Bolivia\u2019s Salar de Uyuni is not what it was. Located in the southwestern Potos\u00ed region, the once-immaculate 10,582 sq km salt plain \u2013 the second most popular tourist attraction in the country \u2013 has an unfamiliar hue.<\/p>\n
Previously, on travelling across the blinding white surface, one could expect to come across mirages, multi-coloured lakes and even flamingos or geysers. \u00a0This time there are no flashes of light or oases on the world\u2019s largest salt flat, just an inestimable number of artificial lakes, clunking machinery and workers. The new complex of laboratories, pilot plants, prospecting wells and pools covering 27 sq km of the southeastern part of the plain, situated 140km from the town of\u00a0Uyuni<\/a>,\u00a0represents the dreams of more than a generation of politicians \u2013 a national lithium industry.<\/p>\n \u201cWith the exploitation of lithium in a 400 sq km area, we\u2019ll have enough to maintain ourselves for a century,\u201d Bolivia\u2019s president Evo Morales boasted recently of the rare metal\u00a0used in smart phone and electric car batteries. The\u00a0government estimates<\/a>\u00a0that Bolivia stores around 70% of the world\u2019s lithium reserves, some 100 million metric tonnes. The\u00a0US Geological Survey<\/a>\u00a0puts the figure at a more modest\u00a09 million tonnes.<\/p>\n But the nascent industry, which Chinese and German technology companies will help develop, involves more unknowns than knowns \u2013 especially with regards to the environmental impacts of extracting the lithium element from its carbon\u00a0compound.<\/p>\n Morales announced that his government will invest US$ 995million in the development of the lithium industry between now and 2019. It is the second largest state investment after the US$ 1billion funnelled into the gas sector six years ago.\u00a0 Morales\u00a0signed a contract<\/a>\u00a0with German company\u00a0K-UTEC Ag Salt Techonologies<\/a>\u00a0to design a lithium carbonate pilot plant on August 16 and China\u2019s Linyi Dake Trade has already constructed an ion lithium battery pilot plant on the site, which was inaugurated in March 2014.\u00a0On July 13 this year, another Chinese company,\u00a0CAMC Engineering<\/a>, signed a contract to build a\u00a0potassium salt industrial plant<\/a>.<\/p>\n Development of the salt flats is gathering momentum and Luis Echaz\u00fa of the\u00a0National Evaporite Resources Authority<\/a>\u00a0(GNRE in Spanish) recently hinted that there would soon be \u201canother important announcement\u201d from Bolivia and its German partners. Bulletins from the\u00a0Ministry of Mining<\/a>\u00a0point to German and Chinese lobbying trips earlier this year, the formation of \u2018bi-national mining chambers\u2019 and dozens of visits by business delegations as evidence of progress.<\/p>\n Bolivia\u2019s relationship with China has become much closer in 2015. On July 3, the Chinese ambassador to Bolivia, Wu Yuanshan, advised that the number of companies from his homeland was multiplying and that his government exercised \u201cdirect and indirect\u201d controls over them. More than 35 Chinese enterprises have been attracted to Bolivia by infrastructure projects and natural resources like gas and iron.<\/p>\n According to GNRE\u2019s records, 86 delegations from 15 countries visited the lithium carbonate plant; 28 from Germany and 12 from China.<\/p>\n Lithium production means the Salar has ceased to be a confine exclusively for ecologists and tourists. Authorities are yet to advise on the changes that industrial exploitation will bring but heavy vehicles, toxic residues and major power lines will all be commonplace on the site when operations begin in 2018.<\/p>\n Research carried out by the\u00a0Center for the Study of Labour and Agrarian Development<\/a>\u00a0(CEDLA in Spanish) sparked concern over the anticipated environmental impacts of the Uyuni project. Citing declarations from Echaz\u00fa, CEDLA warned of the risk of widespread pollution, including the\u00a0calcination of soil which would put the Salar\u2019s flora and fauna at risk.<\/p>\n \u201cEchaz\u00fa told us that he was having nightmares about the use of lime-based\u00a0technologies,\u201d said Ricardo Calla, one of CEDLA\u2019s researchers, who added that they have already been used in the pilot plant. \u201cHe said they wouldn\u2019t create just a small hill but \u2018mountains of residual sludge\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n But Echaz\u00fa emphatically rejected the statements: \u201cI told CEDLA that there would be mountains of residue, but only if they used lime-based technology. We changed the process for economic and environmental reasons,\u201d he said, adding that they would use sulfate technology that used much less lime.