Sometimes in business things get ugly like coming after me personally for a lot of money and trying to get me thrown in federal prison.

What?

See I should really be careful here.

Eric Spomer is the CEO of Energy Source, a renewable energy company with a geothermal power plant near the Sultan Sea.

It's arguably the front runner out of the three companies hoping to

extract lithium from super hot brine found just under the earth's crust in this

part of Southern California. Last episode was all about the hopes and dreams for a new industry that combines lithium

extraction with clean geothermal energy.

But just like that bubbling hot brine hidden below the desert floor, there are long simmering rivalries out

here just waiting to burst to the surface.

Eric tells us, there's been a lot of kind of ugly history related to all this. With so much positivity and hope

about salt and sea lithium all over the region there's still an ongoing battle over

who will control some of the key technology for getting that lithium.

That battle goes back to the late 2000s.

Back then, Eric and Energy Source had partnered with another company on a lithium project and the whole thing went bust.

There was some litigation.

Along court battle, a court appointed receiver, the company changed hands.

And when that happened, they came after us and said we stole things.

Stole things like trade secrets and assets.

It got bad. I actually got pulled off an international flight by

Homeland Security because I'd become a some kind of threat.

Yes, pulled off a flight by the Department of Homeland Security

...