SALAR DE UYUNI: Beneath the crust of the largest salt pan is found the world's largest concentration of lithium, a key component of modern batteries.
Image: © Eitan Haddok
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UYUNI, Bolivia—"Gray gold" may be the key to a future filled with hybrid or electric vehicles. That's because lithium is the most important ingredient in the batteries that power these cars. Even without many electric cars on the road today the lightest metal on Earth is more and more a mining target of multinational companies as lithium ion batteries power an increasing array of electronic gadgets.
Lithium is found in many places on the planet, but among all of them no deposit is richer than the vast salt flats of Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia, covering more than 10,000 square kilometers of the remote high plains. Lithium is found among these salts, mixed in with brine that lies beneath a saline crust, the residue of an ancient evaporated sea. That lithium-rich brine is the legacy of local volcanic activity transporting the metal to the surface where it could then be leached by infiltrating waters.
The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that this single salar (salt pan) contains 5.4 million metric tons of lithium. Harkening to a future of growing demand, landlocked Bolivia recently invested $5.7 million in a pilot plant to determine how best to process the salt, which may ultimately enable it to surpass its neighbor Chile in dominating the global market for the element.
But peasant salt harvesters still predominate in this part of the so-called Lithium Triangle—salt deserts perched atop the Andes at the junction of Argentina, Bolivia and Chile. The bulk of common table salt from the salar is still harvested by Aymara people, their faces sheathed by sheets or wooden masks to protect against the blinding sun, using hatchets or iron bars and often breaking through to the blue-green brine beneath the crust, rich in minerals ranging from boron to lithium.
Says Nestor Alconz, a salt harvester in the Salar de Coipasa: "Evo Morales, our president, came to the village last year. It was the first time a president ever came up to here. He told us about lithium but he said that it requires such high investments that it will take a lot of time until we can start that here. I don't think I will witness it, but I do hope our children will benefit from it."
Nevertheless, the Lithium Triangle salars are beginning to show the strains of increased lithium production: Evaporation ponds litter the barren landscape, and pumping the brine may lower the water table—a major threat in a desert area. Furthermore, large-scale extraction could destroy the unique salar ecosystem.
Although increasing demand has driven lithium prices from $350 to $3,000 per ton in the past five years, ultimately it will be the proliferation of electric cars that pushes consumption of the element to new heights. Whereas gadgets require roughly a few grams of lithium, a car battery requires as much as 30 kilograms.
And that's the hope of some Bolivians, that a lithium rush may enable them to escape poverty. "The discovery of lithium will allow Bolivia to become an industrialized country like others," says metallurgist Maritza Vallejos of the pilot plant in Rio Grande. "Thanks to the production of lithium batteries for electric cars, [we] will contribute to fighting global warming for the benefit of the entire Earth."
View slide show: "A Look at the Lithium Flats of Bolivia"
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37 Comments
Add CommentLook at the pretty salt flats. See the big crater?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTrash it! Just imagine how many batteries we could make and throw into landfills with a whole salt flat! Whats more, we can pay the poor people a cent a day to kill themselves making them for us, and we'll make billions! Awesome!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhile I see the relevance of the lithium industry, what is the impact on the environment from such large expropriations of the lithium being removed from the area?Are there any dangerous toxic sideeffects to the poor peasant people working and handling the lithium in the area without any form of protection garb to wear?? or long term studies on workers health to look at the health impacts they may experience?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSend Rio Tinto down there, they will take care of it, who cares if a few natives die in the process ...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe biggest potential resource shortage for Electric Vehicles is the Rare Earth magnets needed for the best EV, HEV and E-Bike motors. The E-Bike being the most efficient means of transportation ever invented. Unfortuneately, large quantities of these precious materials are being wasted on building the newer, better, gearless Generators for NUTTY, IMPRACTICAL WIND TURBINES that do ZIP to reduce CO2 emissions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWind Turbines are about the WORST IDEA POSSIBLE TO REDUCE CO2 EMISSION - Wind DOES NOT SIGNICANTLY REDUCE CO2 EMISSIONS. See:
http://www.masterresource.org/2009/11/wind-integration-incremental-emissions-from-back-up-generation-cycling-part-i-a-framework-and-calculator/
And Peter Lang shows that the CO2 AVOIDANCE COSTS OF WIND, including necessary backup are $830 to $1149 per tonne CO2 avoided, vs Nuclear at $22 per tonne CO2 avoided, and just using Close Cycle Gas Turbines, Nix the Wind is $33 per tonne CO2 avoided - compared with a standard Black Coal Power plant. So who needs Wind?
