{"id":569304,"date":"2026-04-07T06:39:29","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T06:39:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/569304\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T06:39:29","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T06:39:29","slug":"newsom-promised-california-lithium-valley-but-the-renewable-energy-bounty-has-yet-to-be-tapped","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/569304\/","title":{"rendered":"Newsom promised California ‘Lithium Valley.’ But the renewable energy bounty has yet to be tapped"},"content":{"rendered":"

This art<\/a>icle<\/a>\u00a0was produced by Capital & Main. It is published here with permission.<\/p>\n

In one of California\u2019s poorest\u00a0corners, jagged rocks rise like Godzilla\u2019s scales along a muddy lakeshore. The glassy Obsidian Butte forms the remains of an all-knowing snake called Arse-weeuv, according to the Quechan tribe, which has inhabited this land since long before colonization. When the snake burned in a ceremony, its smoke infused the mountains with ancestral knowledge.<\/p>\n

The butte lies on the southern edge of the bluish-green Salton Sea in an expanse of thousands of acres that California wants to dot with clean energy power plants, wastewater facilities, data centers, battery factories and more. The plan would transform Imperial Valley, a sunken desert landscape bordering Mexico and Arizona, where the Colorado River is drained by canals to grow vegetables for millions of Americans.<\/p>\n

The sun-drenched valley, most of it in Imperial County, is slightly larger than Los Angeles County in square miles but has only 1.8% of its population. The communities near the Salton Sea are rural and dispersed, while towns closer to the Mexican border are bustling with storefronts and cross-border traffic. Eighty-five percent of residents are Latino, and many have deep cultural and familial ties to Mexicali across the border.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The valley is no stranger to 21st century plans that arrive with great promise but do little to benefit locals. Since 2010, solar companies have laid out massive complexes of panels, and coastal utility San Diego Gas & Electric continues to\u00a0pursue<\/a>\u00a0battery-based electricity. Yet solar projects have\u00a0collapsed<\/a>\u00a0or resulted in few jobs or tax dollars, while SDG&E sends the energy from its Westside Canal battery park for use outside the valley. County officials say that this time will be different and that new industries will\u00a0bring<\/a>\u00a0residents the jobs, money and clean energy they\u2019ve been promised for so long.<\/p>\n

It was only three years ago, at a\u00a0press conference<\/a>, that state and federal lawmakers and business figures were touting the area\u2019s great promise for extracting lithium, a mineral critical for batteries in electric cars, smartphones and industrial power systems, from volcanic layers deep in the ground.<\/p>\n

\"Cracked<\/a>Mudpots and bubbling pools above a reservoir of geothermal brine. (Photo by Jeremy Lindenfeld\/Capital & Main)<\/p>\n

Rod Colwell, an ambitious mining executive who oversees what\u2019s known as the Hell\u2019s Kitchen lithium project in Imperial County, told those gathered at the press event that there were enough deposits in geothermal reservoirs far below the southeast region of the Salton Sea to support batteries for millions of electric vehicles and provide jobs for 12,000 workers. Painting a dire picture of California\u2019s climate \u2014 pinging from wet to dry extremes \u2014 Gov. Gavin Newsom boasted that the valley\u2019s renewable energy treasures could help alleviate the climate crisis.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t make up for the last 40, 50 years,\u201d Newsom said in a nod to unfulfilled promises to tackle poverty and unemployment among the area\u2019s largely Latino population. \u201cWhat I can do is take responsibility for the moments we\u2019re living in.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Today is different. Yes, there are world-changing amounts of minerals underneath \u201cLithium Valley.\u201d But extracting them has proven difficult. The state-federal partnership to kickstart clean energy, forged under President Joe Biden, has been replaced by hostility between Newsom and President Donald Trump, while low lithium prices have slowed outside investment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The lithium mining plans, which three companies are pursuing, may not be fully realized for decades and are now mired by competing visions for the future and an unclear sense of the projects\u2019 costs. Not only did two nonprofits\u00a0sue<\/a>\u00a0over what they believed were shoddy environmental reviews, but the county and the Imperial Irrigation District, the major utility in the region, disagree over how to supply the huge amounts of water and power necessary for lithium extraction and other industries. Hanging in the balance is a vast and thirsty farming region enduring the slow-motion devastation of climate change.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A palette of blue skies, green fields and red soils, the valley spans 30 miles from the Salton Sea down to the U.S.-Mexico border. The north has sprawling farms, yet residents in nearby Westmorland and Niland, with combined populations just over 3,000, struggle to find fresh produce. In Calexico, a border town of 40,000 with streetscapes that look like the Old West, there are few jobs apart from providing services for visitors from Mexico. Mountains trap in the foul air from crop burning and jammed vehicles, while dusty winds whip pollution across the valley.<\/p>\n

