As demand for electric vehicles heats up, there’s concern about a shortage of the key minerals needed to make them. The Biden administration has called for boosting domestic production of such minerals, including lithium for the lithium-ion batteries used in electric-vehicles. And that has many hoping for big business in a desolate spot of California’s Imperial Valley.
A few miles from the shores of California’s Salton Sea, a construction crew is at work on the future site of Hell’s Kitchen Lithium and Power. It’s a geothermal facility, meaning it uses the Earth’s natural heat to create electricity.
That alone has fueled investment here for years. This facility, run by the Australian company Controlled Thermal Resources, will someday produce enough geothermal energy to power 1.1 million homes. But once it’s fully operational, it will also be able to extract lithium from the geothermal brine under the ground.
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