http://www.wind-watch.org/documents/wp-content/uploads/lang-wind-power-co2-emissions.pdf
The depth of this article–and the balance of content–isn't even close to what we expect from SA.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is really difficult for humans to get away from needing to destroy something or other humans for profit. We don't need lithium to make batteries. If these scientists would just start reading SciAm, they would know that there are better ways to make batteries that can hold larger charges and emit that energy for a longer period of time, and there is no lithium in them. America needs to get out of its destructive nature and start building these more environmentally safe batteries that don't have to destroy the planet to work. Ion batteries are so last century and so unfriendly.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree with most of the posters here. Let's leave the beautiful, pristine, delicately balanced ecosystem that is the Bolivia salt flats alone. In fact, just halt all lithium mining everywhere because it always destroys something in nature to extract minerals from the earth.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe just won't produce any hybrid vehicles or electric vehicles and we'll drive around using our normal gas guzzling engines.
And this, folks, is the crux of environmentalism. NO solution is ever workable, because the environmentalist will claim that ANY human activity is rape of the planet and must therefore be banned.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo, drive electric, but you can't mine lithium. Go solar, but you can't use the chemicals to make them. Go wind, but you can't put the windmills anywhere. Go tidal, but you can't put the platforms anywhere. Etc. etc. etc.
Population growth * destructive processes = increasing destruction.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe've already destroyed so much that a few more cell phones won't make much difference - I want mine, too!
Bolivia will lose out on lithium as there are far more sources of it that are being developed including in the US..
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs far as eco, have any of you been on such s flat? There are no living creatures or plants as it's way too toxic already.
DWBD. What a bunch of nonsense!! Rare earths were not needed for 130 yrs of EV's so they just don't matter.
Next you are an idiot if you think a well designed wind generator isn't cost effective in most places. Utilities need the extra generation for peak demand so no new cost. Wind just cuts machine, fuel costs when it's blowing, no storage cost needed. Regular demand is far more variable than wind will be. And as many wind units come online, they will average out again cutting any storage/generation needs to below what the utility already has.
@dwbd
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen we look at the energy supply options and compare $ per tonne of CO2 avoided, we need to ask ourselves, what was the $ spent on. The answer is probably "that many more dollars-worth of CO2" i.e. "Modern windfarms" cause more CO2 addition than they negate during their lifetimes. Meanwhile a design - and production prototype - wind Turbine-Alternator Device - TAD ? - exists, which will return several times as much energy during its 100? year lifespan (it's made of alluminium - like the old landrover bodies) at a rate of 5% of its cost p.a. - and more in good sites. This is around 40 x the return from "modern windfarms" which actually make matters worse, right from their inception.
There are 4 or five very clear reasons which account for this disparity. All you need do is email bertwindonatgmaildotcom.
BTW - gearboxes, just like everything-else, require energy to produce. Including one doesn't loser the bill, it may - or may not - improve performance, depending upon many other factors.
Yes, a unique environment, but an ecosystem? And to think that we are destroying ecosystems as complex as the Amazon, to raise cattle, harvest timber, etc. Like we need to file an environmental impact study to land on the moon. And get that little girl some sun glasses, PLEASE.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf the figures stated in the article are correct, the entire reserve here would only be enough for some 150 million cars. Which is nothing compared to the global number of cars.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisD
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEnvironmental destruction, rampant as it looks today, will start to slow down soon.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe reason is the exhaustion of cheap petroleum. At first, as Oil becomes more expensive, there will be an effort to dig more and find more oil/gas/any other burnables. Therefore, destruction would actually increase. But eventually, as the price of petroleum increases, destruction will start to decline.
Because environmental destruction requires portable energy.
And the most portable energy is Oil. Try powering a caterpillar earth-mover with lithium batteries.
It is amazing how flimsy they pillars of our 'industrial' society are.
In the late 1940s, lithium chloride was sold as a salt substitute, for people on a low-sodium diet. A few people died after sprinkling LiCl on food, and the FDA quickly pulled it from the market.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlease, there's plenty!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHave a dictator force it on the "End of the World" people. This will calm them down.
The World is NOT coming to an end. Apocalyptic myths are at the core of this culture. This is the worst kind of cultural pessimism. It leads to endless strife and war and is the dream of "revolutionaries" who aim to destroy human societies.
Prophets of Apocalypse must be ignored. Immunize yourself against this contagion.
It will be another blood bath, a holocaust on a global scale.
Totalitarians, undertakers of humanity.
Test...registering
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAre you going to deny Bolivia their right to industrialize and make money? We have absolutely no moral ground to prevent them from doing that. Save your own back yard and don't trash others'.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe have no right to determine what is best for Bolivia. Let them industrialize and modernize. Let's clean up our own back yard before we tell anyone else to. Start with the Mnt. Top removal coal mining in Virginia.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis species needs more reproductive viruses.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBy the time we get the lithium batteries and electrical cars perfective, we will find that we have created an electrical magnetic energy already at levels we cannot endure, but will find an hour near an electric auto will throw all of our body electronics off and we will perish.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this" the beautiful, pristine, delicately balanced ecosystem"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWTF??? They're freaking salt flats, there **IS** no ecosystem. Not even brine shrimp. The only place with less life than the salares is the Atacama, where not even bacteria can survive.
