Through funding provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, EERE's Geothermal Technologies Office is working with California's Simbol Materials to develop technologies that extract battery materials like lithium, manganese, and zinc from geothermal brines. Simbol has the potential to power 300,000–600,000 electric vehicles per year from their plants and is expected to commence production by year end 2013. Energy Department support enabled the company to build the first demonstration facility and co-produce these strategic materials during the power production process. Simbol estimates that 50 megawatts in this mineral-rich region could supply enough lithium to produce the vehicle batteries. As part of DOE's Strategic Minerals Initiative, the Simbol project explores methods to cost effectively extract valuable and strategically important minerals from U.S. geothermal brines. Simbol's Salton Sea plant will create an additional revenue stream from geothermal power production in the near-term and a replicable model for mineral extraction at other sites going forward.

Positive Impact

To meet a growing electric vehicle battery market, innovative geothermal process during power production supplies additional revenue.

Locations

Pleasanton, California

Partners

Simbol Materials

EERE Investment

$3 million ARRA funds; cost-share $6.6 million \

Clean Energy Sector

Renewable electricity generation

The Geothermal Technologies Office researches, develops, and validates innovative and cost-competitive technologies and tools to locate, access, and develop geothermal resources in the United States.

The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) success stories highlight the positive impact of its work with businesses, industry partners, universities, research labs, and other entities.