Sage and Sand: The Search for Sustainable Lithium
Is there a middle ground between "mine everywhere" and saying no to everything?
Greetings from paradise, by which I mean late spring on the edge of Death Valley. 90s in the day, 60s at night, the tourists are gone, the hot springs are hot, and there’s still flowers if you go up in elevation. Life is good this time of year, before the inferno starts.
Look, we need lithium. Lithium batteries and electric vehicles are going to be a central response to the climate crisis, like it or not. We need to find a way forward. I explore that a bit today. Plus, you know, the usual bad lithium projects too.
Can Lithium Be Sustainable?
We’ve made a stink-heard-round-the-world about one lithium project, Rhyolite Ridge, and its impacts to the rare wildflower Tiehm’s buckwheat. Now we’re in VICE News pushing back against the 3PL project in Railroad Valley (see below). So what’s our big answer? How exactly can we produce the lithium to power the renewable energy revolution that we are also so emphatically in support of?
We feel the most promising route is in Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE).
Before explaining DLE we have to talk a little about where lithium comes from. Lithium is an incredibly abundant element in the earth’s crust and waters – hell, it’s even in sea water. However, it is only present in currently economically feasible concentrations in three locations: hard rock deposits, soft rock deposits, and brines.
Hard rock deposits are found in the mineral spodumene, usually locked up in granitic pegmatites. Spodumene deposits are the main lithium sources found in Australia, one of the world’s leading lithium producers, as well as in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This type of deposit is not really in play in the American West, however there is a lithium mine proposed in North Carolina, the Piedmont Lithium project, which would exploit spodumene deposits if it moves forward.
Soft rock deposits are generally called lithium claystone deposits. These deposits are almost always associated with volcanic activity, frequently uplifted in a caldera, as with Thacker Pass and the McDermitt Caldera. In other cases, millennia of weathering and accumulation of sediments in dry lake beds can create claystones. In the case of Rhyolite Ridge an ancient lakebed which accumulated lithium was then uplifted due to volcanic activity, hence the lakebed sediments perched in the Silver Peak Range. In any event, almost all mineral-hosted lithium in the Western US is in claystone deposits.
And finally, there’s brine. Underneath nearly every playa in the West is a brine aquifer. When floodwater or groundwater flows down to a lakebed, not all of it is evaporated. Much of it collects in brine aquifers, made increasingly salty and mineral laden by millennia of evaporation. In some cases, these aquifers will accumulate lithium over time. Brine evaporation is the “traditional” way of making lithium. You simply pump the brine, let it sit in evaporation ponds in the sun, and extract lithium from the resulting salts. It is how lithium is produced at Silver Peak, the Albemarle lithium production facility in Esmeralda County which is North America’s only facility producing solely lithium. It is also how the lithium in your cell phone was produced, from the vast evaporation ponds on the salars of the Atacama Desert in South America.
Now, both types of deposits (rock and brine) have significant environmental impacts associated with their extraction. Rock deposits require open-pit mines, just like a gold mine or a copper mine. Open-pit mines entail myriad negative environmental impacts including dewatering, pit lakes, groundwater contamination, significant surface disturbance to wildlife habitats, among others. And brine evaporation involves consuming billions and billions of gallons of groundwater, evaporated off into the sky, permanently removed from aquifer storage. Since brine aquifers are in hydrostatic balance with freshwater aquifers, associated drawdown of groundwater dependent ecosystems isn’t just the exception – it’s the rule.
But is there a sweet spot? An emerging class of technologies called Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) holds tremendous promise. DLE is an umbrella term for technologies which extract lithium from brine without evaporating off the water. They may be chemical, electrical, or physical processes, or some combination thereof. These processes would produce lithium salts, a waste stream of some sort, and “spent” brine, or brine with lithium removed, which can then be reinjected into the aquifer. Thus, in theory, you have the sweet spot of not having an open-pit mine, which is an unqualified good thing, but also not evaporating off billions of gallons of water into the air, permanently reducing aquifer storage. DLE could be the key to sustainable lithium.
There are a number of problems though. Not least of which is, DLE is just a concept, not a specific technology. And thanks to the wonders of capitalism, there are dozens of companies out there developing their own proprietary DLE systems, each in competition with one another. Are these DLE technologies legit? Will they work? This was the subject of a recent paper in Nature Reviews: Earth and Environment from researchers in Argentina examining the viability of DLE. What they found was a paucity of publicly available information, a lack of scientific rigor in information released to the public by companies, and a real lack of cohesion around what DLE technologies might be most promising. This isn’t to say the technologies aren’t viable or even the wave of the future – but right now there is not enough information out there to rigorously and independently evaluate their efficacy or environmental impacts.
