Lithium

Dialogo Chino.net

The region could define the global lithium market and is making moves to boost its industries. But lithium extraction’s impacts and water use remain sensitive

Andrea Calcina has lived all of her 58 years in the community of Calcha K, a group of adobe houses at 3,800 metres above sea level in the Bolivian Andes. Though everything seems to be drying up quickly here, Calcina points to a water well that is still providing for residents, if not like it used to.

“There used to be more. With this water we wash, we sow, we water vegetables and quinoa,” says Andrea, who lives in a community of 100 families, where recurring complaints that “it doesn’t rain like it used to” are heard. Calcha K, in the southwestern department of Potosí, is one of 46 communities settled around the Uyuni and Pastos Grandes salt flats, two of the country’s three major lithium reserves. The third, Salar de Coipasa, is found in Oruro, in the west of the country.

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https://thediplomat.com/

Despite the push toward decoupling, China-West collaboration persists in South America’s Lithium Triangle. But in the age of strategic competition, how long will this last?

In the vast, almost haunting expanse of the high Argentine desert, beneath layers of brine and time, lies an element that could easily be mistaken for table salt. Yet, this mineral holds the key to power electric vehicles, cell phones, and the whole green energy revolution. They call it “white gold” – lithium.

The Cauchari-Olaroz mine, located in Argentina’s Jujuy province, promises to churn out 40,000 tons of lithium over the next 40 years. But more riveting than the mineral is the strange corporate partnership extracting it. The mine is jointly owned by Canada’s Lithium Americas and China’s Ganfeng Lithium.

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