“Environmental concerns

On a February trip to France, Morales said that lithium mined in Bolivia should not be sold cheaply to factories in other countries, and that batteries and cars made with the mineral should be produced in Bolivia itself. During the trip, Morales met with the French company Bollore to discuss plans for the creation of partially nationalized plants to produce LiIon batteries and LiIon-powered cars in Bolivia.

However, several factors put the Salar de Uyuni at a disadvantage to the current largest lithium producer, Chile’s Salar de Atacama. Bolivia’s lithium-rich brine is lower in quality than the Atacama, according to a May 2008 report by the Meridian International Research Consultancy, an independent research firm focused on renewable energy technology. “The total amount of lithium stored in the epi-centre is … comparable to the Atacama, but spread out over at least twice the surface area,” the report found. That means, the report said, “a much greater area of the Salar will have to be exploited for an equivalent lithium production.”

The thin layer of the deposit could make pumping from wells not feasible, and could lead to huge trenches or the destruction of large areas of the Salar.

Then there is the question of the purity of the Salar de Uyuni’s lithium. As Bolivian chemist Pedro Crespo Avizuri, who has studied the Salar and its minerals since the ’80s, notes, “Nature is crazier than fiction. And nature put a ton of magnesium in the Salar.” Uyuni’s magnesium to lithium ratio is three times as high as the Atacama, making it more difficult to refine the salt into lithium carbonate.

Finally, the evaporation rate in Uyuni is only 40 percent of that of the Atacama, which means refining will take more time. “In fact,” as the Meridian report concludes, “most of the lithium in the Salar de Uyuni will remain inaccessible or would take decades to extract.”

The high concentrations of magnesium and the lower evaporation rate mean the Bolivian government’s intention to produce one and a half times the Atacama’s current production is unlikely. Realistically, it will most likely take any Bolivian refinery until 2015 to reach even a sixth of that rate of production, and until 2020 (at least) to reach the government’s goal.
Learning from the past

For the last 500 years, mining has caused irreversible environmental damage to Bolivian land and communities. Mines continue to use chemicals—including cyanide—to refine ore, discharging hundreds of thousands of tons of toxic sludge into rivers every year.

In Uyuni, Quisbert tries to assuage concerns about the environmental ramifications of lithium exploitation. He says past fights in Bolivia against water exportation and the voracious water consumption of the San Cristobal mine, now Sumitomo, have been detrimental to local farmers. Given this experience, Quisbert is surprisingly cavalier about possible environmental ramifications.

“We understand that it wouldn’t bring much pollution,” he says, “because it’s a process of evaporation, but there’s always something left over.”

In general, official response to such environmental concerns is characterized by indifference. This is alarming to Elizabeth Lopez Canelas of the Bolivian Environmental Defense League (FOBOMADE).

“There’s no information, no water use studies,” Lopez Canelas says. “So how can they begin to project what the long-term effects might be? This is supposedly a project to improve the region, but what if it makes living impossible? How is that sustainable development?”

She says it has been difficult to address environmental concerns with the government and social organizations. Past struggles have created a public perception that it is the people’s right to benefit from natural resource extraction. In addition, Lopez says, it is difficult to criticize the populist rhetoric of the current administration without appearing to support the political opposition.

Official discourse calls the refinery a “closed circuit” system, which means, according to Castro, “We’ll throw materials that we don’t use back into the brine with a few less elements.”

A Report by the Bolivia Center Of Documentation And Information (CEDIB) states that salts precipitated in the evaporation pools “will be returned via brineduct to the Río Grande de Lípez” (emphasis added). However, according to Lopez Canelas, peasants currently use the slightly saline water of the river for irrigation, which could be jeopardized by adding more salt.

Other concerns include the effects of the refining structures and process on people, animals and the Salar itself. According to chemist Pedro Crespo Avizuri, “A key question is what to do with the mountains of magnesium we’ll make in the process.”

Though there are no plans for permanent constructions in the Salar, covering its surface with brine extraction facilities and evaporation ponds could irreversibly damage the surface of the salt flat and the Rio Grande delta, used by wild flamingos as an annual breeding ground.

What’s more, exposure to lithium for extended periods is potentially dangerous because of the highly corrosive base, lithium hydroxide (LiOH), formed when lithium reacts with water. Existing processing plants produce sulfur dioxide, which has been known to cause breathing difficulties, pulmonary edema and even death.

The Meridian report argues that extracting “enough lithium to meet even 10 percent of global automotive demand would cause irreversible and widespread [environmental] damage, and that LiIon propulsion is incompatible with the notion of the ‘Green Car.’ ”

The current lithium battery buzz also doesn’t address the fact that LiIon batteries can only store energy, and the question of where the great quantity of energy to power these electric cars and machines will come from remains.

Given these technical and environmental problems, hopeful Bolivians and electric car enthusiasts might want to reconsider whether a “lithium era” is really the best solution to poverty and the problems of petroleum. ”

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