One impact we can surely be aware of is the impact of pumping. In some ways DLE is not that different from geothermal energy production – you pump groundwater, you extract something from it (lithium or heat, respectively), you reinject the spent groundwater back into the aquifer. As a result, siting of DLE lithium projects is everything. Where you are pumping, how much you are pumping, and what surface water resources are connected to the target aquifer is the difference between a DLE lithium project that is relatively benign, or one that could cause significant disruption to or destruction of surface water ecosystems. Readers of this newsletter are certainly familiar with the Dixie Meadows geothermal project, and what can happen when groundwater exploitation projects are improperly sited.
The highest profile new DLE project in America right now is probably Standard Lithium, way out there in Arkansas. They seem to be as much substance as hype, which is a damn sight better than most of these mining juniors. There is one DLE pilot underway in Nevada, the NeoLith Energy project in Clayton Valley. I just drove by this weekend and it looks like they are well underway, with structures already emerging from the desert south of the Albemarle evaporation ponds. Interestingly, this is a venture of Schulmberger, the global French oil field technology provider.
There is one area with a number of promising projects looking to move forward, and it is certainly the most promising place in the West for it, and that’s the Salton Sea. Part of why DLE at the Salton Sea is advantageous is because it is being added on to an existing industrial process, in this case geothermal energy. There are numerous geothermal plants at the southern end of the Salton Sea, and yon geothermal energy companies though, well hell after we’ve pumped the water and extracted the heat, we can just add a little DLE before we reinject the water. This is optimal because it is not creating new impacts – the disturbance to ecosystems and cultural landscapes has already happened. And while there are questions about whether and how Salton Sea DLE can help ameliorate existing environmental injustice concerns in the Imperial Valley, there is great hope that this could be the next big thing in lithium. California recently issued the final report [PDF] from the Lithium Valley Commission, which provides great detail on the promise (and peril) of Salton Sea DLE.
But, there are definitely places where we believe DLE lithium projects could be sited while minimizing impacts to the environment. You’ve probably seen my lithium map before – if not, click here! It’s a map of all the proposed lithium projects in the Western US. You’ll note that about 50% of them are shown with a spigot icon, indicating a brine resource. It’s not likely that brine evaporation projects will ever be economically feasible or politically palatable given their huge consumption of groundwater resources, so we can pretty much expect that any of those projects which get built will be DLE.
And there are a good many places with proposed DLE projects which do not have extremely sensitive groundwater dependent ecosystems. Some of the spots in Western Nevada are examples – Columbus Salt Marsh, for instance, or Kibby Flat. Edwards Creek Valley. Just to name a few. Obviously there needs to be rigorous analysis to definitively reach such conclusions but a quick survey reveals there are indeed places where we could have DLE projects that will not unduly destroy biodiversity.
This doesn’t mean there will be no impacts, of course. Kibby Flat and Columbus Salt Marsh are mostly undeveloped places, places where nature still dominates and humans are merely passing through. It would be a bummer to plop down industrial DLE facilities in the middle of that nothingness. But again, there are not significant groundwater dependent ecosystems in those basins, which from a biodiversity standpoint is one of the key factors we are looking for when determining whether a place might be suitable for a project like DLE. The presence of endemic species is another.
There are a good many other screening criteria one must use before determining whether a site is acceptable for an industrial facility. Cultural and spiritual landscapes of indigenous people, for instance. But from a biodiversity standpoint, there are places in the Great Basin where DLE projects could go in while limiting their environmental impacts.
Once more - I’m not advocating to destroy Kibby Basin. It’s a special place. But, in case you’ve forgotten, we are on the front end of catastrophic climate change which threatens all life on earth. Nevada does happen to have potentially huge amounts of lithium, which at least in the short term is essential to the clean energy transition. While we can’t let the lithium industry go around driving species extinct, we’re probably going to have to accept some "bummer”s like lithium extraction in formerly undeveloped places like Kibby Flat.
