Today, Explained - The white gold rush

Episode Date: June 2, 2025

The US has enormous deposits of critical minerals like lithium right here at home. So why are we looking at mining the ocean floor and asteroids? This episode was made in partnership with Vox’s Future Perfect team. It was produced by Avishay Artsy, edited by Jolie Myers, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Andrea Kristinsdottir and Patrick Boyd, and hosted by Noel King. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Transcript at vox.com/today-explained-podcast. A lithium recovery demonstration plant at the Salton Sea. Photo by Darco Productions. Help us plan for the future of Today, Explained by filling out a brief survey: ⁠⁠voxmedia.com/survey⁠⁠. Thank you! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We call them critical minerals because they're critical, a handful of elements that we need for modern technologies. Whoever controls the production and processing of these critical minerals will control the 21st century economy, the way that control of petroleum defined the 20th century economy. China controls 90% of these minerals and this worries the US because... The girls are fighting! Why? Why? So the US needs to find them stat. Some of the places we're looking are uneasy about the attention. They want to make sure it's not done at the expense of a community that can't afford it. Some, like the ocean, are as yet unexplored, and some, asteroids, are on the bleeding edge

of what we can even imagine. Coming up on Today Explained, Minecraft. Support for today's show comes from BetterHelp. June is Men's Mental Health Month, and according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, 6 million men in the U.S. suffer from depression every year, and it often goes undiagnosed. BetterHelp says they make it easy to find a therapist. You can join a session at the click of a button, and you can switch therapists anytime. As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp

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at participating restaurants in Canada for a limited time. -♪ This is Today Explained. All right, so go ahead and give me your full name and tell me who you are. I'm Avishai Artsy. I'm a senior producer on Today Explained. Indeed you are. Okay, so we. I'm Avishai Artsy. I'm a senior producer on Today Explained.

Indeed you are. OK, so we've established, Avishai, that the United States really wants critical minerals, really believes it needs critical minerals. And in fact, it's trying to find them in this very big country we call home. We believe it's possible to extract enormous amounts of critical minerals and rare earths, which you know

we need for technology and high technology in the process. You went to a place where they're making an effort. Where'd you go? Yeah, I went to a place called the Salton Sea. It's in the desert in Southern California, just north of the border with Mexico. And the area between the Salton Sea and the border is called Imperial Valley. It's mostly desert, some agricultural land. And right next to the Salton Sea at the southeastern

corner, there's an area called the Salton Sea Geothermal Field, and that's where they are pumping brine, very heavily salty water, underneath the ground, because within that brine is lithium. I've definitely heard of the Salton Sea, but I've never been there. What's it like out there? Yeah, it's kind of a wild place. Here's how Manuel Pastor describes it. He's a professor at the University of Southern California and he co-authored a book about the lithium that is in Imperial Valley.

Imperial Valley has been a place of scams, schemes, and scandals from its earliest days. It was a real estate company that wanted to create a place of agricultural abundance that renamed it the Imperial Valley. In 1901, there was a company that tapped into the Colorado River to irrigate the farmlands and the U.S. government stopped them. So they went to Mexico and made a deal with the dictator there to funnel water from the Colorado River south of the border. But they did a bad job. The canal broke and they couldn't fix it. For two years, it kept on flooding.

And the Salton Sea is the result of that accident. So that's how the Salton Sea was created. Irrigation water continued to fill the Salton Sea, and it took a big turn in the 1950s and 60s. Here is truly a miracle in the desert, a whole new outlet for the crowded millions in big cities, a Palm Springs with water. Here is where you can find the good life in the sun. Developers went in, they built resorts and yacht clubs, people were water skiing, the

beach boys, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby all vacationed there. The place was hopping. It was called the American Riviera. You can enjoy your life more fully, both mentally and physically, at the Salton Riviera. But then things started to really go downhill for the Salton Sea. Beginning around the 70s and 80s, the agricultural runoff that had been feeding the sea turned the sea toxic. Fish and birds started dying en masse. The sea began to shrink. That exposed seabeds. The wind started kicking up clouds of toxic

dust. And right now you have asthma rates in Imperial Valley that are among the highest in the state. A lot of people left. The resorts turned to ghost towns. And now only a few hundred people live in the area around the Salton Sea. It's got kind of a Mad Max post-apocalyptic vibe now. Okay, so this place is really down on its luck, but then they discover lithium there. In one of California's most neglected and forgotten corners, a new kind of gold rush appears to be brewing. The Imperial Valley, a region that once had boarded up businesses and many people struggling to find work, may soon see a booming economy thanks to lithium.

