Salton Sea Lithium’s massive project gets the referee ahead

A judge of the Imperial District cleared the way for The hellish kitchen A project, one of the largest lithium mines in the world, when it recently rejected a case filed by civil and environmental groups.

The hellish kitchen, in the sea in Salton, promises to find lithium from lithium, mineral, essential for electric car batteries, mobile phones and other electronics. While the court’s decision is expected to open a flood for the production of lithium in the United States, it is disappointed with the organizers of the community, who worry that Mina will threaten residents nearby.

The non -profit organizations Comite Civico Del Valle and Earthworks argued in their trial that the Environmental Review for Hell’s Kitchen is not fully concerned with the effects of the project on water supply and air quality and that the company that develops it controls thermal resources, not Consult with local local tribes from the Indians, as required by law. On January 9, Supreme Court Judge Jeffrey Jones ruled that controlled thermal resources had met these requirements, releasing it to resume construction.

The opponents said the decision green illuminated the project without sufficient environmental protection and the contribution of the community.

“A fair transition to renewable energy requires not to create new zones of sacrifice for

Lithium Yield, “says Jared Naumark, California Milling Organizer.

Rodney Collewell, CEO of controlled thermal resources, said he was pleased with the decision and was expecting construction in five to six months. However, the trial has set the project year or more.

“We are happy to overcome it, but it costs us a lot of time and he puts out the project at risk,” he said. “We were unable to raise capital. We were unable to move forward at all with our development. “

Now that he is on the way again, Collewell said that the company expects to start generating geothermal energy by the end of 2026 and the extraction of lithium afterwards.

California leaders have been determined to cross the public to electric vehicles over the next decade as part of the state’s battle against climate change. To do this, they will need a lot of lithium.

This is where The Salton Sea and Hell’s Kitchen enter. Energy companies are already producing geothermal energy in the place, extracting hot brine with high pressure to generate electricity. The brine is mineralIncluding more than 3400 kilos of lithium: enough to make over 375 million batteries for electric vehicles, according to the Ministry of Energy. The hellish kitchen will remove the minerals from the brine and then repeat it in aquifers around the sea in Salton.

State and federal officials rushed to the prospect of this very inner lithium, predicting that the area they call Lithium Valley can become one of The largest sources in the world of “white gold“The release of the US from depending on other countries for the critical mineral.

“Development in Imperial Valley is GameChanger for not only southern California, but also for the entire nation in the shifting lithium dependence on foreign countries to internal supply,” controlled thermal resources indicated in a press releaseS

But local organizers and scientists have raised a red flag, indicating uncertainty about the extraction process and pollution.

“The Lithium Direct extraction technology, which the Hell’s Kitchen Lithium Project plans to unfold, has been tested only at a demonstration level and their Imperial County project will be one of the first commercial plants of the United States,” says Luis Olmedo, CEO of Comite Civico del Valle, in a statement.

“There are many unknown air quality,” added James Blair, a professor of geography at Cal Poly Pomona, who published ProjectS “This is already a degraded region, not only from the impact of agriculture, but also from the retreating Salton Sea.”

Blair told Calmatters that an environmental examination is a blurry about how much toxic dust the mine will produce, how much water is needed to dilute the brine and whether the process of production will release harmful substances such as hydrogen sulfide or radon.

“Hell’s Kitchen’s project can do a lot more to mitigate environmental impact,” especially water and land shortages, “he said.

Colww said these concerns are unfounded and describes the process of extracting lithium as a “closed -out system” that will not generate waste or air pollution.

“This is the cleanest lithium technology on the planet,” he said.

Jones has ruled that the company has adequately addressed the effects of the project on water supply and cannot analyze the potential future impact on air quality.

Olmedo said the court’s decision did not satisfy the concerns of non -profit organizations. They want more strong measures to protect water, better protection for tribal resources and more details about waste generation and water recycling. They are looking for a legal agreement between residents of the company and Imperial Valley to ensure that these requests have been fulfilled.

Olmedo said his organization “will exhaust all the available legal and public political channels, including consideration of the appeal of the judgment, to ensure that the inhabitants and the environment of the imperial valley receive the highest defense threshold.”