At least Bolivia has a decent representative government now. If this had been only a decade ago any income would have gone to the mega-rich, while the poor died in the mines forgotten.
Good grief. There are some people who would object to mining the moon because of the environmental cost.
Please, be the first to eliminate yourself so others are spared your blather.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBy the time we develop and get billions of electric cars, we will probably find the the magnetic electrical energy prohibits us from using them with out serious health side effects. We are an electrical operating water bag.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat? Salt flats don't have ecosystems? Where did that come from?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso, the final image in the slide show sums it up nicely: Pink corporate hands scooping it all up.
Lithium batteries have many uses, but the electric car is not one of them. Electric vehicles will be be charged with coal fired powered plants for decades to come, with worse implications for the environment than the IC engines in our cars. Automobiles are responsible for 12 - 14% of greenhouse gasses; stationary sources are the problem. Digital electronic engine management and catalytic converters in the newer cars are doing their job. See also - Ben Knight, "Better Mileage Now," SciAm, 50-55 (Feb 2010).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLithium batteries, have many uses, but electric cars are not one of them. For decades to come, the electric car will be a mostly coal powered car. Our current vehicles are responsible for only about 14% of greenhouse gasses. Digital engine management on newer cars, and catalytic converters are doing their job. Stationary sources like power plants are the issue.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@dwbt
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell people with wind Turbine-Alternator Devices - and sailing ships need the wind. But we all get it whether we want it or not !
Cost per tonne of CO2 avoided must assume some kind of termination/throw-away of the device. Nuclear stuff, as we aere all surely aware, cannot be thrown-away (unless you are Russian).
We need to remember that COST translates to CO2, and so if the cost per (tonne avoided) produces more than 1 tonne, then we are actually making matters worse by making the device. "Modern windfarms" are the perfect example of this i.e. how many tons of CO2 do you get from $1000-worth of oil ? probably a lot more than 1 tonne, but I haven't worked it out.
This does not have to be the case, it is simply that the design of the things is so out of touch with physical realities that the annual % of cost returned is about 1/40th that of a design which takes-account of these realities.
Catalytic converters burn CO to CO2. and no ammount of "digital engine management" can compensate for a driver who
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisa) couldn't care less
b) does not know the difference between a diesel and a petrol engine, save that they have to be filled from a different hose.
@rasbaboo
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTurning a salt-lake into an industry requires huge investment. Bolivia could no more think of trying to do this than you or I. All that can be done is to have a poll - a referendum - as to whether they want the industrialized world to come and get it. Also that way they will get a taster of what "industrialization" is about. Since everyone is sure to be, in truth, " gagging for it", it will probably require nuclear-power in the industrial world to achieve it without bending the atmosphere out of recognition from CO2.
It could be done, with wind and Sun, but not so soon. In principle, that is. But in practice 9 out of ten NPPs will provide energy for further environmental mayhem (e.g. "windfarms" to make the government look "Green" - to the plebs) - and war.
@dwbd
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGenerators have gears like hens have teeth, don't you know.
@jamesdavis
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisyou are sooo o rite. electric ion potential raincoats tooo !
No need for batteries with good old camel-hair socks, and electricity is all a bit pacceee anyway ! As you say - Read Sientific American. Such gems. Every day for free. If only one could burn email !
@iwsteritt
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell I think Ford may have a different take on that, since their electric Escort's motor is supplied by a 270-odd Kg Lithium battery. You can get only so far with an orange and a bit of copper and a bit of zinc. But maybe with genetically-improved Frogs legs things could look up ?
@billscott
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes, nicely put. This is the "Royal we", I take it ?
Since any kind of moving vehicles have been around there have been "serious health side-effects", The seriousness has increased as the square of the speed of these vehicles. I had never thought of this as "magnetic electrical energy" before. What a mind-expanding rag S.A. is !
Lithium, at least, is also used to control manic episodes in those affected with bipolar disorders.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPerhaps the salar is thus self-protected, should corporate officers intent on extraction tour the salt flats.
But then, Bolivia is now one of the few democracies on earth, while the US corporate oligarchy is most emphatically not. This means that perhaps Morales, his people, and their environment are mania-proof.
Lithium batteries are too valuable for US-types to use once and throw away, and the purpose of this technology is reuse.
Trust me, jt, dwyer, you do NOT want a cell phone.