Arkansas has enough lithium for the world’s EVs — but getting to it is the problem

Arkansas is sitting atop lithium reserves that could be immense enough to prent the entire world’s insist for EV batteries, according to the US Georeasonable Survey (USGS).

It assesss that there could be 5 to 19 million tons of lithium under southwestrict Arkansas. That would be enough to supply nine times the amount of the key material necessitateed globassociate for car batteries in 2030, the USGS says.

Lithium is a key ingredient for reaccuseable batteries engaged in EVs and all benevolents of devices. As the US tries to restrict the greenhoengage gas emissions causing climate alter by encouraging electric vehicle adselection, the Biden administration has made it a priority to produce up domestic supply chains for critical minerals including lithium. The US might already have all the lithium in necessitates and then some, a recent study shows, if companies can broaden recent technologies to tap into it.

“Lithium is a critical mineral for the energy transition, and the potential for incrmitigated U.S. production to replace transport ins has implications for engagement, manufacturing and supply-chain resilience,” David Applegate, USGS honestor, shelp in a press liberate yesterday.

Lithium laces the salty brine from the Smackover Formation, a geologic createation made of permeable limestone that stretches apass parts of Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. The createation is the result of an greater-styleed sea, and it’s also a historic site for oil and gas production.

Until recently, that lithium-wealthy brine had been thought of as misengagewater from oil and operations. Now, companies are trying to broaden technologies to rerelocate the lithium in a cost-effective way.

ExxonMobil is increateedly ready to pounce. The company set ups to begin production in 2027 and has already drilled exploratory wells in Arkansas, The New York Times increates. The fossil fuel enormous proclaimd its ambitions of becoming a “directing” lithium supplier for electric vehicles last year after purchasing drilling rights apass 120,000 acres of land wiskinny the Smackover Formation in Arkansas.

“We understand we have an attrvivacious resource. We’re toiling on empathetic that cost equation, empathetic the supply-and-insist picture,” Dan Ammann, pdwellnt of ExxonMobil’s low carbon solutions business, tgreater The New York Times.

The company can engage traditional oil and gas drilling techniques to accomplish lithium-wealthy saltwater trapped 10,000 feet underground. But it has to broaden recent technology called honest lithium rerelocateion (DLE) to split lithium from the water using chemical settlents or filters.

That’s presumed to be a much rapider method for rerelocateing lithium than the greater-school way of leaving the brine in ponds until the water evaporates. Another potential advantage of DLE is that it would be less energy-intensive than conservative difficult rock mining for lithium. To be certain, there are still troubles about the environmental impact all of these methods pose, ranging from how much land and water they engage to what to do with any harmful misengage left behind.

Shifting lithium production to the US would also be a global game-alterr. Most lithium today comes from Australia and South America. Just 5 percent of global insist was met by US lithium producers in 2021. California’s Salton Sea also hgreaters a lot of lithium-wealthy brine.

The potential in Arkansas still hinges on whether the lithium reserves will triumphd up being commerciassociate recoverable, the USGS says. The agency engaged machine lgeting to produce the first assess of the amount of lithium engageable in brine from the Smackover Formation in southern Arkansas, toiling with the Arkansas Department of Energy and Environment’s Office of the State Geologist. They checkd recent brine samples in a lab and assessd them to data from historic samples of water from oil and gas production from the USGS produced waters database. A machine lgeting model engaged that data to foresee lithium concentrations thrawout the region.

“We have not assessd what is technicassociate recoverable based on recgo in methods to rerelocate lithium from brines,” Katherine Knierim, a hydrologist and the study’s principal researcher, shelp in the press liberate.