Project ATLiS will extract lithium from geothermal brine and process it into lithium hydroxide for use in American-made batteries and Energy Storage Systems.
January 15, 2025
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Jigar Shah
Former Director, Loan Programs Office
Jigar Shah served as Director of the Loan Programs Office (LPO) at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) from March 2021 to January 2025. He led and directed LPO’s loan authority to support deployment of innovative clean energy, advanced transportation, and Tribal energy projects in the United States. Prior, Shah was co-founder and President at Generate Capital, where he focused on helping entrepreneurs accelerate decarbonization solutions through the use of low-cost infrastructure-as-a service financing. Prior to Generate Capital, Shah founded SunEdison, a company that pioneered “pay as you save” solar financing. After SunEdison, Shah served as the founding CEO of the Carbon War Room, a global non-profit founded by Sir Richard Branson and Virgin Unite to help entrepreneurs address climate change.
Shah was also featured in TIME's list of the "100 Most Influential People" in 2024.
Originally from Illinois, Shah holds a B.S. from the University of Illinois-UC and an MBA from the University of Maryland College Park.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office (LPO) announced today a conditional commitment to SPV ESM ATLiS LLC (ATLiS), a subsidiary of EnergySource Minerals LLC (ESM), for a direct loan of up to $1.36 billion ($1.22 billion of principal plus $141 million of capitalized interest) to finance the construction, equipping, and operation of a facility in Imperial County, California, to produce lithium hydroxide from geothermal brine. The facility is expected to produce up to 20,000 metric tons of lithium hydroxide annually, enough for approximately 52 GWh of lithium-ion batteries per year. ATLiS submitted its application to LPO in May 2023. Today’s announcement reinforces the Department of Energy’s commitment to strengthening the nation’s manufacturing competitiveness and ensuring the country’s energy future is built by Americans, for Americans.
The ATLiS facility will use a technology called direct lithium extraction (DLE) to recover lithium from Salton Sea geothermal brine. DLE technologies are applicable in many lithium brine and clay resources across the United States, allowing economically competitive extraction where impurities or lower lithium concentrations would otherwise limit commercial opportunities. DLE also requires less water and land versus conventional extraction methods from brines, such as evaporation ponds.
Scaling DLE technology will support onshoring the domestic supply chain for lithium resources and increase American global technology competitiveness. Although a small portion of global lithium supply, DLE has already been deployed internationally in a limited number of commercial projects, including in China. Project ATLiS will be the first facility to utilize the process at commercial scale in the United States. ATLiS will deploy a proprietary DLE technology called ILiAD™ (developed by ESM ILiAD LLC, another EnergySource Minerals subsidiary) for lithium recovery, which has been piloted with various brine resources across the United States and internationally, including in Utah, Texas, and Nevada, in addition to onsite in California.
The facility will be sited next to an existing geothermal plant, which will supply the lithium-rich brine from the subsurface geothermal field located over one mile underground. After impurities are removed from the brine, the lithium will be separated out using the ILiAD™ DLE technology. The lithium-depleted brine will be returned to the geothermal plant for reinjection into the geothermal reservoir, and the lithium will be further purified, crystallized, and packaged into battery-grade material. The brine features additional recoverable critical minerals supporting America’s industrial base, including zinc and manganese, which ATLiS expects to extract and commercialize.
Project ATLiS will provide the U.S. battery market with a reliable and secure source of domestically produced lithium. Prior DOE analysis has estimated that potential lithium production from the Salton Sea known geothermal resource area may exceed 4 million metric tons, which can produce over 10,000 GWh of battery capacity. This project supports the Administration’s efforts to strengthen supply chains that are key to national energy security, reduce reliance on economic competitors like China, and unlock America’s tremendous domestic lithium resources.
LPO borrowers are required to develop and ultimately implement a comprehensive Community Benefits Plan (CBP). CBPs ensure borrowers meaningfully engage with community and labor groups to create good-paying jobs and improve the well-being of the local community and workers. ESM has directly engaged with the local community through community-wide and individual meetings since 2021. The project is expected to create up to 300 construction jobs and 71 operations jobs.
ESM, along with Imperial Valley College and other industry partners, created a Lithium Industry Training Program (LIFT), which includes a one-year certificate program designed to equip the non-degree-seeking local workforce with the skills and knowledge necessary for excelling in the geothermal energy and mineral extraction industries. The program has graduated over 50 students, and ESM intends to hire directly from the program.
If finalized, the loan would be offered under LPO’s Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (ATVM) Loan Program, which provides loans to support U.S. manufacturing of advanced technology vehicles, qualifying components, and materials that improve fuel economy. With four conditional commitments and six closed loans announced for ATVM projects since July 2024, LPO is helping to support, onshore, and re-shore transportation manufacturing projects to achieve ambitious national supply chain security objectives.
While this conditional commitment indicates DOE’s intent to finance the project, DOE and the company must satisfy certain technical, legal, environmental, and financial conditions before the Department enters into definitive financing documents and funds the loan.