The county is getting younger, but also tends to drive away its young. A 2022 report by a Lithium Valley Blue Ribbon Commission said the area\u2019s poverty rate was 18.1%, while unemployment was the highest in the state and among the worst nationally.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was told repeatedly to get out of the valley if I want to succeed,\u201d said Anahi Araiza, an El Centro resident and policy researcher at Imperial Valley Equity & Justice.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Beyond the farms, some of the few employers in the valley are 11 geothermal power plants, giant clusters of coiled steel that spin turbines using flashed steam from hot brine, a very salty concentration of water, pulled from a mile below ground. Most of the plants are owned by longtime operator BHE Renewables. EnergySource Minerals owns another, and the newest entrant, Controlled Thermal Resources, has none in commercial operation but hopes to eventually be a big player.<\/p>\n

\"Aerial<\/a>The John L. Featherstone geothermal power plant, owned by EnergySource Minerals, near the Salton Sea. (Photo by Jeremy Lindenfeld\/Capital & Main)<\/p>\n

Extracting lithium from the brine, which the geothermal companies intend to do in addition to producing electricity, would accelerate the onshoring of a mineral considered\u00a0vital<\/a>\u00a0to national security. Currently, lithium is mined outside the U.S., refined into a mineral slurry in China and purchased by battery factories, which coat thin layers of the element onto aluminum to form cathodes that produce electric currents. Imperial Valley, some believe, could be a global linchpin for this market.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Colwell, the CEO of Controlled Thermal Resources who oversees the proposed Hell\u2019s Kitchen lithium development, has adapted\u00a0his pitch<\/a>\u00a0to the times. He once talked up electric vehicles but now emphasizes other minerals \u2014 zinc for steel, potash for fertilizer \u2014 and loads of geothermal-based electricity to power data centers for artificial intelligence. The company has raised $285 million in private investment and said it will be publicly listed on the Nasdaq.<\/p>\n

\u201cIronically it was all about lithium, and power wasn\u2019t so much part of it. Now the big hand has caught up with the little hand,\u201d Colwell said in an interview with Capital & Main.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>Sergio Cabanas, director of EHS and Laboratories at Controlled Thermal Resources, points to a proposed map of the Hell\u2019s Kitchen project. (Photo by Jeremy Lindenfeld\/Capital & Main)<\/p>\n

Early in Trump\u2019s second term, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers designated the Hell\u2019s Kitchen project for fast-tracked permits that still haven\u2019t been issued. Colwell\u00a0hopes for<\/a>\u00a0direct federal investment\u00a0similar<\/a>\u00a0to that for Lithium America\u2019s Thacker Pass project in Nevada, which received more than $100 million after the U.S.\u00a0bought a 10% combined stake<\/a>\u00a0in the company and its open pit mine.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yet it remains challenging to extract lithium from brine, despite $27 million invested in\u00a0research<\/a>\u00a0by the state. Other processes require excavating the lithium by crushing rocks in open pits or creating salt ponds by pumping brine into large sumps and letting the water evaporate, a months-long process. These are easier techniques, but they would result in the destruction of vast tracts of land and wildlife habitats. Brine extraction does not.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the early 2020s, when lithium prices were high, car companies bet on the emerging technology. General Motors announced in 2021 that it would purchase lithium from Hell\u2019s Kitchen, and Controlled Thermal Resources received an undisclosed amount of funds from the automaker that were \u201cintegral to advancing the project,\u201d said spokesperson Lauren Rose.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2025 President Trump\u00a0reduced<\/a>\u00a0a manufacturing tax credit for green technologies, one of many efforts to disrupt the expansion of renewable energy. Republicans also killed a tax credit for electric vehicles and targeted\u00a0federal<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0state<\/a>\u00a0rules encouraging their use. Perhaps as a result, General Motors and other U.S.\u00a0automakers<\/a>\u00a0are\u00a0pivoting<\/a>\u00a0to making large batteries to store and supply energy for electric grids as they\u00a0lose billions<\/a>\u00a0on EV investments.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But lithium demand alone cannot solve the problem of harvesting it. BHE Renewables built a pilot plant in Calipatria near the Salton Sea, only for dissolved solids in the brine to\u00a0gunk up<\/a>\u00a0the equipment meant to filter out the lithium. It is preparing for a new demonstration, but \u201cthere\u2019s no guarantee that the commercial phase of the project will move forward,\u201d said Christina Fleming, BHE Renewables\u2019 vice president of mineral development. And, so far, Controlled Thermal Resources\u2019 Hell\u2019s Kitchen has captured only small amounts of lithium.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>Hell\u2019s Kitchen geothermal well near the Salton Sea. (Photo by Jeremy Lindenfeld\/Capital & Main)<\/p>\n

The plans could also raise local tensions. According to a county analysis, thousands of acres of farmland might need to be abandoned to make room for data centers, battery makers and more geothermal plants, as well as required infrastructure such as roads and substations. Yet the Imperial Irrigation District, which supplies water to farms and residents, warned that the power and water needs of those industries \u201cwould so significantly change\u201d its system that detailed planning was impossible.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Most concerning for residents is that the plan could result in dirtier air. Nearly a third of the water for farms in the Lithium Valley region ends up as runoff for the Salton Sea, so less agriculture would result in its shrinking \u2014 exposing more dusty lake bed. A\u00a0study<\/a>\u00a0by researchers at USC and UC Irvine found children\u2019s lungs were weaker on days when levels of PM2.5 and PM10 \u2014 two airborne pollutants that can trigger respiratory problems \u2014 were highest at the lake.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s just another way the community will be sacrificed for private gain, said Araiza, the El Centro policy researcher. Still, few outright oppose development. \u201cWe want a slow and methodical process to ensure that things are done well,\u201d Araiza said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The county\u00a0blamed<\/a>\u00a0the slow rollout of lithium mining on environmentalists after two groups, Earthworks and Comite Civico del Valle, filed a\u00a0lawsuit<\/a>\u00a0over what they said was a \u201cdeeply flawed\u201d environmental review. In the suit, the two groups claimed the county excluded potential pollution sources, overlooked health risks and glossed over difficulties of getting water as the Colorado River continues to shrink.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe big cumulative impact we\u2019re concerned about is how water consumption will impact the Salton Sea\u201d and result in more dust, said Jared Naimark of Earthworks. There would also be pre-approved permits for other industries, such as dairy farms capturing manure methane using digesters \u2014 a polluting, water-intensive\u00a0technology<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Residents such as Araiza voice other concerns. A county\u00a0analysis<\/a>\u00a0released in December, which is newer than the one subject to the litigation, recommends cursory reviews for data centers up to 1.3 million square feet \u2014 much larger than one\u00a0proposed in the small town of Imperial<\/a>\u00a0that has angered residents \u2014 and paving over landscapes important to both the Quechan and Kwaaymii tribes.<\/p>\n

\"Aerial<\/a>Employees of Controlled Thermal Resources, a company developing lithium extraction in Imperial Valley, look out onto the Salton Sea. (Photo by Jeremy Lindenfeld\/Capital & Main)<\/p>\n

The county and Controlled Thermal Resources, which is also party to the lawsuit over its proposed Hell\u2019s Kitchen complex, claim the real issue is money. Earthworks and Comite Civico del Valle want Controlled Thermal Resources to pay an annual $2.75 million fee tied to its water consumption, with details worked out by a joint power authority overseen by \u201cdirectly affected communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

The money would go to the newly created authority, not the nonprofits. Still, critics have called it \u201cextortion.\u201d Colwell went further, telling Capital & Main that the groups are \u201cparasites\u201d trying to stop development. Luis Olmedo, executive director of Comite Civico del Valle,\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0in an op-ed that such labels misrepresent community benefit agreements.<\/p>\n

Since the court has not issued an injunction, there is no evidence the lawsuit has halted progress. Neither BHE Renewables nor Controlled Thermal Resources has lined up financing; EnergySource Minerals, another company developing lithium, didn\u2019t respond to inquiries from Capital & Main. None has begun commercially extracting lithium, though the county\u00a0contends<\/a>\u00a0they could have started work last year.<\/p>\n

When they do, California has readied an excise tax per ton of produced lithium to fund health, child and transportation services, among others, and Salton Sea dust suppression. Newsom\u2019s proposed budget this year originally included $26 million in expected revenues from the tax. It will now show zero after Capital & Main inquired. Past budgets were also revised as production timelines were delayed, said H.D. Palmer, a spokesperson for the state Department of Finance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It could take a decade or two for the lithium to start flowing, said Fleming, the BHE Renewables vice president. Just obtaining the correct pipes and extractors can take years, she said. Aligning technology and financing and building up a workforce also takes time, said Celina Mikolajczak, a battery engineer formerly with Tesla and Panasonic. Although San Diego State University opened a\u00a0science campus<\/a>\u00a0in Brawley, graduating students will not find local lithium jobs anytime soon.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Battery manufacturing, which the county hopes to entice, requires years of on-site training to perfect precise and very fast techniques, Mikolajczak said. Up to 4,316 high-wage, blue-collar jobs can be generated if a battery supply chain opens up, according to a UC San Diego and Comite Civico del Valle\u00a0report<\/a>. Done correctly, California could eventually \u201cput the U.S. into a powerful position while developing an underserved region,\u201d Mikolajczak said.<\/p>\n

Tribes, including the Kwaaymii Laguna Band of Indians, have applied to designate parts of the Salton Sea shore as a historic district (to the county\u2019s ire). With the land\u2019s\u00a0mudpots\u00a0and\u00a0volcanic domes, the Kwaaymii say the area\u2019s hissing eruptions offer a glimpse of the Earth\u2019s heartbeat. Now, many hope it will be the heart of a new era for Imperial Valley \u2014 if the stars align.<\/p>\n

Capital & Main<\/a> is an award-winning nonprofit publication that reports from California on the most pressing economic, environmental and social issues of our time, including economic inequality, climate change, health care, threats to democracy, hate and extremism and immigration.\u200b<\/p>\n

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