GM on Friday offered a new solution to concerns around the world that it will not be able to secure enough lithium to produce electric cars: invest in geothermal power plants and extract enough lithium from brine to make millions of electric cars.
According to the announcement, GM will make strategic investments and build business partnerships in geothermal energy company Controlled Thermal Resource to ensure low-cost lithium resources from local sources. The statement uses only a vague description of the amount of investment in "millions of dollars", and GM, as the first company to invest in CTR, known as the "Hell Kitchen" (Hell's Kitchen) project, will have priority for the production of lithium in the first phase of the project, including the option of multi-year cooperation.
Rod Colwell, chief executive of CTR, said that if completed as planned, the Dungeon Kitchen project would have a capacity of 60, 000 tons of lithium by mid-2024, roughly enough to produce 6 million electric cars. The company expects the project to receive federal environmental permission by the end of next year.
In principle, the Dungeon Kitchen project involves extracting ultra-hot, lithium-rich brine from 8000 feet (2.4km) underground, using heat to generate electricity and extracting lithium from the brine. After the completion of the process, the brine is re-injected into the ground, making the process more sustainable than open-pit mines and brine evaporation ponds. CTR said last year that the project produced 15 times lower carbon emissions than Australia's lithium mine.
It is worth mentioning that the Dungeon Kitchen project is located in Salton Sea, California, about 160 miles (258 kilometers) southeast of Los Angeles. Buffett's Berkshire also operates geothermal power plants in the region and has also conducted research on lithium mining. The Salton Sea area is expected to contain about 15 million tons of lithium, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
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