Which is why we’ve been urging the Biden Administration, the State of Nevada, and anyone else who will listen to conduct a large-scale geospatial analysis of where lithium reserves are, and where they could be exploited while minimizing environmental harm. Right now, there is no plan for where all of our lithium will come from. Biden is just hurling wads of cash at the lithium industry and hoping the market will sort it out. It’s insanity. We need a plan, and we believe that DLE should be central to that plan.
And with that, back to looking at problematic lithium projects…
Brooklyn Comes to Nevada
A team from VICE News, the irreverent hipster news outlet from Brooklyn, came out to Tonopah to see what all the fuss is about with the lithium boom. Their story and video are going to prove a touchstone on this topic for years to come, providing the sort of external perspective that is sometimes lacking in straight by-the-numbers reporting on this issue. And hell, they really got down in the dirt. They went out on ATVs with one prospector, staking new mining claims with him out in Lida Valley. They went out with Emily Hersch, one of more interesting characters in the Nevada lithium rush, who is based in Tonopah and is a DLE evangelist. They hung around seedy bars in Tonopah. And of course they came out to Railroad Valley with yours truly.
I already wrote a bit about my experience with the VICE guys a couple of editions ago. I took them out to Railroad Valley to discuss the 3PL lithium project, and the water rights protests we filed against it due to the potential impacts to the federally listed Railroad Valley springfish. The Railroad Valley springfish is a narrow endemic species which lives only in a handful of springs in Railroad Valley, including the springs at Lockes Ranch. Lockes was a private ranching operation but in order to conserve the Railroad Valley springfish, it was purchased by the Nevada Department of Wildlife and incorporated into the Railroad Valley Wildlife Management Area. It now provides refuge for this species, which is listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
The 3PL project proposes to pump over 100,000 acre feet of water per year from the aquifer beneath the Railroad Valley playa. This aquifer is in hydrologic communication with the springs in Railroad Valley, as evidenced by the 240 parts per million of lithium in the spring discharge at Lockes Ranch. That’s right, this little springfish is swimming around in 240 ppm lithium every day of the year. This is sort of a remarkable fact – the Railroad Valley springfish is the Tiehm’s buckwheat of fishes, it seems. And as a result of this connection and concern for the springfish, we protested [PDF] 3PL’s water rights applications. As did the Bureau of Land Management [PDF], the US Fish and Wildlife Service [PDF], the Nevada Department of Wildlife [PDF], and the Bureau of Indian Affairs [PDF]. Ah yes, the Center and BLM and FWS, together at last. (Incidentally, the State Engineer has requested further hydrologic studies from 3PL before moving forward with the water rights permits, at least partially based on the information raised in the protests.)
Vincent Ramirez, one of the people behind 3PL, tells VICE in this story that the Railroad Valley lithium project will “change the world.” He claims he has enough lithium to single-handedly power the clean energy transition in this country. He’s a bit of a starry-eyed dreamer, I think, and the VICE guys seemed a bit skeptical about his wild statements.
Perhaps the most valuable part of my experience with the VICE guys was the reaction of one reporter to the Railroad Valley springfish. They had flown from New York to Las Vegas, had driven hours across the desert to reach Tonopah, then I dragged them another couple hours even further into the desert to Railroad Valley, one of the most obscure places in the Great Basin. Then through a gate, down a dirt road, and we pull up to this small spring with these tiny fishes in it. We peered into one of the cerulean blue springs at Lockes in Railroad Valley, that aperture into the carbonate, pumping out thousands of gallons per minute of pure Pleistocene snowmelt, with tiny two-inch springfish swimming around, glistening in the sun. And the reporter says, “You mean you want me to choose this little fish over my neighborhood flooding in Brooklyn?”
And that statement really drove home for me the gulf in perceptions between people in my extremely narrow niche of the world and the broader public. The concern about pushing back against a “world-changing” lithium project over a tiny weird fish likely mirrors the sentiments of many Americans. And maybe this should be a given – maybe I should assume that most people when they hear of Tiehm’s buckwheat or now the Railroad Valley springfish will have the same reaction. I suppose I had always understood that people don’t really get what we’re doing or why we’re doing it, but to hear it from the mouth of a well-known, well-traveled journalist who was just sharing his god’s-honest reaction, well it certainly was eye-opening.
