Low-carbon Lithium Extraction Makes Deep Geothermal Plants Cost-competitive in Energy Systems

Jann Michael Weinand, Ganga Vandenberg, Stanley Risch, Johannes Behrens, Noah Pflugradt, Jochen Lin{\ss}en and Detlef Stolten

Papers from arXiv.org

Abstract: Lithium is a critical material for the energy transition, but conventional procurement methods have significant environmental impacts. In this study, we utilize regional energy system optimizations to investigate the techno-economic potential of the low-carbon alternative of direct lithium extraction in deep geothermal plants. We show that geothermal plants will become cost-competitive in conjunction with lithium extraction, even under unfavorable conditions and partially displace photovoltaics, wind power, and storage from energy systems. Our analysis indicates that if 10% of municipalities in the Upper Rhine Graben area in Germany constructed deep geothermal plants, they could provide enough lithium to produce about 1.2 million electric vehicle battery packs per year, equivalent to 70% of today`s annual electric vehicle registrations in the European Union. This approach could offer significant environmental benefits and has high potential for mass application also in other countries, such as the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Italy, highlighting the importance of further research and development of this technology.

Date: 2023-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-env and nep-tre
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://arxiv.org/pdf/2304.07019 Latest version (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:arx:papers:2304.07019

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Papers from arXiv.org
Bibliographic data for series maintained by arXiv administrators ().