The Salton Sea could hold enough lithium for 375 million electric vehicle batteries, and none of it is being pulled from the brine yet

The size of the resource

A Department of Energy analysis by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, published in November 2023, says the geothermal brine under the Salton Sea, hot salty water already pumped up to generate electricity, could hold up to 3,400 kilotons of lithium, the metal used in electric vehicle batteries and grid storage. A kiloton is 1,000 metric tons. The analysis sorts that total into 3 tiers. The Proven tier, recoverable today, holds 760 kilotons. The Accessible tier, also thought recoverable today, holds 2,600 kilotons. The Probable tier, needing extraction technology that does not fully exist yet, holds the full 3,400 kilotons, enough for 375 million electric vehicle batteries, more than every vehicle on United States roads today.

Patrick Dobson, a geological scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the lead author of the analysis, put it this way.

Our analysis concludes that the geothermal brines from the Salton Sea Known Geothermal Resource Area have significant potential as a domestic source of lithium.

Patrick Dobson, geological scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and lead author of the analysis. Source 2.

What the existing plants already produce

The Salton Sea Known Geothermal Resource Area produced 400 megawatts of electricity as of 2023, and the Department of Energy says it could eventually produce 2,950 megawatts fully built out. Making that electricity already pulls the lithium bearing brine to the surface, and the department estimates the existing plants send 21,500 tons of lithium a year back underground unrecovered. A newer method called Direct Lithium Extraction pulls the metal straight from brine instead of digging it from rock or evaporating it from ponds, using 99% less water than current lithium mining. Global lithium demand is expected to grow more than 40 times by 2040.

What the state has funded so far

Since 2022, California has put money behind a lithium industry at the Salton Sea, in the Imperial Valley, home to about 180,000 people and a farm economy worth more than 2.6 billion dollars a year. The California Energy Commission reports about 70 million dollars in Inflation Reduction Act money for restoring the Salton Sea, about 50 million dollars in tax exclusions for 3 lithium developers, 35 million dollars for a battery manufacturing grant, and 23 million dollars for lithium and geothermal research grants. A state permitting program can now clear a qualifying clean energy project, including geothermal power and lithium recovery, in 270 days.

Why extraction has not started

None of the 3 lithium developers active at the Salton Sea had reached commercial scale production as of August 2026, according to the news organization inewsource. Berkshire Hathaway Energy Renewables, which already operates 10 geothermal plants near the Salton Sea, is one of them. Christina Fleming, senior vice president of mineral development at the company, explained the delay this way.

There are a lot of things that can happen that can set the project behind, or delay it, or change its course altogether.

Christina Fleming, senior vice president of mineral development at Berkshire Hathaway Energy Renewables. Source 5.

California financed its lithium industry plan for the Salton Sea in 2022, when the resource was believed worth about 320 billion dollars. By 2026, inewsource reported, that believed value had fallen to about 80 billion dollars, a drop of about 75%, calculated by MAOWCE from the 2 totals. A training program built for jobs in that industry has shrunk too. Imperial Valley College enrolled more than 60 students in its first lithium certification cohort and 24 in its most recent one. The lithium under the Salton Sea has not gotten smaller since the department sized it in 2023. What has changed is that 3 years later, no developer there has produced any of it.