No energy and mobility transition without lithium. The production of a single battery for an electric car requires around 10 kg of lithium is required. So far, the demand in Germany has been met exclusively covered by imports. Whether lithium can be extracted as a by-product of domestic geothermal geothermal energy production in the future, we have investigated in our latest publication.

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A key finding of the study is that there is sufficient lithium in the geological of the North German and Thuringian Basin contains sufficient lithium is available. The estimated capacity across all target horizons is 4.73 million tonnes tonnes with a possible range of 0.39 to 26.51 million tonnes of lithium tonnes of lithium (metal) and could be sufficient for decades.

The most promising resources are in the Permian deposits in the southern and eastern deposits on the southern and eastern edges of the basin, however, these are mostly associated with low permeabilities.

A decoupling of lithium production from geothermal energy production energy production could therefore become necessary and require new development concepts.

However, there are also locally favourable hydraulic conditions that allow a combination of geothermal energy and lithium production. These local deposits will be the focus of our work next year. focus of our work next year.