Pedal to the Light Metal

On a flat stretch of land halfway between Dallas and Fort Worth sit several large storage tanks of water. But it’s not ordinary water — it’s salty wastewater piped from nearby shale gas wells as part of an ambitious plan to produce lithium, a key component of next-generation batteries.

French-owned TotalEnergies SE and Dave Leopold ’96 MBA, chief executive of Fort Worth-based TotalEnergies E&P-Barnett, are behind the effort. The company hopes to become the first in the United States to extract lithium from the wastewater produced in oil and gas drilling.

Just as the Spindletop gusher in Beaumont, Texas, launched the state’s oil boom more than a century ago, TotalEnergies could propel the state into the center of the nascent lithium industry. By reusing some of the waste generated from oil and gas drilling, the company could help pave the way for a clean energy transition.

Lithium, a super-light metal used in batteries for everything from power tools to cellphones, is in high demand. By far the biggest demand for lithium batteries comes from the electric vehicle industry.

“Lithium is as rare as gold.”
John Holbrook, professor of geological sciences at TCU.

Supply wasn’t a problem until demand began to skyrocket, he said.

The global lithium supply nearly doubled from 2018 to 2022, when 98 million tons were produced.

Demand is now rising much faster than supply; limited production and refining capacity could create a global shortage in just a few years.

“This is going to be a race between people’s demand for it and our ability to stay in front of it,” Holbrook said.

Amid this burgeoning and potentially lucrative landscape, TotalEnergies is one of several companies rushing to test ways to recover lithium from previously unused or underused sources.

Dave Leopold’s TotalEnergies E&P-Barnett could be a driver of turning Texas into a major center of the lithium industry. Global consumption of the metal has jumped 400 percent since 2014. Photo by Leo Wesson

The $200 billion, 105,000-employee TotalEnergies, which operates in more than 130 countries, launched its lithium recovery pilot last fall in North Texas. The project involves extracting lithium from water that is produced in natural gas production operations. The excess water is then injected into a disposal zone deep in the earth, Leopold said.

Frank Despinois, a research and development team leader for TotalEnergies who oversees the ongoing Texas pilot from France, called the preliminary results promising. The company is analyzing the data, but “if the results are good enough,” the next step would be to commercialize the process, he said.

TotalEnergies hopes to decide the program’s fate this year, said Leopold, a 30-year veteran of the oil industry. The 180 employees in his branch of the company have focused on natural gas exploration in the Barnett Shale.

The pilot is among the projects that will help TotalEnergies build a bridge between its fossil fuel business and the global focus on green energy. Two years ago, the company changed its name from Total to reflect its ongoing transformation from one of the world’s largest oil and gas operations into a multi-energy enterprise expanding into renewables like solar, wind and biofuels.

As part of its goal to be carbon-neutral by 2050, TotalEnergies has identified more than a dozen crucial metals to support its move toward more Earth-friendly resources.

“My goal is to unlock critical metals” and create a steady supply of them so that the company doesn’t face a shortage, said Despinois, a geoscientist.

Although lithium is a finite resource, the ability to capture it and recycle it is key. “Lithium will play a big role in battery production now and in the future,” Leopold said. “If everyone turns to electric cars and electric lawn mowers, we’re going to need more lithium.”

What Is Lithium?

“No one cared about it. Then we found out it’s the best way to make batteries for electric vehicles. The lithium industry has exploded beyond belief.”
Ken Hoffman, McKinney & Co.

Naturally occurring lithium is found all over — from ancient rocks to volcanic areas to groundwater — but in small amounts, Holbrook said.

Last year, 80 percent of the world’s recovered lithium went into batteries; it is also used in glass, ceramics, pacemakers and other products.

Metal is needed to store electricity, and lithium is the lightest metal that has strong heat and electrical conductivity. The lighter the batteries, the more efficient and less expensive the electric vehicles and other products will be.

Traditionally, lithium has been mined or extracted from rock in labor-intensive processes, but it’s also found in sediment, salty water such as brine and ancient seabeds. Production today is focused on recovering lithium from sources other than mining, which is an expensive, lengthy process.

Lithium production “was this sleepy little industry. … No one cared about it. Then we found out it’s the best way to make batteries for electric vehicles. The lithium industry has exploded beyond belief.”

With surging demand for clean energy, lithium consumption has jumped about 400 percent since 2014, he said. Prices also have skyrocketed. In 2022, the price of lithium carbonate, the type of lithium salt preferred for lithium-ion batteries, more than quadrupled, reaching a record of over $83,000 per ton.

Basic Supply and Demand

Global supply chain issues and carbon-neutral, net-zero goals are also driving the push to find new sources of lithium. The U.S. has set net-zero emission targets by 2050 amid growing concern about damage from rising global temperatures.

The opportunities are massive. The U.S. today produces less than 2 percent of the world’s lithium, while Australia, Chile and China take the lead.

Global energy demand has risen 30 percent in the past 10 years and is expected to continue growing, especially for electricity produced from green sources. The International Energy Agency forecasts demand for lithium could increase about 90 percent by 2040, with the world facing lithium shortages beyond the current decade.