Industrial Growth Transforms the USA
In the decades following the Civil War, the United States emerged as an industrial giant. Old industries expanded and new ones emerged, including petroleum refining, steel manufacturing, and electrical power. Americans born in the 1840s and 1850s experienced sweeping technological changes in their lifetimes.
During the oil crisis in the 1970s, M. Stanley Whittingham, an English chemist working for Exxon, started exploring the idea of a new battery—one that could recharge rapidly and reduce reliance upon fossil fuels. In 1991, we saw the first commercial lithium-ion battery, the key component of the transition into the electric era.
Since 2008, production of these batteries has grown by 512%, and demand has intensified. But shortages loom in just a few years…
A NEW INDUSTRIAL
AGE HAS BEGUN
Industrial Growth Transforms the USA
In the decades following the Civil War, the United States emerged as an industrial giant. Old industries expanded and new ones emerged, including petroleum refining, steel manufacturing, and electrical power. Americans born in the 1840s and 1850s experienced sweeping technological changes in their lifetimes.
During the oil crisis in the 1970s, M. Stanley Whittingham, an English chemist working for Exxon, started exploring the idea of a new battery—one that could recharge rapidly and reduce reliance upon fossil fuels. In 1991, we saw the first commercial lithium-ion battery, the key component of the transition into the electric era, marking the beginning of another sweeping technological change in this generation.
Since 2008, production of these batteries has grown by 512%, and demand has intensified. But shortages loom in just a few years…
A NEW INDUSTRIAL
AGE HAS BEGUN
A Major Problem
The United States has a lithium supply problem. Nearly every major automaker has announced a transition to electric vehicles, but domestic lithium production is less than 2% of current global demand. To power all these EVs, we will need batteries—lots of them! Electric vehicles will be responsible for more than 90% of the demand for lithium by 2030, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. But we also need lithium for our phones, computers, ceramics, lubricants, and pharmaceuticals, and it’s essential for solar and wind energy storage.
The Megatrend
The demand for lithium to manufacture batteries is expected to top 17 million tons in 2030. A frenzied rush to secure raw materials over the past two years has led to sharp fluctuations in the commodity’s pricing.
The world needs 2 billion electric vehicles to get to net zero. Lithium offers a critical path toward a net-zero world. So is there enough lithium to make all the batteries?
China's Battery Supply Dominance
In 2022, China had more battery production capacity than the rest of the world combined. China is home to six of the world’s ten biggest battery makers. And Beijing believes it has found the key to dominating these strategic industries—gaining control of the global lithium supply!
The carbon footprint of transporting lithium to and from Asia, however, is now finally avoidable.
U.S. Primary Industries of Focus
American industries, including aviation, defense, electric vehicles, and stationary storage are starved for lithium. Establishing a domestic supply chain for lithium-based batteries requires a national commitment.
By 2025, demand may surpass supply, and without immediate action to meet demand, our goal of net-zero emissions will go unmet.
U.S. Technology & Expertise are Changing the Game
A major step forward from traditional hard rock mining and massive evaporation ponds, Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) technology eliminates complex and costly conventional refining steps, creates massive efficiencies without open pits, replenishes the aquifers, and eradicates the need to ship raw lithium to overseas refineries (in China), which reduces our nation’s dependence on foreign processors.
DLE is environmentally safe, economical, produces near-zero CO2 emissions, and decentralizes lithium refinement with no off-shore processing. DLE can drive domination without devastation.
A New Discovery Will Change the World
In 2007, scientists identified a huge (nearly ideal) geological carbon dioxide sequestration strata, with the appropriate porosity and reservoir permeability capable of safely storing over 25 billion tons (25 Gt) of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) with over 10,000 feet of four-way structural closure. This stacked, doubly-plunging sedimentary lacustrine anticline covers over 1,700 square miles, with two isolated geothermal saline reservoirs over 1,100 feet thick, making it the largest known contiguous geothermal brine strata by volume in North America. When a stratigraphic test well was drilled, it was determined to contain enough lithium tonnage for more than 100+ years of current global production.
The regional geological history of the source of the lithium is a significant component of the formation brines and reservoirs of the western United States that occurred during the Paleozoic and Triassic periods.
The flagship site offers a perfect trifecta of outstanding clean-energy and negative net-carbon solutions: DLE lithium extraction, clean geothermal electricity, and large volumes of safe CO2 sequestration from multiple seal redundancies in a closed-loop system of extraction and re-injection.
This world-class resource can transform the United States from a significant lithium importer to a primary independent lithium producer, while potentially becoming a Strategic Lithium Reserve for the United States.
Enter PermaLithium...
PermaLithium, Inc. is a home-grown enterprise on the forefront of responsibly sourced lithium brine extraction and CO2 sequestration, perfectly positioned to lead the charge in the transition to a net-zero world.
We are intentional in building the nation’s first renewable energy zone. The zone will become a closed-loop domestic battery supply chain district powered by low-cost renewable geothermal electricity, DLE extraction, and Carbon Capture, Usage, and Storage (CCUS) technologies.
Our preeminent land assets comprise the largest mineral holdings held by a single operator over the largest known contiguous geothermal aquifer by volume in North America. And we are 100% Native American owned.
Ideas are the currency of the future. They solve problems. They create opportunities. They entertain. They break down barriers. They enrich lives. A new, clean energy industrial age has begun.
