Critical minerals research is urgent for supporting domestic energy security, and for ensuring the required elements are extracted sustainably. The team collaborates with other national laboratories in a major effort to develop a minerals and materials supply chain facility dedicated to research that will help advance and develop the U.S. critical minerals and materials supply chain. We also lead large-scale resource assessments, such as the first comprehensive effort to quantify the amount of lithium present in the geothermal brines beneath California’s Salton Sea. Located in California’s so-called “Lithium Valley,” the Salton Sea geothermal field potentially holds enough lithium to exceed America’s domestic rechargeable battery needs. 

EGD scientists are also developing a machine learning framework to quickly identify and characterize areas rich in rare earth elements and critical minerals in the waste from the mining and utilization of coal and sulfide.