Lithium outlook bright, but much more prep needed
IMPERIAL – From the gargantuan to the minute, Imperial County’s potential as a hub for a new domestic lithium industry is attracting seemingly unprecedented attention, and leveraging that into local economic prosperity was the center point of a forum Thursday at Imperial Valley College.
In attendance was Lars Carlstrom, who Tuesday revealed plans for Statevolt, a $4 billion lithium battery manufacturing facility in the county that would employ up to 2,500, and was one of Thursday’s featured speakers.
In the audience was David Bertolini, vice president of operations for the Novohit software company. He revealed during the question and answer session the firm that has about a half dozen U.S. employees is in the process of moving its domestic base from Murrieta to Imperial because of the business climate in Imperial County.
Much of this activity is the result of the business- attraction marketing done by the Imperial Valley Economic Development Corp. Its president and chief executive officer, Tim Kelley, quickly spelled out the day’s objective in his opening remarks to the gathering of elected, city and county officials, educators, business owners and healthcare professionals.
“We are making you aware of the things going on and, more importantly, how you can get involved,” he said. “The information we share today is information you can take back to your communities.”
The event marked a week’s hat trick of sorts for the local lithium plans. Besides Carlstrom’s battery- plant reveal, U. S. Energy Secretary Jennifer M. Granholm visited the county Wednesday to discuss lithium, the Salton Sea and related economic and environmental issues.
Besides Kelley and Carlstrom, the forum’s speakers included Ryan Kelley, county District 4 supervisor; Efrain Silva, Imperial Valley College dean of workforce and
economic development; and Rod Colwell, CEO of Controlled Thermal Resources.
CTR’s planned geothermal power plant near Calipatria would be the source of lithium for Statevolt.
Among the challenges, speakers agreed, is taking a community with lagging infrastructure, most known for its chronically high unemployment and blighted Salton Sea, and turning it into a shining star of the global economy.
“We’ve been successful in attracting solar (farms) and we never got a manufacturing plant” for solar equipment, Tim Kelley lamented. “That was frustrating to me. (Solar) generation was never the end goal.”
Ryan Kelley was adamant the county has the tools to shake what he sees as an undeserved reputation.
First showing slides of colorful local activities such as the Cattle Call rodeo and parade in Brawley, followed by scenes of blight, he stated, “Fish die offs (at the Salton Sea) and shuttered businesses. I don’t think that is the right description. We need to be the one crafting the message so they know we are more than that.”
The game- changer, Ryan Kelley noted, was a decision by the state to require more electricity from geothermal plants, abundant in Imperial County, as part of its green-energy initiative.
“We worked to get geothermal recognized as a baseline source of power (as opposed to wind and solar that are intermittent). Lithium (extraction) became less of a cost burden because of that decision. That changed the landscape and made lithium much more attractive,” he explained.
Lithium is the mineral used in the batteries of electric vehicles and it is found in abundance in the scalding water pumped from the ground to generate electricity at the county’s numerous geothermal plants. At least two operators of active geothermal plants have plans to build companion plants to capture and process the mineral, and CTR’s planned plant would mark a third.
Enthusiasm about the county’s potential was clear from both Colwell from Australia, and Carlstrom, a Swede who is also developing Italvolt, a battery plant in Italy. Both are confident the county can deliver on their needs, including improved infrastructure such as higher- speed internet, road paving, and bridge repair, as well as a workforce educated and trained specifically for lithium-related industries.
Other needs include more housing, and improved rail and air transportation.
“To have the lithium on site is very unique and very amazing,” Carlstrom said of the fact the battery plant can built near to where the CTR plants will remove the lithium from the groundwater and process it for commercial use.
“The supply chain needs to be local. We cannot transport things from Asia, otherwise we are just moving the problem (by using too much energy in manufacturing), which we don’t want to do. Keeping the supply chain domestic is very important to us,” he added.
Carlstrom also noted that in Imperial County he learned doing business in the U.S. is less complex than Europe because “you have a totally different view of entrepreneurship.”
Easier permitting in the county and the fact CTR’s geothermal plant can power its lithium extraction plant and the battery plant were tipping-point advantages to an Imperial County operation, Colwell noted.
“IID (Imperial Irrigation District electric power costs) does not compete with fossil fuel power from the Midwest. Geothermal can beat that. We can compete and we’re green. That’s really the driver,” he said
Noting meetings started in May 2021 to produce a plan for “Lithium Valley,” what has become the marketing term for the effort, Ryan Kelley explained, “We know we have gaps and we’re going to address that. Industry was involved in all these conversations. We made policy changes. Imperial County is moving forward with a specific plan and EIR (environmental impact report), not just for lithium but for ancillary industries (such as trucking and maintenance).”
The plan and EIR, if approved by the county Board of Supervisors, would streamline the planning and permitting process for qualifying geothermal and lithium projects.
With the goal of hiring local residents to fill the lithium jobs, Silva outlined the exacting process for IVC to create new courses of study. The college gained valuable experience with that in developing four new programs to start this fall–customer service, entrepreneurship, industrial automation and gerontology–and curricula for lithium jobs is next up.
“We’ve been working with lithium (developers) for several months and looked at company job descriptions for lab technician, plant operator and instrumentation technician. All three companies (CTR, Energy Source and BHE Renewables ( Cal Energy) have given us letters of support,” Silva explained.
He added, “This going to be expensive. We are looking for funding sources and we are confident we can get those by fall 2023 with the first graduates in 2024.”
Carlstrom noted Statevolt does not intend to be a spectator in crafting a local workforce.
“We’ve already started looking into what jobs will be needed–a battery academy for teens that may not go to college. Approved. Certified. That’s something we think is very important. We can start before we begin the manufacturing,” he said.
Promising a “beautiful” factory of which he showed a rendering on an overhead slide, Carlstrom added, “This is such a young industry. What are the industrial standards for a ‘gigafactory?’ There are none. It’s one of the most exciting industries going on. This hyper-local concept is extremely unique and changing the way we look at the gigafactory and the supply chain.
The battery plant would be a “campus” of 3.2 million square feet producing enough batteries per year for 650,000 vehicles. Funding would come from a combination of sources, including seed-cap, equity, debt financing and government support, Carlstrom added.
Asked if obtaining the $600 million in government funding Carlstrom said the project needs, Tim Kelley maintained confidence.
“There’s a lot of programs, we’re looking at, state and federal, that would benefit it– bond financing. Tax credits, grants,” he said.