A “white gold” mine containing $540 billion in treasure has been discovered at the bottom of a giant lake in Southern California.
The Salton Sea, which is the largest lake in the US state, was being studied by scientists as part of research funded by the Department of Energy.
The study aimed to find out how much lithium, also known as “white gold due to its white sandy appearance, was at the bottom of the huge body of water.
Surprisingly, there was a lot of it – an incredible 18 million tonnes are believed to be at the bottom of the lake. This is after scientists have already confirmed that there were four million tons of lithium in the lake, which were discovered through a drilling process.
Such is the large amount of lithium discovered in the lake that it would be possible to create batteries for an impressive 382 million electric vehicles and make the United States the leading nation in the chemical sector, overtaking China.
Michael McKibben, professor of geochemistry at the University of California, Riverside, who was one of 22 authors of the study, said: “This is one of the largest lithium brine deposits in the world. in lithium and stop importing it through China.”
Gavin Newsom, governor of California, previously referred to Lake Salton as the Saudi Arabia of lithium. Now this new discovery means the lake is the largest source of lithium in the world.
LA Times climate journalist Sammy Roth told KJZZ radio: “They found that there is potentially enough lithium down there to provide batteries for 382 million electric vehicles, which is more, more vehicles than are on the roads in the United States. today. , if we could get all this lithium, that would be huge.”
However, extracting lithium from the lake will not be without dangers.
According to SFGATEGetting to the lithium will not be easy and will require “geothermal production wells to extract the lithium-rich brine thousands of meters below the Earth’s surface, and once the lithium in the brine is dissolved, the liquid is pumped back underground.”
In addition to the 180,000 residents who live nearby and who could be impacted by the drilling, the water supply, which comes from the Colorado River, could also be affected, as a huge amount of water will be needed to complete the process.
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