A critical mineral that President Trump is genuinely interested in. I am imagining that this is good news for the area, for its economy. Yeah, things are really starting to look up for the Imperial Valley. And it's not just President Trump that's excited about this. California officials even have a nickname for the area, Lithium Valley. Maybe not as famous as Silicon Valley, but it's a neat bit of marketing. Governor Gavin Newsom even visited. We see this as one of the greatest economic opportunities of our lifetime. And we want

California to dominate in this space. Local officials are into it. So from the federal government on down, there is a real desire to make this happen. How are you? Nice to meet you. I'm Rod. And I met up with a guy who is very excited about making this happen. Yeah, my name is Rod Colwell. I'm the chief executive of CTR.

I've been out at the Salton Sea here for 13 years, going on 14 years. So CTR is Controlled Thermal Resources, one of three companies that are looking to develop the lithium potential around the Salton Sea. I met up with him on a windy day on a bluff overlooking the Salton Sea where he pointed out the site for the project that his company is trying to build, and it's called Hell's Kitchen. That land that runs across to see that island or that little volcano across there, and you'll see there's about 3,500 acres where those wells are. that land that runs across to see that island or that little volcano across there and you'll see

there's about three and a half thousand acres where those wells are. So it's just a blank canvas. We'll run a central road in and build out facilities as we develop. Why is he not yet doing it? Yeah, so first his company has to build a way to get the lithium out of the ground. So as we established, lithium is in the brine, which is the salty water underneath the ground. So as we established, lithium is in the brine, which is the salty water underneath the ground. They need to drill down over a mile deep to get to it. And because it's so deep, the brine is very hot. It's being heated by the earth's core. But what's cool about this is that a mining company could use that heat to power the process of bringing the brine up to the surface and then separating the lithium out from the salt water. And thenine up to the surface and then separating the lithium

out from the salt water. And then after they have the lithium, they can just put the brine back in the ground. The process would be much more environmentally friendly than the other ways that we currently get lithium, like hard rock mining, which is just blasting a huge hole in the ground, or giant evaporation ponds that waste a lot of water. And the potential payoff would be huge. This would potentially generate enough lithium to power 375 million electric car batteries.

Man, except they don't have the infrastructure yet. Is that really the only thing standing in the way? If Rod is able to build a way to get the lithium out of the ground, then we're good to go? Well, yeah, part of it is infrastructure. The US just doesn't have the kind of mining, refining, or production of critical minerals infrastructure that, say, China has. And so that's something that needs to be developed.

But one of the main things that's held this project back is local opposition. Huh. We've already had to pay the bill for bad decisions that have already occurred in our area. Where companies come in, they leave a legacy of contamination. And who pays for it? The low-income, disadvantaged community. This is Luis Olmedo. He's executive director of a local group called Comité Civico del Valle. I'm a second generation organizer. I didn't necessarily plan to be here.

I guess just life creates opportunities and it just became my calling. And he told me about how there's been a lot of companies who've swooped into the Imperial Valley, made big promises of economic development and jobs and bringing in new industry. Like a few years back, farmers gave up valuable land to solar companies that promised lots of good jobs. The benefit aside from renewable energy is that we generate jobs. Bringing over 1,300 jobs to their construction industry here in Imperial County. And most of those turned out to be short-term jobs, just installing the solar panels.

And then those jobs quickly went away and people felt tricked. Many residents argued solar was depriving agricultural workers of their jobs, and taking more work away than it was creating. Promises were made, yes, but they were not true. They didn't come to fruition. So all of these scenarios have already played out. So why are we going to continue to repeat the same history and entertain the same old playbook?

So Luis's group sued to stop the project, or at least to slow it down. They joined another group called Earthworks, and they've listed a bunch of concerns, water usage, air quality, and they said that indigenous groups weren't adequately consulted. All right, so they went ahead and sued. And is that the reason that Rod is not able to build the infrastructure to get the lithium out? Like, are they really holding him up?

