I’ve researched the opportunities that could be developed in the Salton Sea area, and it is a potential goldmine. The problem is it is also an environmental disaster area that is largely unlivable due to the brackish salt water and fertilizer runoff from the Central Valley area. If they were to build the geothermal plants to extract the lithium from the brine, they would also need to desalinate the Salton Sea water to support local communities.
The solution is to also build a liquid fuel breeder nuclear reactor at the abandoned Naval bombing practice area to provide electricity and process heat to desalinate and detoxify the area. It could use spent fuel from the San Onofre reactor that is sitting in dry storage and uranium/thorium from the rare earth mining facility in Mountain Pass, CA. This would reduce the cost of storing radioactive mining waste that makes our rare earth industry uncompetitive with China.
Thanks!
“The solution is to also build a liquid fuel breeder nuclear reactor at the abandoned Naval bombing practice area to provide electricity and process heat to desalinate and detoxify the area. It could use spent fuel from the San Onofre reactor that is sitting in dry storage and uranium/thorium from the rare earth mining facility in Mountain Pass, CA. This would reduce the cost of storing radioactive mining waste that makes our rare earth industry uncompetitive with China.”
That sounds like a logical, practical, well researched and thought out plan that would greatly help the US economy and make us a leader in the world supplying rare earths. The EPA and liberals will never let it happen.