Issue 19: Lithium Valley projects get help from local government
Imperial County deploys strategy to help lithium construction projects streamline their way through California’s rigorous permitting process.
Fresh this Week
Simplifying the CEQA Process for the Lithium Industry
This snippet is a bit bureaucratic and jargony but it might be of interest to industry and government readers of this newsletter. It deals with California’s permitting process for big construction projects and what it means to the emerging lithium industry.
You can read more in Between the Lines below but here’s the gist, which I reported for the Calexico Chronicle:
Imperial County leaders this week approved a programmatic environmental impact report for future lithium-related projects.
The lithium industry benefits from it because it could help them save time and resources in performing their own environmental impact reports for each of their upcoming projects.
Environmentalists worry this acts as a rubber stamp for yet-to-be declared construction projects, saying this is no bona fide substitute for the rigorous study each state-mandated environmental impact report demands.
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Controlled Thermal Resources Pushes Forward
CTR, the Australian-based startup seeking to extract lithium and generate geothermal power near the Salton Sea, has an update: things are moving forward.
Among its significant updates, which it shared in its website and on LinkedIn, the company says:
CTR signed a definitive offtake agreement with one of the world’s largest automotive groups, Stellantis, to supply up to 25,000 metric tons of lithium hydroxide each year, over a 10-year term.
CTR has further strengthened its Strategic Investment and Collaboration Agreement with General Motors.
CTR has completed definitive resource analysis from the first two production wells which have exceeded all expectations.
Its latest analysis found lithium concentrations recovered from HK1 and HK2 are at an average of 220 mg/kg, 20% higher than originally reported.
CTR’s agreement with GM was recently augmented with a Definitive Supply Agreement signed in 2022 extending delivery beyond 10 years.
CTR is in advanced negotiations with several significant lithium and power offtake partners.
This is the most comprehensive update from CTR since it publicly opposed a California tax on lithium production and warned that such a tax could delay lithium shipments to electric vehicle makers.
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Between the Lines
Helping the Lithium Industry Reach the Finish Line Sooner
Getting anything built in California can be a long and onerous process. And that’s thanks, in part, to the permitting process required by state law via the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA.
This is true even for green energy projects that benefit the state, the nation and the world in general. Lithium supply experts have long argued that, by far, the regulatory process is the biggest obstacle facing the global supply chain of minerals critical to the rising demand for electric vehicles.
But the emerging lithium industry in Imperial County may be getting the help it needs to build its processing facilities with more ease.
This week, county leaders approved a broad-ranging study to review the potential adverse effects that construction of lithium-related projects may have on the local environment and nearby residents.
To achieve lithium extraction from the Salton Sea geothermal brine reserves, companies need to build large and complex processing facilities, or plants, to produce large quantities of battery-grade minerals.
In the case of EnergySource, a San Diego-based energy and minerals company, construction of its lithium extraction facility is expected to begin soon. And that’s because the company has already satisfied the state’s permitting process, including an environmental impact report, or EIR.
Controlled Thermal Resources, the Australian-based startup, is barely undergoing its own environmental impact review and may begin construction of its facilities by the end of the year at the earliest.
That leaves BHE Renewables, the energy company owned by Warren Buffet, still in the early testing phases. The company has not yet announced any major construction — though it operates 10 geothermal facilities near the Salton Sea — and it’s unclear whether it has undergone its own environmental impact review process yet.
But the county’s recent action could help BHE Renewables and others in this aspect.
For one, the programmatic environmental impact report (PEIR) that the county ordered consolidates the CEQA process and bundles up all of its requirements including public outreach and input.
Rather than try and put each lithium extraction plant through its own individual EIR, this method will look at the collective plans and impacts holistically.
Additionally, the PEIR helps other state and federal agencies comment on projects and impacts under one broad-ranging evaluation. It also makes potential litigation less costly and manageable because it would deal with one lawsuit as opposed to many.
At the end of the day, this is of a tremendous benefit to the lithium and geothermal industry eager to build as soon as possible — they would be dealing with one CEQA process rather than several.
Environmentalists worry that the county-approved PEIR will be used as a rubber stamp on future lithium-related projects, none of which are mentioned or identified in its contract with Dudek Consulting, the Encinitas-based company performing the study.
Though the study could take up to 20 months to complete, it is expected to replace the onerous effort that each EIR would take for each construction project in the near future.
In other words, this PEIR could result in savings of time and money for those facilities that have yet to be announced, including those from BHE Renewables.
And money is a big factor: the total cost for the study is $2.4 million and all of it is being covered by the state.
Want to join the discussion on developments of the Lithium Valley? Join the Facebook Group and subscribe to this newsletter for a fresh batch of news every Friday.