LITHIUM-RICH SALT TO BE EXPLOITED BY CHINESE AND GERMAN...IN BOLIVIA. GOOD LUCK BOLIVIANS!!!

Reproduced from http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2986741/bolivias_coming_lithium_boom_economic_miracle_or_environmental_nightmare.html

Lithium is a key global resource for the global energy transition thanks to its role in the lightweight, efficient batteries that will power cars and balance power grids, writes Rafael Sagárnaga López. But the booming demand threatens to contaminate one of the world's great wonders, the Salar de Uyuni, 12,000 feet high in the Bolivia's Andes, which holds 70% of the world's lithium reserves.

Bolivia's Salar de Uyuni is not what it was. Located in the southwestern Potosí region, the once-immaculate 10,582 sq.km salt plain 3,656m high in the Andes - the second most popular tourist attraction in the country - has an unfamiliar hue.

[...]

The new complex of laboratories, pilot plants, prospecting wells and pools covering 27 sq.km of the southeastern part of the plain, situated 140 km from the town of Uyuni, represents the dreams of more than a generation of politicians - a national lithium industry.

"With the exploitation of lithium in a 400 sq km area, we'll have enough to maintain ourselves for a century", Bolivia's president Evo Morales boasted recently of the rare metal used in smart phone and electric car batteries. The government estimates that Bolivia stores around 70% of the world's lithium reserves, some 100 million metric tonnes. The US Geological Survey puts the figure at a more modest 9 million tonnes.

But the nascent industry, which Chinese and German technology companies will help develop, involves more unknowns than knowns - especially with regards to the environmental impacts of extracting the lithium element from its carbon compound.

Morales announced that his government will invest $995 million in the development of the lithium industry between now and 2019. It is the second largest state investment after the $1 billion funnelled into the gas sector six years ago.

Morales signed a contract with German company K-UTEC Ag Salt Techonologies to design a lithium carbonate pilot plant on 16th August and China's Linyi Dake Trade has already constructed an ion lithium battery pilot plant on the site, which was inaugurated in March 2014. On 13th July last year, another Chinese company, CAMC Engineering, signed a contract to build a potassium salt industrial plant.

[...]

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N.B. It is important to remember what happened recently in Brazil, as posted in this blog (http://ecologyintofocus.blogspot.com.br/search?q=VALE):

"VALE" + "BHP" = ENVIRONMENTAL TRAGEDY IN BRAZIL CAUSED BY THIS 'JOINT VENTURE'

Today, 17th November/2015, Brazilian media has informed that the mining enterprise will pay (initially) R$1 billion ("reais" = U$250 million) for damages they caused.

Brazilian experts estimate the costs as, at least, R$14 billion ("reais"= U$3.5 billion)

It is important to say that about 400  million metric ton of iron are still in Minas Gerais state to be mined.