Bolivia Is the Saudi Arabia of Lithium 291
tcd004 writes "You can literally scrape valuable lithium off the ground of many Bolivian salt flats. The country is poised to be the center of world lithium battery production, reaping the benefit of the metal's skyrocketing value. 'The US Geological Survey says 5.4 million tons of lithium could potentially be extracted in Bolivia, compared with 3 million in Chile, 1.1 million in China and just 410,000 in the United States. ... Ailing automakers in the United States are pinning their hopes on lithium. General Motors next year plans to roll out its Volt, a car using a lithium-ion battery along with a gas engine. Nissan, Ford and BMW, among other carmakers, have similar projects.' However, the government fears foreign countries might exploit their natural resources, so for the time being, the salt flats remain untouched."
Where Will the Money Go? Pollution Concerns? (Score:5, Interesting)
"The previous imperialist model of exploitation of our natural resources will never be repeated in Bolivia," said Saul Villegas, head of a division in Comibol that oversees lithium extraction. "Maybe there could be the possibility of foreigners accepted as minority partners, or better yet, as our clients."
Well, I'm glad somebody's thinking with their head.
I also hope that money goes towards improving their infrastructure and fostering internal business instead of some bullshit palace for some bullshit dictator. All too often third world countries squander their resources on some nationalistic project in their capital or some aggressive military campaign when they don't even have electricity, utilities, law enforcement or running water in half their country.
Neither articles seemed to mention much about pollution. I also hope that they move forward with the caution of the scars of pollution that mining has left on other countries--even Canada [google.com]. My coworker once commented at lunch (around the time of the Olympics) that we aren't exporting jobs or industry to China but rather just our pollution. Because it's cheaper to pollute there and the government doesn't care. Take precautions, Bolivia, develop standards now! Don't squander your resources!
Re:Can't Help but be Supportive (Score:5, Interesting)
What happens when it rains? (Score:2, Interesting)
I mean, if metallic lithium is just lying around on the ground, wouldn't that be pretty spectacular?
Re:Did not say recyclable, said renewable (Score:5, Interesting)
Fuel cells suck. Barring true nanotechnology (as in, molecular assembly) they will probably always be energy-intensive to produce. Batteries suck, too. In fact, everything is pretty lame if you have very high expectations. In the mean time, try only to realize that hybrid cars are total boondoggles which consume vastly more energy in production to give you less mileage for more money than just buying a car with a small turbo diesel engine; meanwhile diesel has more energy than gasoline, and takes less non-free energy to produce, especially if you talk about biofuels but even when talking about dino juice. We need full-electrics so we can centralize power generation, and we need batteries which are at least twice as good as what we have now (as in, twice as favorable a price:performance ratio) in order to make them feasible for the mass market. Fuel cells are also disadvantaged because liquid fuel is harder to transport than electricity. Their only real benefit today is refueling time.
Re:Can lithium really power all cars? (Score:1, Interesting)
There's a lot of concern from everyone about "peak oil".
Why is there not just as much of a concern about "peak lithium". If we really make a push to convert all cars to being electric, that's a ton of lithium required - and it's used in a lot of other applications too.
There is: peak oil, peak lithium, peak helium, peak copper, peak aluminum .... the list goes on. Every time you throw a way a piece of metal, toss away a battery thus ensuring it will end up in a landfill instead of recycling it you move us a little bit closer to that moment. The problem is not so much that we are running out of these substances as it is that sooner or later, not necessarily within our lifetimes, but sooner or ater we will run out of sources that are economically exploitable. There is already a strong business case for mining landfills for recyclable resources on a large scale. It has been even been suggested (not that I necessarily agree) that the reason we have found no signs of spacefaring alien races out there is because most advanced civilizations are doomed to collapse due to resource exhaustion before they reached the point where they became technologically, capable of truly large scale interstellar, or even interplanetary travel.
Re:Can't Help but be Supportive (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, Bolivia has other resources. Heck, I'm betting that one of the problems with opening up the salt flats for lithuim harvesting, is the cocaine industry there. I'm guessing they don't want the competition for US dollars?
Concern is not consumption but simple totality (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, lithium may be scarce, but you've got a deep misconception that may be coloring your view and comparison with oil. Oil is a fuel. Allowing it to burn produces energy. Lithium in car batteries is not a fuel. It's a storage device.
Yes I know (although I worded my original post very badly in that respect).
My concern is simply, is there enough lithium that every car could be powered by lithium batteries - that is, is the total amount of lithium sufficient to provide batteries for all the needs we intend to use it for, in a cost effective way.
