Silver Peak, Nevada

Silver Peak (unincorporated) is the site of a small silver strike back in the early 1900's when this area of Nevada was crawling with prospectors looking to strike it rich. The site is near a dry lake bed that is rich with many minerals, including lithium. Today, this area is one of the bigger suppliers of lithium (for lithium-ion batteries) in the US.

Silver Peak was almost unheard of until newspaper reports tied a major Califonia power outage to events in Silver Peak on March 29, 1999. On that day, Enron energy traders rerouted a massive amount (2,900 MW) of California-bound electricity through Silver Peak. What caused the power outage was the line from Silver Peak to California could only carry about 0.5% of that electricity. When investigators discovered the initial cause of that power outage, they fined Enron $25,000. However, that single action made Enron about $7,000,000 in revenue, so the company figured with those numbers, this was a viable way to do business and make a lot of money.