Start-Up in California Plans to Capture Lithium (from geothermal plants)

A start-up company will announce on Wednesday that it is beginning commercial operations at a factory in Southern California to capture lithium from existing geothermal energy plants, a technology it says has the potential to turn the United States into a major lithium exporter.

The plant, built by Simbol Materials near the Salton Sea in the Imperial Valley, will also capture manganese and zinc.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/business/energy-environment/simbol-materials-plans-to-extract-lithium-from-geothermal-plants.html

> The only American lithium producer, Chemetall Foote, in Clayton Valley, Nev.,
> makes the material by pumping brine into ponds and waiting months for the water
> to evaporate. Two other companies have announced plans to produce lithium in
> Nevada using the more conventional method of evaporation.
>
> Simbol officials say they have developed a proprietary filtering process that
> takes minutes and will be located on piping that is a minor detour for brine
> that the geothermal energy company is pumping anyway. Costs are low enough to
> compete in the world market, company officials say, and environmental impacts
> are small since the geothermal plant is already in operation.

Smarter & safer. Here's hoping that their projected costs are low enough to
beat the more polluting alternatives.

:thumbsup: