Britain’s leading geothermal power developer to produce lithium

Britain’s leading geothermal power developer is raising £600 million (US$737 million) to produce low-carbon lithium.

Geothermal Engineering Ltd. plans to produce about 12,000 tonnes per year of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) by 2030, enough to produce about 250,000 EV batteries, it said Tuesday. Production would start at 100 tonnes LCE annually in 2024, before ramping up to 1,000 tonnes per year as soon as 2026.

The company will use low-carbon power from its geothermal facilities to extract the lithium from deep wells. Its main business is as a provider of geothermal energy and heat.

The company was recently awarded £1.8 million by the U.K. government through its Automotive Transformation Fund Scale up Readiness program to use to get to production of 100 tonnes per year.

“Very recent tests have shown that the geothermal fluid within the deep geothermal wells already drilled at United Downs in Cornwall contained around 340 parts per million (ppm) of lithium, which makes it amongst the highest concentration of lithium found in any commercial geothermal lithium project in Europe,” the company said.

“Our ability to produce both zero-carbon lithium and zero-carbon baseload power will provide a foundation for the electric car market to be truly sustainable in the U.K.,” said Ryan Law, chief executive of Geothermal Engineering.

On Monday, American oil major Exxon Mobil also said it plans to start producing lithium. The company aims to extract the metal from subsurface wells by 2027.

Exxon said it will start production from briny waters pumped out of the ground in an area in the state of Arkansas known to hold significant lithium deposits to help develop a domestic source of the metal.