Artist Impression of CTR’s Hell’s Kitchen Lithium and Power Project, Salton Sea, CA

Controlled Thermal Resources (“CTR”) has announced commencement of the company’s drilling program - initiating Stage One of the Hell’s Kitchen Lithium and Power project in Imperial, California. 

Hell’s Kitchen is the first geothermal project to be built at the Salton Sea in ten years and is the world’s first, fully integrated, new geothermal-lithium facility to commence construction. Drilling of the first two wells represent an important milestone for the company and for Imperial County, where geothermal plants at the Salton Sea have produced around 450 megawatts of renewable energy for decades. “We are very pleased to kick start our drilling program and we are on schedule to deliver the project’s first 50MW of baseload renewable power in late 2023 and an estimated 20,000 tonnes of lithium hydroxide in 2024,” CTR’s Chief Executive Officer, Rod Colwell said. 

“Our team utilized a detailed seismic survey completed in 2017 and existing well data to provide direction for the specific drill targets. We expect to reach target depths of approximately 8,000 feet for each well. We anticipate high brine flow rates and brine temperatures of 550-650 Fahrenheit. Each well is expected to produce clean, firm power for decades.

CTR’s operations and drilling teams have over 25 years of experience building and operating geothermal plants at the Salton Sea and the company’s engineering team has extensive in-depth experience in extracting various minerals from Salton Sea brines. 

KeyFacts Energy: Geothermal news