
When there’s enough money to be made and enough powerful people involved, things get done quickly.

BY MARCELA DAVISON AVILÉS

Before his commute to work every morning, Sergio Lopez packs the essentials:

Cell phone, check. Calculator, check. Laptop, check. Long-iron irrigation-gate bar, check.

Lopez is a zanjero, or irrigation-ditch minder, in the Imperial Valley, an agricultural expanse that lies between the Salton Sea and the Mexican border. The Spanish word for “ditch” is zanja. Since the days of old Alta California, zanjeros have directed irrigation water where it’s needed, released exactly the right amount for crops to grow, and stopped the flow when the earth has had enough. California leads the nation in farm cash receipts—the Imperial Valley alone produced more than $2 billion in crops in 2019. Every farm in the valley needs water delivered by the Imperial Irrigation District. Lopez is their deliveryman.

When people think of the state and water, the so-called Kings of California often come up, like William Mulholland, a onetime zanjero who worked his way up to become the first supervisor of the Los Angeles Water Department and the builder of the Los Angeles Aqueduct. But who really controls the irrigation canals that carry water from the state’s reservoirs and aqueducts to the people and farms that are its end users? Zanjeros, the legendary water channelers of California.

With his salt-and-pepper hair and trimmed goatee, Lopez has the bearing of a college professor. And given the wisdom he’s earned by coaxing water out of rivers and over to thirsty fields, his patient and learned demeanor is itself an essential resource, especially during a drought. When he shares his story, you hear heritage, humility, and pride—a quiet confidence refined by decades of hard work on the canals. “My parents are from Sinaloa,” he says. “When they immigrated from Mexicali to the U.S., I was nine years old. My dad was a feed-truck driver. So [when] I was a little kid, I started working cattle. I used to work for a farmer in the valley. I’ve worked in agriculture all my life.”

In this valley, water is nature’s oxymoron: it exists because it shouldn’t. It’s piped in from the Colorado River, and the district employs 143 zanjeros to manage its path. In an average year in California, approximately 9.6 million acres are irrigated with roughly 34 million acre-feet of water. It’s an amount that would cover 31 million football fields with 1 foot of water. On the Imperial Valley’s football field, Lopez is quarterback, pass receiver, and sometimes coach, all at once.

Since the 1800s, zanjeros have guided the river’s edge, metaphorically and literally, first for the old Californio haciendas and later for the cities that replaced them. In Los Angeles’s early days, the zanjero was paid more than the mayor. For generations, zanjeros have navigated the back roads along canals, first on horseback and now in rigs with computers. More than the state’s land barons, more than the subjects of Hollywood mythologizing, zanjeros have wielded the power of necessity. Without the zanjero, there would be no California oranges or grapes. No California “backyard orchard.” There would be no California as we know it at all.