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Judi Lynn

(160,217 posts)
Wed Jan 15, 2020, 09:03 PM Jan 2020

The Lithium Triangle: Where Chile, Argentina, and Bolivia Meet

15.JAN.2020 . 6 MIN READ
Samar Ahmad



The lightest of metals may be causing the largest of impacts. Lithium, which powers our phones, laptops, and electric cars, is essential to our battery-driven world. The demand for lithium has rapidly increased, as the global market’s annual consumption has risen by 8.9 percent annually. This demand will only intensify as hybrid and electric vehicles, energy storage systems, and portable electronics become increasingly widespread. While lithium has been found on each of the six inhabited continents, Chile, Argentina, and Bolivia—together referred to as the “Lithium Triangle”—hold more than 75 percent of the world’s supply beneath their salt flats.

The Lithium Triangle is one of the driest places on earth, which complicates the process of lithium extraction: miners have to drill holes in the salt flats to pump salty, mineral-rich brine to the surface. They then let the water evaporate for months at a time, forming a mixture of potassium, manganese, borax, and lithium salts that is then filtered and left to evaporate once more. After between 12 and 18 months, the filtering process is complete and lithium carbonate can be extracted.

While lithium extraction is relatively cheap and effective, it begs the question of sustainability and long-term impact. That is to say, will lithium mining benefit the globe and its inhabitants, or will it entrench societal and environmental harm? Perhaps the Lithium Triangle will provide some answers.

Economic and Social Factors at Play

Bolivia is home to Salar de Uyuni, the world’s largest salt flat that spans 4,000 square miles. Beneath this natural wonder are massive lithium deposits, composing about 50 percent of the earth’s total. In 2008, the vice president of Bolivia, Álvaro García Linera, proclaimed that this natural resource would relieve the 40 percent of citizens who are living in extreme poverty by “training them in scientific and technological fields so that they become part of the intelligentsia in the global economy.” This sentiment was echoed through government policy and action, with the impassioned declaration of “¡100 percent Estatal!”, or full control by the Bolivian state of the lithium extraction, that would occur in Salar de Uyuni.

More:
https://hir.harvard.edu/lithium-triangle/

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