It could well be there is enough raw lithium that is not a concern. But car batteries require a great deal more lithium than laptop batteries, and a lot more people drive cars than have laptops when you consider the entire world.
I hope bolivians manage to get their fair share (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Can't Help but be Supportive (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Can't Help but be Supportive (Score:5, Interesting)
Imagine what West Virginia would be like _without_ coal mining, however. Very pretty, I'm sure. But certainly far poorer.
Well, if WV coal deposits [wvgenweb.org] correlate at all with per capita income [wvdhhr.org], I'd say it's probably negative. The only real exception seems to be Kanawha County, but that's simply because Charleston is there.
You forgot step 9... (Score:3, Interesting)
9. saintly American companies that never do anything wrong PROFIT!!
Re:Can't Help but be Supportive (Score:3, Interesting)
When West Virginia runs out of coal it will be ugly and poor (there's a "your mom" joke in there somewhere...), just like other ecologically devastated places.
The lithium can't do them any good in the ground, and they can get some fairly well-understood value by taking it out. But it's impossible to value now what could potentially be lost by the processes that remove it -- we don't know what damage could occur or whether it will be possible to mitigate effectively. And, to be sure, any foreign company that gets mining rights will take most of the profits for themselves, and stick the locals with the true uncertain part of whatever problems come about because of it (if there is toxic pollution of some sort caused by the mining process, for example).
I can't view TFA because it's a fucking video (the Web = HTTP, where the HT stands for HYPER TEXT... I'm sick of having to watch videos and listen to sound clips on the Web because they not only take away the benefits of TEXT, ie, that I can control the temporal aspect, but also the benefits of HYPER, ie, that there's a natural way to cross-reference documents)... but if the Bolivian government is deliberating how to make sure its resources work for its people and not against them, or even how it can be sure to get the best price for them (perhaps by waiting until it's scarcer, even), good for them. An exchange of Bolivia's lithium, and Bolivian labor to extract it, for some part of global automakers' wealth, could benefit both parties eventually but it will take lots of diligence on the part of the Bolivians not to get screwed in the exchange. To make sure that they can turn it into a lasting benefit for their people and not just a hole in the ground.
Re:Can lithium really power all cars? (Score:4, Interesting)
Just ignoring that the energy needed to produce batteries is far less than the vehicles consume in their lifetime... are you saying that electric-powered freight trucks can't exist? That's big news! You better inform Balqon, Modec, Smith Electric Vehicles, and ElectroRides that their products are impossible.
And do we really have to *yet again* cover the "long tailpipe" argument? Why won't this zombie die?
Re:Can't Help but be Supportive (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, poorer and much emptier. BUT. Nowadays those resources are not as important to survival anymore. Nowadays, you can simply offer services over the Internet. Any service. You can live in the most remote pampas, and still make good money this way.
I always wished, this would happen to poor countries without anything else to sell. But then I learned that whole Africa is full of rich resources. But it hasn't helped them a bit, because there are other forces at work.
Re:Can't Help but be Supportive (Score:3, Interesting)
Usually having your source of materials close by gives you a competitive advantage in making something... just history talking that nonsense again. It is, however, perfectly possible for Bolivians to price themselves out of the market as it stands now, but in a decade or two their prices might seem quite reasonable. And depending on what the difference is, it may make sense for them to leave the Lithium where it is, collecting interest as an investment of sorts... but that's not what people who want to exploit both the resource and the current owners of that resource want to hear.
Maybe Bolivia can use this, maybe not. (Score:3, Interesting)
My view is that even the most impoverished of countries can greatly improve their well being with a couple of decades of competent government. There are simple things that government can provide to improve the lot of life and increase the value of economic activity in a country without requiring a great outlay of funds. For example, they could implement rule of law and limit the government's ability to subvert said law. Even an amoral, greedy multinational corporation should have rights. Second, public health is important, low-lying fruit. You can't magically eradicate disease, but a lot of countries, like Bolivia, have made no serious attempts at public health. Finally, there's education (both k-12 and college). It sounds like this Bolivian government is serious about that (with a greater expenditure of their GDP on education than the US had) so that's in their favor. And once these basic needs have been met, any competent government will have the revenue to build more sophisticated infrastructure.
My view is that Bolivia has made little serious effort on the first two things with potentially a good investment in education. So why should we expect them to be able to properly manage these lithium deposits well? My view is that the current salt deposits would probably go fast, if they were exploited by developed world technology (rather than by people with pick axes). It'd provide a nice short term windfall, but Bolivia is not prepared to receive that windfall. It will most likely be squandered unless there are serious changes in how the government does business.