Yeah, Rod says that the lawsuit has slowed the project down by a year or more. We're a small private company, so raising capital has been a challenge. That challenge got exonerated by a ridiculous, frivolous lawsuit that got filed and we got thrown out, but that put us back 12 months. For what? For what reason? Now, a Superior Court judge did throw out the activist lawsuit earlier this year. They're now appealing that decision. But meanwhile, the company is looking to start construction on the geothermal power and lithium extraction plant. You know, they have customers waiting for this lithium. They've already made purchase agreements with auto manufacturers like GM and Stellantis. That's how we mitigate price volatility and things like that. We have good

relationships with General Motors and Stellantis on long-term take or pay contracts. So they're relying on us to step up and deliver. So now Rod says the goal is to start generating geothermal energy by the end of 2026 and start extracting lithium in 2027. But this is just the latest version of delay. I met up with a guy named Ryan Kelly. He's on the board of supervisors for Imperial County. We met up at his house and we

drove to the Salton Sea in his pickup truck and he gave me a tour. I do like the valley and it's a very good community. You're not pressed by having a lot of people around you and you have all of this open dunes and desert and scrubland, hills, mountains, the river. There's a lot of beautiful things about this area. Ryan Kelly went away to college and then came back. He worked as a firefighter and an EMT. He was also mayor of his hometown, and he's been trying to get lithium extraction off the ground for well over a decade. Wow. I am committed to trying to see the change that can happen here because we do have an

abundance of resources that can be significant for the United States domestic supply of critical minerals with renewable power. So you've been a supervisor since 2012 and I think you've been working on lithium that whole time. Is it frustrating that it's taking this long and we're still not seeing active lithium mining here? Yeah, it is frustrating because we've been making these arguments in Washington and in Sacramento for that whole time.

Huh, all right, so Ryan has actually been trying to get this done since before Donald Trump was president, since before Donald Trump was even a politician. And here we are, we've got a president that really wants to get this kind of thing done, and it doesn't seem like it's any closer to becoming a reality. What do you think this drama playing out in the Salton Sea it doesn't seem like it's any closer to becoming a reality. What do you think this drama playing out in the Salton Sea tells us about trying to get

critical minerals in other places in the United States? Does it tell us anything? Yeah, it tells us that it's a lot harder than you would think to get critical minerals out of the ground. Even if you have the technology there, there are other things that get in the way. In other places like Nevada and Arizona, there are other things that get in the way. In other places like Nevada and Arizona, there are similar projects that have been held up by lawsuits from environmental activists and indigenous tribes who don't want to see this happening in their backyard.

Ongoing debate over lithium mining in Nevada has taken a personal turn for six individuals sued by Lithium Americas for the peaceful protest of Thacker Pass. Blowing up a mountain for coal mining is wrong. I think blowing up a mountain for lithium mining is just as wrong. You destroy the land to build cars, basically. How green is that? They don't want to see their areas become what they're calling sacrifice zones.

They accuse these mining companies of what's called green extractivism, exploiting resources and perhaps harming the environment under the banner of fighting climate change. And so that creates an interesting tension, right? I mean, in China, they can build mines wherever they want. Here in the US, there are lots of state and federal regulations that make mining projects hard to launch. And you have local groups who are trying to protect their own interests. So this comes down to how do we meet the critical mineral needs of the future but in a way that respects the people

and the environment that are directly impacted by producing and processing these minerals. It's a tricky balance to strike. Yeah it sounds like it. Avishai, thanks so much. Oh, you're welcome, Noel. Avishai Artsy, he's a senior producer at Today Explained. Next up, oh, the places we'll go for critical minerals. Support for today explained comes from Vanta. If I could automate 90% of one task in my life, oh no, they are putting me on this spot. Ew, I like most of the tasks I do.

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Today, Explained. Umair Urfan covers the environment and energy at Fox, and he's been looking beyond the geopolitical dealmaking at some of the lesser explored areas where critical minerals can be found. Right now, one of the hottest places people are trying to extract critical minerals is actually at the bottom of the ocean. There's a lot of evidence that there's a lot of minerals there, but doing anything underwater is really difficult and really expensive. There are some other problems to consider that are kind of unique to deep sea mining.

One is just that we don't know a whole lot about the ocean floor in general. It's a very difficult area to map. Wildlife, geological activity, there's a whole lot of other factors that we have to think about when we're doing mining. Just like clear cutting an old growth forest and leaving nothing behind, deep sea mining is like clear cutting the ocean.

The companies involved in deep sea mining aren't necessarily interested in revealing the damage that's taking place down there. Then on top of that we also have to think about the framing of how we do this, the international guidelines. Now the Trump administration said that they're considering proposals to extract critical minerals off the coast of US island territories like American Samoa and also in the US's exclusive economic zone. So it's looking at territorial waters of the US and trying to find places where they can do some mining. President Trump signed an executive order that he says aims to speed up deep sea mining. He says the goal is to get more rare earth metals from waters off the US outer continental shelf.

These minerals are in our own waters. We can extract them with much less cost and much less time and much less environmental impact. But some of the richest fields for critical minerals are in the middle of the ocean, basically in international waters. But because it's in international waters, the question is, who has rights to those minerals? This is really sort of a scramble right now as countries are trying to jockey for position at what might be a potentially rich vein for a lot of really important materials.

