Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland used a series of speeches this fall to stress the need for “,” an idea that would see democratic allies build supply chains through each other’s economies and tackle the influence of authoritarian regimes in the energy sector.
E3 Lithium, which owns properties in south central Alberta, is working on technology to extract lithium from old, depleted oil and gas reservoirs. Doornbos said E3 controls mineral rights in the Leduc Aquifer, which was discovered as a source of oil in the 1940s, and then was “drilled out” by the 1990s.Article content
“It’s a well understood resource that we are repurposing to turn into a lithium play,” Doornbos said. “It’s a big water bearing aquifer that has lithium dissolved in the water and E3 has the technology to extract the lithium out of the water.” The CEO added that part of the funding would be used to test the technology and demonstrate that it can work in the field. That’s E3’s main goal next year. After the pilot, the company hopes to develop the commercial project, which includes making an engineering plan, drilling wells to pump the fluid from the aquifer and bringing it to a facility to extract the lithium.