Lithium extraction from geothermal brine at Salton Sea
Hudson Ranch I geothermal power plant, January 2012, Salton Sea, California/ U.S. (source: EnergySource)
Alexander Richter
6 Mar 2012
Material technology firm Simbol Materials is tailgating the Hudson Ranch I geothermal power plant, planning to extract lithium carbonate from the plant's geothermal brine. The company expects to derive 16,000 tonnes from the brine with a market value of $88 million.
The announcement of the imminent start of the Hudson Ranch I geothermal power plant of EnergySource in the Salton Sea, is not only bringing the first geothermal power plant online in the Salton Sea within the last 20 years, but is also very interesting for another project attached to it.
Reported here before Simbol Materials is “materials technology company” that is planning to extract lithium from the geothermal brine brought to the surface by production wells of a geothermal power plant. The company has teamed up with EnergySource and expects that this size of the plant could create enough brine to produce up to 16,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate. With about $5,500 per tonne for lithium carbonate in the current market this is a sizeable business. (the global demand today is about 22,000 tonnes)
The Simbol process leverages a current business to get raw “ore” for almost nothing, something conventional miners pay a fortune to find and exploit.
“We’re at the tail end of their process,” says Simbol’s Erceg. Teaming up with a company developing a geothermal power plant is the best way as the company can thereby focus on its business.
Details on the story, see link below.
Source: CNBC
