Green-Energy Race Draws an American Underdog to Bolivia's Lithium
Chinese and Russian industrial giants seek to tap mineral deposits vital to electric cars. A Texas entrepreneur has his own strategy: the long game.
Evaporation ponds run by the state lithium company at a vast area of salt flats in Bolivia. An American entrepreneur says he has a better way to extract lithium there.
By Clifford Krauss Photographs by Meridith Kohut
Dec. 16, 2021
SALAR DE UYUNI, Bolivia — The mission was quixotic for a small Texas energy start-up: Beat out Chinese and Russian industrial giants in unlocking mineral riches that could one day power tens of millions of electric vehicles.
A team traveled from Austin to Bolivia in late August to meet with local and national leaders at a government lithium complex and convince them that the company, EnergyX, had a technology that would fulfill Bolivia’s potential to be a global green-energy power. On arriving, they found that the conference they had planned to attend was canceled and that security guards blocked the location. Still, the real attraction was in plain sight: a giant chalky sea of brine high in the Andes called the Salar de Uyuni, which is rich in lithium, among several minerals with growing value worldwide because they are needed in batteries used in electric cars and on the power grid.
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With a quarter of the world’s known lithium, this nation of 12 million people potentially finds itself among the newly anointed winners in the global hunt for the raw materials needed to move the world away from oil, natural gas and coal in the fight against climate change.
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Lithium is a basic component of lithium-ion batteries, enabling the flow of electrical currents. Because of the metal’s light weight, long life, large storage capacity and easy recharging, demand is expected to grow exponentially over the next decade to power an expanding fleet of vehicles produced by Tesla, Ford Motor, General Motors and other carmakers and spread power grid battery storage for renewable energy. This year alone, prices for lithium compounds are up over 200 percent on several global markets.
More:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/16/business/energy-environment/bolivia-lithium-electric-cars.html
Please take a moment scanning these amazing photographs of Bolivia's Salar de Uyuni, where they should post a sign telling visitors they absolutely should not goof off and take silly photos of themselves, because they are just not funny:
https://tinyurl.com/3wa5rfvs
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