This arid region of the American continent conceals in its subsoil 56% of the 89 million tons of lithium identified in the world, according to a 2022 report from the United States Geological Survey (USGS).
Nicknamed the “oil of the 21st century”, this white metal is essential for the manufacture of batteries for electric cars, supposed to save the planet from global warming, but also for mobile phones and other electronic devices.
Its price fell from 5,700 dollars per ton in November 2020 to 60,500 last September, according to the agency Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.
– Atacama Desert –
In Chile, lithium comes exclusively from the Atacama Desert, a brown and rocky plain in the north of the country. It represents 26% of global production in 2021, according to the USGS.
Two companies, the American Albemarle and the Chilean SQM have operating licenses, but, in return, they must donate up to 40% of their revenue to the State.
In the first half of the year alone, Chile’s tax revenues from lithium exceeded those from copper, a metal of which the country is the world’s largest producer.
Faced with such windfall, the left-wing president Gabriel Boric promised the creation of a public lithium company without excluding possible private participation.
But lithium mining is not without consequences for the environment and, although mining companies are forced to pay substantial compensation to local communities, the latter fear for their livelihoods in a region regularly hit by drought. .
The Chilean company SQM says that in 2022 it will draw nearly 400,000 liters of water per hour for the needs of its factory.
An inspection on its site in 2013 revealed that a third of the carob trees, a hardy tree due to its deep roots, had died due to lack of water, a study then revealed.
“We want to know exactly what is the real impact of pumping water from groundwater,” says Claudia Pérez, a resident of the San Pedro Valley, very close to the site, saying she is not “against” lithium, but wish that “the negative effects” of its exploitation for the local populations are “minimized”.
On the other side of the Andes mountain range in Argentina, a road winds through the salty deserts of the province of Jujuy. Together with those of the neighboring provinces of Salta and Catamarca, the region constitutes the second largest lithium deposit in the world.
With few restrictions on its exploitation and taxes of only 3%, Argentina is the world’s fourth largest producer of lithium.
Currently, two mines are operating in the area. One, Livent, is in the hands of the United States, while the other, Orocobre, is managed by an Australian and Japanese consortium with the participation of an Argentine public company.
– Dozens of projects –
There are also dozens of projects at different stages of maturation with the participation of local companies, but also American, Chinese, French and South Korean.
Argentina could overtake Chilean production by 2030, estimates a 2021 report by the Chilean Copper Commission (Cochilco), a public body.
The governor of the province of Jujuy, Gerardo Morales, even invited in April, via Twitter, the boss of Tesla Elon Musk to invest in the region when the latter complained about the high prices of lithium.
But local communities are also reluctant. In Salinas Grandes, a salt desert north of Salta, a sign warns the traveller: “No to lithium, yes to water and to life”.
“It is not, as they say, that they are going to save the planet. Rather, it is we who must give our lives to (it) save”, plague Veronica Chavez, president of the indigenous community Kolla Santuario de Tres Pozos , not far from Salinas Grandes.
“We don’t eat lithium or batteries. We drink water,” she said, interviewed by AFP in front of huge piles of salt collected by a local cooperative.
A few meters away, Barbara Quipildor, 47, prepares empanadas in a small building made of salt. “I want them to leave us alone, in peace. I don’t want lithium (…), what worries me is the future of my children’s children,” she said.
– Hôtel Lithium –
Some 300 km north of Jujuy, the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia is the largest in the world. It contains a quarter of the planet’s lithium resources, according to the USGS.
Similar in size to Qatar, this salt desert is in an area where more than half the population is poor.
Also eager to take advantage of the windfall of the coveted metal, the former left-wing president Evo Morales (2006-2019) nationalized hydrocarbons and lithium at the start of his mandate.
“Bolivia is going to set the price for the whole world,” he said in 2018, calling on the rest of the region to follow its example.
In Rio Grande, his words brought hope. This small village with muddy streets is the closest to the Yacimientos factory of Litio Bolivianos (YLB), the public company created by Evo Morales.
Full of optimism, Donny Ali built a hotel there which he called Lithium… But fortune did not follow.
“We were hoping for great industrial and technological development and, above all, better living conditions. That did not happen,” laments this 34-year-old lawyer, sitting on a sofa in his empty establishment.
Unlike Chile, Bolivia — but also Argentina — is struggling to fully exploit lithium due to “adverse investment” and “more challenging geographic” conditions, according to a 2021 report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies ( CSIS).
Some think Bolivia will “miss the lithium bandwagon. I don’t think so,” said Juan Carlos Zuleta, an economist who briefly ran the YLB plant in 2020.
Despite their differences, the countries of the “lithium triangle”, Argentina in the lead, are considering, after the exploitation of lithium, the manufacture of Li-ion batteries on site.
“All technologies have their advantages and their disadvantages. What is important is that there is a balance which benefits not only the country but also the local populations”, estimates in an interview with AFP Roberto Salvarezza, the he is one of the leaders of the Argentinian group YPF, which plans to launch a pilot plant for the manufacture of lithium batteries in December.
“South America has all the raw materials needed to produce batteries and electric vehicles,” says Zuleta.
In the meantime, the Lithium Hotel remains desperately empty.
