By Oliver M. Bayani

Simbol Materials started operations yesterday with a new pilot plant in California that can extract lithium and other valuable metals used in batteries from existing geothermal power plants.

The California-based startup's new facility will separate lithium carbonate, zinc and manganese from wastewater, called hydrothermal brines, produced by an unnamed geothermal plant in Salton Sea, Imperial Valley.

The geothermal plant is among a group of facilities in the region that draw hot water underground for producing steam that drives electric turbines. Wastewater produced in the process is salty and rich in minerals and metals - such as lithium.

Instead of digging up wells or mines, Simbol's system fits into an existing geothermal well to gather wastewater. The company's new plant is designed to extract valuable metals from up to 1,500 metric tons of hydrothermal brines by next year.

Materials like lithium have been the material of choice for powering electric vehicles, making the question of supply more important than ever to car and battery manufacturers.

"With the electric vehicle battery industry set to take off, the demand for premium quality lithium, manganese and zinc - building blocks for the next generation of energy storage, including EV batteries - requires an urgent and high performance solution, one that Simbol Materials provides," the company said.

Extracting lithium from brine is a common way of getting the metals. Chemetall Foote, based in Nevada and the only lithium producer based in the United States, extracts them by pumping brine into ponds and then drying them for months.

"The new facility and expansion plans positions Simbol Materials as the most competitive producer of high-purity lithium and other lithium compounds and derivatives that are critical to electric vehicle batteries and clean energy," Takashi Sunada of the chemicals division of Japanese conglomerate Itochu said in a statement.

Simbol's sales will be managed by Itochu, a lead investor in the company and one of Japan's biggest conglomerates. Venture firm Mohr Davidow is also an investor. Headquartered in Pleasanton, California, Simbol was founded in 2008.

Big shoes to fill

Lithium, the lightest metal in the world, has a lot of demand fill in as the alternative transportation sector continues to swell. United States President Barrack Obama has set a 2015 goal of one million plug-in vehicles which would include pure electrics as well as hybrids cars.

Around 16 million hybrid and electric cars will be on the world's roads by 2025, using 181,000 tons of lithium carbonate in their batteries. Research firm SignumBox based in Chile said that is a 34 percent rise in the firm's forecast total demand for lithium this year, or 119,000 tons.

The largest lithium reserves in the world are in China, Australia and South America. Accounting for an estimated reserve of 5.4 million tons, the Salar De Uyuni salt fields in Bolivia holds half of the world's supply. In comparison, lithium reserves in Chile are at 3 million tons, 1.1 million in China and just 410,000 in the United States.

Simbol's process could help make the United States a much larger producer of lithium and other important metals because of the number of its geothermal plants.

According to the Geothermal Energy Association, the country's geothermal industry is alive in is nine states as of April 2011: Alaska, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming. Other states, such as Colorado, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas are soon to be added to the list.

A report from Pike research yesterday said the country is the global geothermal leader with 3.1 gigawatts of installed capacity out of 10.7 GW globally. By 2025, the research firm predicts it grow 134 percent to 25.1 GW, thanks to policies and incentives that will heighten investor interest.