A Salton Sea geothermal company thinks it`s solved thelithium puzzle. Will this time be different?
Simbol Materials was a darling of the cleantech world, until it suddenly wasn't. The startup claimed it haddeveloped extraordinary technology to extract lithium, a metal used in electric car batteries, from thegeothermal brine by the Salton Sea's southern shore. Elon Musk was so excited that Tesla Motors offered tobuy the startup for $325 million, as The Desert Sun reported earlier this year.For reasons that are still unclear, the Tesla deal fell through, and Simbol failed to secure other financing. It'shard to say whether the startup's proprietary technology didn't work as advertised, or whethermismanagement doomed the company. Either way, Simbol fired the vast majority of its employees lastyear and has ceased operations.
ow, another company says it's on the verge succeeding where Simbol failed.EnergySource, which runs the 50megawatt Featherstone geothermal plant, has been testing a new process to extract lithium and other metals fromthe underground brine it uses to generate electricity, according to Eric Spomer, the company's president and chief executive. The results have beenpromising enough that a Texas investment group just bought a 38.5percent ownership interest in EnergySource. The firm has invested additionalmoney to fund more thorough testing of the extraction process, which Spomer expects to take about six months.If EnergySource has figured out how to make money extracting lithium, the consequences could be enormous — not only for the electric carmakers,who are hungry for the metal, but for the region's geothermal industry, which has stalled in recent years. Building a geothermal plant is expensive, andlithium would be a lucrative new revenue stream that would geothermal more attractive to investors
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