USA TODAY - Southern California's Salton Sea may be sitting atop a lithium gold mine that, if extracted, could power a staggering 375 million electric vehicle batteries, according to a new report.
It's not exactly a secret that lithium is present in the hot brine located in the shallow, landlocked body of water's vast underground reserve. But the report, funded by the U.S. Energy Department, is the first time scientists have estimated just how much could be present.
And if estimates are correct, the amount is gargantuan.
"It makes this among the largest lithium brine deposits in the world," Michael Mckibben, a geochemist at the University of California, Riverside, told the Desert Sun, a USA TODAY Network publication. "This could make the U.S. completely self-sufficient in lithium so we're no longer importing it via China."