<\/p>\n \u201cWith calcimine, we would have had\u00a0to use 10 tonnes of lime, with the new technology we\u2019ll only use 0.3 tonnes,\u201d Echaz\u00fa said. And how much \u2013 Di\u00e1logo Chino asked Echaz\u00fa \u2013 would this new process impact the environment? \u201cMinimally,\u201d he replied, adding; \u201csulfate is a fertilizer and what\u2019s more it\u2019s insoluble. We expect to sell some of these residues in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n Graciela Le\u00f3n, the boss of a nearby\u00a0plant at Llipi, agrees and estimates the maximum environmental impact of the process to be \u201calmost zero\u201d.<\/p>\n Calla is certain that there have been no studies on the environmental impacts of sulfate techniques and warns that experimental work is being carried out by\u00a0inexperienced personnel. None of the technicians are recognized as having postgraduate studies and the majority of them are in their twenties, Calla says. Calla also points to an earlier uncompleted study, carried out five years ago by the now-dissolved Salar Scientific Committee, which was compiled by post-doctoral researchers who concluded there was \u201cno scientific certainty\u201d about the consequences of industrial-scale production with sulfate technology.<\/p>\n China has produced lithium since the 1960s when geologists\u00a0discovered exceptionally high concentrations of lithium salts<\/a>\u00a0in the evaporated lakes of western Tibet. For years, the use of small amounts of lithium in anti-depressants and industrial greases meant the resource was not one of strategic importance.<\/p>\n But the use of lithium in its growing high-technology manufacturing sector led China to ramp up production \u2013 with little concern for the environmental ill-effects of using toxic solvents in the separation process.<\/p>\n In 2012, Japan lodged a complaint with the\u00a0World Trade Organization<\/a>\u00a0(WTO) claiming China had imposed\u00a0prohibitively high export tariffs<\/a>\u00a0on supplies of lithium and rare earths in order to suppress the development of its (and other countries\u2019) technology and nuclear industries. China responded that it had to restrict exports due to the environmental pressures of production.<\/p>\n The WTO ruled in favour of Japan and China increasingly looked overseas to guarantee supplies of lithium to maintain the productivity and competitiveness of its high-technology industries.<\/p>\n Bolivia\u2019s lithium project is advancing apace. \u201cThese mills are worth US$ 1.5million each,\u201d project spokesperson Ra\u00fal Mart\u00ednez tells the press; \u201cthese caterpillar vehicles cut horizontally through the salt crust. \u00a0They carve out the complex of pools whose interconnections will act as filters which will separate the lithium and potassium compounds with the help of solar evaporation. Around the periphery there are trephines that search for rich brine that will be blasted into the pools.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere are only 12 like this in the world,\u201d says Mart\u00ednez, describing the lithium carbonate factory where technicians proudly demonstrate how to extract the star product. Alongside the chemical engineers in the laboratory, a guide finally and triumphantly displays two batteries; \u201cthese have been made in Bolivia, we\u2019ve managed to get lithium carbonate which is 99.6% pure,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n In Bolivia, there are seven salt lakes have a combined 16,000 sq km filled with lithium, the world\u2019s lightest metal.\u00a0 Even aerospace infrastructure and the nuclear industry rely on lithium, Echaz\u00fa reminds us.<\/p>\n So are we already experiencing the Lithium boom?<\/p>\n \u201cNo,\u201d says Echaz\u00fa; \u201caccording to the studies, the lithium boom will begin around 2020. And Bolivia is entering at the right time. Consumption in the last five years has grown at around\u00a0five or six per cent.\u201d<\/p>\n Bolivia was dependent on gas exports 18 years ago but since 2000 consumption has outpaced the discovery of new reserves. Bolivia is betting on itself to move away from dependence on gas to become the \u201cSaudi Arabia of lithium\u201d \u2013 a somewhat portentous refrain that is being uttered ever more frequently.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Experimental technologies risk creating \u2018mountains of residual sludge\u2019 at iconic salt flat <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40000225,"featured_media":50026507,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[757],"tags":[18133,566],"hashtags":[],"country":[50002592],"class_list":["post-50003459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","tag-lithium","tag-mining","country-bolivia"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nChinese and German interest<\/h2>\n
\u201cMountains of sludge\u201d<\/h2>\n
From anti-depressants to vital resource<\/h2>\n
Preparing for a lithium-powered world<\/h2>\n