I guess I just have three hopes: one, that our laws are powerful enough to ensure that species like the springfish won’t go extinct, no matter the threat. And two, that our circle of empathy is broad enough, that we can think outside of our own narrow human self-interest long enough, to remember that the Railroad Valley springfish has just as much right to be here as we do; that if there is any universal moral code, “don’t cause extinctions” is part of it. And third, absent radical empathy, that humans’ own desire for self-preservation is advanced enough to understand that if we lose the springfish and the buckwheat and the orcas and the eagles and the sandhill cranes that we will have nothing left and we will all die.
Anyway the article is excellent, very much worth a read. Kudos to producer and journalist Alex Lubben, who compellingly captured a potent moment in time in the clean energy transition. And the 11-minute video, which aired on VICE News Tonight, brings you right into the action in central Nevada. As I said earlier, this will prove a touchstone on the early days of the Nevada lithium rush for years to come.
More: VICE News article, VICE News Tonight video segment.
That Buckwheat Sucked All the Air Out of the Room
A new Nevada Current article has surfaced some sentiment about the Rhyolite Ridge Mine that hasn’t really been aired in public before. Reporter Jeniffer Solis spoke with Ralph Keyes, Chairman of the Esmeralda County Board of Commissioners about the promise and peril of the buckwheat-beset proposed mining operation. And Commissioner Keyes gave her an earful about some of the concerns that Esmeralda County politicians and residents may have. He is clear-eyed that a project at the scale of Rhyolite Ridge would fundamentally change the way of life for people in one of the least-populated counties in the United States. He raises a number of issues he feels Ioneer has not resolved. It’s certainly worth noting that most of the issues he raises could be resolved with enough money from Ioneer. So in some ways, this article seems like it was a message to the mining company: pay up. Mitigation for groundwater impacts, road improvements, services for new mine workers – someone has to pay for all of that, and Esmeralda County’s annual budget is $5M a year, Ms. Solis reports. Ioneer better open their wallets, as long as they can “resolve” the pesky buckwheat issue to the satisfaction of a 9th Circuit judge. This article is really some outstanding reporting from Ms. Solis.
Read more: “‘Apprehensive but optimistic’: Nevada’s least populated county braces for industrial development”.
Can We Designate a Greenhouse in Gardnerville as Critical Habitat?
Pulling one from our greenwashing file, Ioneer made a bunch of noise a couple of weeks ago, trumpeting the “grand opening” of their erstwhile “Tiehm’s buckwheat conservation center,” which is actually just a greenhouse in Gardnerville with a banner hanging on the wall. Ioneer is putting forward the false idea that growing Tiehm’s buckwheat in a greenhouse and planting it in places it does not belong is somehow conserving the species. Well, my co-conspirator Dr. Naomi Fraga was having none of it. She wrote a scathing op-ed in the Nevada Current, tearing apart Ioneer’s plans both from a scientific perspective but moreover from an ethical perspective. She decries their “scheme after greenwashing scheme” as only setting back the conservation of the species. I’m honored to work alongside someone who is willing to take such a strong ethical stance. There’s a reason Dr. Fraga is so celebrated by the botanical community – she’s saying the things many are unwilling to say.
Read more: Nevada Current op-ed.
In Other News…
Nevada’s last utility-owned coal fired power plant is still up and running, and now there’s reason to think its planned 2026 closure will be delayed. NV Energy can’t get its shit together on its multi-tentacled renewable energy buildout, so they’re begging to PUCN to let them keep burning coal. Read more in the Review-Journal.
St. George News, which is actually a pretty good web-based outlet from our neighbors to the northeast, has a lovely write up about the rare plants of southwest Utah and what’s being done to conserve them. Our diminutive friend the Mojave poppy bee, who awaits a decision on our Endangered Species Act petition, makes an appearance. Worth a read!
It’s not just Nevada’s federal delegation - lawmakers in Carson City are also doing what they can to facilitate new sprawl development spreading like cancer down I-15 from Las Vegas to the California border. A bill would allow the site of the proposed Ivanpah airport near Primm to be established as an unincorporated town, to allow the Clark County Commission maximal control over the development of the airport. The R-J has more.
Amargosa Conservancy executive director Mason Voehl has an op-ed in the Las Vegas Sun about the hidden groundwater crisis in Nevada. Given that the area under Mr. Voehl’s purview, the Amargosa Basin, spans two states, he argues that we should pursue bi-state water compacts in order to resolve cross-border water issues.
Keep on down that long and dusty trail,
-Patrick
Enlightening as always , Patrick!