The California Lake Billed as the ‘Saudi Arabia of Lithium’

Beneath California’s Salton Sea, there is so much metal essential to rechargeable batteries that Gov. Gavin Newsom calls the vast lake “the Saudi Arabia of lithium.”

An estimated $500 billion worth of lithium here could help power our smartphones, electric cars and electricity grids. And a so-called white gold rush could bring jobs, tax dollars and economic revitalization to one of the most impoverished places in the nation.