Okay, so if the ocean is slow going in terms of the legal and environmental implications, where else are people looking? Well, there are even more far-fetched proposals and one of the legal and environmental implications, where else are people looking? Well, there are even more far-fetched proposals. And one of the more interesting ones might be mining asteroids. There are even companies that have sprung up to try to develop the technology to do this. And there was one company earlier this year that actually did launch a test spacecraft to try to see what the technology would be like to

try to get to an asteroid and collect samples and bring them back. Yeah, we have some asteroids that we've identified that have up to 10,000 times the percent of platinum group metals on them than the ore deposits on Earth. If we can figure out how to mine asteroids at scale and economically, resource scarcity could be a thing of the past. How realistic is it? Because I hear asteroid mining and I wonder What exactly are people thinking when they say it and how would it work?

Well, these are people who are thinking really big picture really far into the future Obviously we have plenty of resources that we haven't fully exploited here on earth and the cost is really going to be exorbitant haven't fully exploited here on Earth and the cost is really going to be exorbitant. But the idea is that we're going to continue to need and consume critical minerals for a very long time and eventually we will either exhaust the resources we have on Earth or as we expand our footprint in space we're going to need to find a way to get materials into space. And right now getting any substance off of the earth and into space is a really expensive proposition but if you want to potentially build say a lunar colony or a space station it might make more sense to try drawing on

materials that are already in space. We're looking at asteroids that will provide water and other consumables that can be used for propellant and for other needs in space. So we might have a base on the moon where we actually manufactured materials and spacecraft or whatever we needed and tools to actually go and explore further into space. This is a very sci-fi idea but it's definitely something that people are actually investing in now and are trying to lay the groundwork for because they think it's something we'll need 20-30 years down the line. Now there are some very scarce materials we could potentially be getting from asteroids that years down the line.

Now there are some very scarce materials we could potentially be getting from asteroids that we might need. So things like iridium that we typically find only in meteorite impacts on Earth. There might be more abundant in space. And so there are potentially things that we know about that are extremely rare that could be very valuable. We could be opening up outer space in the same way that the gold rush of 1849

opened up California for exploration. Trillions of dollars could be at stake. Estimates suggesting multi-trillion dollar industry could emerge if this looks like it's gonna be the new gold rush. You know, some people have suggested that the world's first trillionaire will be an asteroid mining magnet because once you have opened the door to extracting this resource, there's so much

there that you could potentially use and leverage. Is there anyone saying we could figure out a way to manufacture critical minerals or to develop other technologies so that we need less of them? Like, how much of this is trying to get around the problem of critical minerals? There's a lot of room for improvement here in terms of how we use critical minerals now. You know, first is efficiency, that we learn how to use less of the critical minerals for a given object or a given device. So like, for instance, we use less lithium or we blend lithium with other compounds and other metals that are more abundant in a lithium ion cell. And then we make the existing lithium reserves

go further in terms of storing energy. One other thing that we should probably think about, especially over the long term, is recycling. Because we're not burning critical minerals, a lot of them are going to be retained in the devices that we use them. So a lithium ion battery still has all the lithium you use to mine it, even when the battery reaches its end of life. We can sort of create this closed loop of materials that we can try to use these materials once they reach their end of life, take these devices, pull them apart, get the raw materials back out, and then put them back into circulation and new devices. And that's one of the interesting potentials we have with a lot of these clean technologies. And that's also an argument for making this more sustainable turn.

You cover energy and the environment for Vox. And I want to ask you, as we've asked other people throughout the course of our two-part series, why do you think it's so important that we get the critical minerals race right? In a lot of ways we're going to be locking in the economy for the next 10, 20, 30 years based on what we do now. The process of getting a mine started from identifying a site to when you can actually get stuff out of the ground, that can take five, 10, 15 years just for a mine to start production.

And so we have to start making some of these hard decisions. I mean, obviously in some cases, mining does have a big environmental cost, but we have to make that cost benefit analysis about how these mines could help us obviate and get rid of some of the more destructive forms of mining that are constantly going on today. I'm talking specifically about fossil fuel extraction, things like coal mining, hydraulic fracturing. If we get our cards right, if we're smart about this, and if we actually start planning and making the investments in these technologies, we could make this transition cheaper, more effective and have greater benefits for everyone. Umair Irfan, you can find him at Vox.com.

Avishai Artsy produced today's show. It was produced in partnership with Vox's Future Perfect team. Jolie Myers is our editor. Andrea Christensdottir and Patrick Boyd engineered and Laura Bullard checked the facts. I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained. you