A study published in late August declared what western miners have long known: there’s fortune in the desert. But its authors aren’t reporting on the gold rush or the oil boom after. Their focus is the mineral that will define the energy industry for decades to come.
Many understand that lithium is the indispensable ingredient in the lithium-ion batteries that power renewable energy development, but few understand the complicated impact of its supply chain. China currently dominates lithium from when it’s taken out of the ground to the moment it’s placed in an iPhone or a Tesla. And with demand set to increase by up to 4,000% over the next decades and vast reserves found under a number of locations in the Western United States, the race for energy superiority is on.
But the only active American mine produces less than 4% of global production a year. And it takes over a decade to build a new one. To further complicate matters, the massive deposit found in Nevada’s Thacker Pass is on contested Indigenous lands. And other groups are raising concerns over its environmental impact. Meaning the US is not only late to the decarbonization and electrification race, its legs are also tied.
Travel south to the edge of the country and a more hopeful option appears. California’s Salton Sea is an environmental disaster and public health hazard, but underneath its polluted waters is enough lithium to meet one third of global demand. The money is now pouring into the rebranded “Lithium Valley” as three companies set out to extract the mineral with a technique that’s less resource intensive than open-pit mining.
Two things are certain: the US needs to rapidly decarbonize and domesticate energy supply chains. What’s less defined are the sacrifices we’re willing to make to realize this. We’re at risk of repeating the mistakes that got us into climate and political peril in the first place: massive extraction, intense use of resources, environmental pollution, and Indigenous land grabs. But there’s an opportunity to extract more than just lithium in the Salton Sea. If done right, we can establish a new model for sustainable resource development.
