The geothermal plant on the edge of a residential area in Bruchsal requires no more space than an ALDI supermarket.

On the property of the Baden city near Karlsruhe there is a container for control, a compact wet cooling tower, a hall with the generator for power generation.

Some of the thermal water is diverted into a second container and lithium is obtained on an experimental basis: the “white gold” without which electromobility and the production of battery cells would not be possible.

Pure burger

Political correspondent in North Rhine-Westphalia.

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Stephen Locke

Correspondent for Saxony and Thuringia based in Dresden.

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Rudiger Soldt

Political correspondent in Baden-Württemberg.

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The fact that energy is generated here and lithium is extracted in one place makes the plant technically special.

But it is also politically important.

Because of the lithium that is needed for e-mobility;

Above all, however, because it is a good example of how gas for district heating networks can be replaced by geothermal energy - and thus what the future could look like without Russian gas.

A pump sits 450 meters underground.

It is 18 meters long and pumps thermal water at a temperature of 125 degrees from a depth of 2540 meters into a small power plant.

Warning signs are attached to the pipes, warning against burns.

"If you have an existing district heating network," says Klemens Slunitschek, geochemist and research associate at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), "then you can easily use geothermal heat and replace gas consumption."

The Mannheim district heating network requires 130 degrees Celsius, the Bruchsal plant can supply hot water up to 155 degrees.

That fits.

Because the temperature is too low for steam-powered turbines, an ammonia-water mixture is heated in Bruchsal with the thermal water using the so-called Kalina process.

Under pressure, the addition of ammonia produces steam at much lower temperatures.

The power plant in Bruchsal delivers seven megawatts of heat for a barracks and 0.5 megawatts of electricity.

Around 8,400 households can be supplied with electricity – in an environmentally friendly and inexpensive way.

Raw material prices rose sharply as early as 2020

The lithium that can probably be extracted from the water here in the next thirty years is not cheap at all: the price for a ton has recently increased from 18,000 to 70,000 US dollars.

Experts expect that the price could multiply again in the next few years.

According to a study recently presented by the "Deutsche Rohstoff Agency" (DERA), the amount of lithium required for low-emission mobility could be lacking in 2030.

The “white gold” is a scarce commodity.

It was not only the Ukraine war that promoted considerations of exploring and using domestic mineral resources more intensively again.

Corona was also an important factor.

As early as mid-2020, i.e. shortly after the start of the pandemic, metallic raw materials became significantly more expensive - initially the prices for bulk raw materials such as aluminum, iron and copper rose, and later also for other metals such as nickel, zinc and tin.

Economists explain the development by saying that many mining companies around the world temporarily suspended their production, there were production losses and supply chains were torn.

In addition, raw material prices have been comparatively low over the past ten years.

The catch-up effect is now being accelerated by several technological trends such as digitization, automation, electrification.