EnergySource secures $2.5M state grant
EL CENTRO — For some time, the promise of developing adequate technology to extract valuable minerals from geothermal energy production byproducts has been an elusive endeavor, and now one of the local developers is confident it’s ready to make it a reality.
On Friday morning, Sen. Ben Hueso announced that EnergySource has been selected to receive a $2.5 million grant from the state’s Energy Commission.
The grant will be used to design a commercial mineral extraction plant within the company’s current John L. Featherstone geothermal plant near the Salton Sea.
Funding for program was a provision of Senate Bill 1074, which Hueso introduced.
“This is a very big deal, ladies and gentlemen, [a] very important step. We can expect some jobs to be created fairly soon, and you are going to see investments come into the county,” Hueso said. “It’s really going to put Imperial County on the map as an energy producer as well for its mineral production.”
The water and mix of minerals or brine which is pumped from the ground and used to generate geothermal energy is highly mineralized and corrosive.
That makes it a necessity to constantly remove the minerals from the plant’s system. Mineral extraction from the brine is one of the most significant costs of geothermal development in the Salton Sea.
Eric Spomer the president of EnergySource, said the vision of the company is to turn a problem into an opportunity. He believes his company has the right technology to extract minerals such as lithium, manganese and zinc. If successful, those minerals could be commercialized, which would offset the cost to produce energy and allow geothermal to be more competitive with other energy resources such as wind and solar.
“This award will help us deliver on this ambitious goal as we look forward to continuing this collaboration into the future when we have a state-of-the-art commercial minerals project in operation,” Spomer said. Though the company has plans to build additional plants near the Salton Sea, Spomer said it is no longer feasible to have standalone plants. New power plants likely would be built only in conjunction with commercial mineral-extraction plants.
The most sought-after of these minerals is lithium which is widely used for batteries in electronics and electric vehicles, and its demand is only expected to increase as electric vehicles become more widely used. Since lithium is the lightest conductive metal it’s expected to remain the metal of choice for batteries.
Spomer noted the first minerals plant involves a total investment of $250 million and could provide up to 200 construction jobs and more than 50 highly skilled full-time operations jobs. Spomer said he expects the project to contribute an additional $60 million in revenue to the local economy through operation and maintenance expenses, salaries, royalties and local taxes paid to schools and government.
Despite the lofty goals presented on Friday, EnergySource’s ambition goes well beyond that. According to Spomer, two or three mineral plants could potentially produce enough lithium to attract a battery gigafactory to the Imperial Valley, which is a long-term goal of the company.
“We are moving with all prudent pace. We don’t want to make a mistake. There have been some big-profile failures in the Salton Sea, and we don’t want to be the next one. We are moving as fast as we can without leaving ourselves open to making mistakes,” Spomer said.
A few years ago EnergySource partnered with Simbol materials, which had a demonstration plant next to the geothermal facility, but those extraction efforts didn’t materialize.
Since then, rather than seeking new technology EnergySource has been looking into existing commercial technologies to solve their challenges using the brine from the Salton Sea as a resource.
“One of our rules was, don’t invent anything. We wanted to use commercially available technology in operation. The trick was getting the right technology for the problems we had to solve,” Spomer said. “Our testing has been really good, and we’re ready to move into design, and that is what this grant is for, to do that detailed design. We have a good idea of what it is going to be, but this will allow us to really solidify it to be able to build it.”
Under the company’s current timeline, such a plant would take another two years to break ground and anywhere from 18 to 20 months after that to be operational.
“California enjoys world-class geothermal resources, and when combined with lithium recovery, we can address climate, human health and economic prosperity challenges ahead from here in Imperial County,” Spomer said.