The White Gold Rush
The push for sustainable, green technologies has created an unprecedented gold rush for precious lithium resources across the globe…
I fell asleep in a lithium presentation and thought I'd woken up in an iron ore presentation. You say lithium and cobalt and I think iron ore and uranium. Best of luck to them but I'm more of a core metals guy. —Sean Russo (2018)
The push for sustainable, green technologies has created an unprecedented gold rush for precious lithium resources across the globe. In particular, South America has seen an increase in lithium mining, especially in areas where such mining is inherently problematic. The exploitation of lithium deposits is not created equal, meaning each lithium-rich region of South America exploits its lithium deposits differently from others. The working conditions, along with the environmental impact associated with such mining, offer a serious ethical concern, especially for consumers in First World nations, where lithium products are largely consumed. Thus, lithium mining has raised a serious concern: Green technologies aren’t as sustainable as many have argued. Instead, green technologies appear to have a tremendous environmental impact, along with rather insidious social impacts, all of which could (very well) rival the impact of fossil fuels.
Much of the raw lithium being exploited in South America is located in the Lithium Triangle (see the map below for details). Lithium itself is a tricky thing to mine. In fact, lithium requires certain conditions, conditions that are met in the Lithium Triangle in South America, covering areas within the countries of Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile, holding “54% of the world’s ‘lithium resources’.”[1] A 2017 article in The Economist sums up the importance of lithium in the twenty-first century: “Lithium is a coveted commodity. Lithium-ion batteries store energy that powers mobile phones, electric cars and electricity grids (when attached to wind turbines and photovoltaic cells).”[2] Thus, the very technologies that power the Information Age and the Age of Globalization are reliant on lithium batteries, storing electrical power and allowing for a hypermobile global economy to exist. Moreover, the very technologies used to usher in sustainability and ensure the reduction of carbon footprints across the globe, are dependent on a process that is taxing in terms of its human and environmental costs. In the same Economist article, Joe Lowry, an expert in lithium, suggests that by 2025 the demand for lithium will triple.[3]
Lithium is extracted using two very different methodologies. Both methods have their upsides and their environmental impacts. According to a 2019 article in The Conversation, lithium mining in Australia comes from actual rock deposits.[4] The second methodology of extracting lithium resources comes “by evaporating the thin layer of brine that covers salt pans. This is how it is done in the Chilean and Argentine deposits” of the Lithium Triangle.[5] Interestingly, lithium production in the Lithium Triangle has garnered some significant interest due to the amount of lithium resources available there. According to a 2013 Reuters article, authored by Ricky Rogers, “Chile is the world’s leading source of the metal, turning out around 40 percent of global supply, and Argentina is another significant producer. Output from the Andes may soon rise after Bolivia – the country that holds an estimated 50 percent of the world’s lithium reserves – opened its first lithium pilot plant in January.”[6] Some eight years later, the production of lithium has become more concentrated within the Lithium Triangle, presenting some very real problems for the region and for consumers, who believe they are making ethical decisions that are sustainable. Furthermore, much of the demand for lithium materials comes from our highly reliant society that needs longer-lasting and rechargeable batteries, among other things. The environmental impact of lithium extraction can be seen in the photos below. The scale on which lithium extraction takes place within the Lithium Triangle is mind-boggling, to be sure. It also shows that the promise of green technology is inherently problematic. So-called green technology is just as unsustainable as fossil fuels it hopes to make obsolete.
Catherine Early, writing for the BBC in 2020, offered the following environmental impact of hard rock lithium mining and the mining taking place within the Lithium Triangle in South America.
Hard rock mining – where the mineral is extracted from open pit mines and then roasted using fossil fuels – leaves scars in the landscape, requires a large amount of water and releases 15 tonnes of CO2 for every tonne of lithium, according to an analysis by the raw materials experts Minviro for the lithium and geothermal energy firm Vulcan Energy Resources. The other conventional option, extracting lithium from underground reservoirs, relies on even more water to extract the lithium – and it takes place in typically very water-scarce parts of the world, leading to indigenous communities questioning their sustainability.[7]
Todd C. Frankel and Peter Whoriskey, writing for The Washington Post in 2016, offer a dire picture of life for indigenous peoples within the Lithium Triangle. Despite the increase in mining, and attention to the Lithium Triangle’s lithium resources, indigenous peoples have not reaped the benefits of this _newfound_ gold rush in the region.[8] Instead, indigenous peoples struggle to obtain basic necessities, and, more importantly, they are growing concerned about the impact lithium extraction will have on watersheds that are already stressed.[9] Lithium production within the Lithium Triangle has created a situation where indigenous populations are paid almost nothing for the exploitation of their ancestral lands.[10] Further, the strained relations between indigenous peoples and those governments helping negotiate mining contracts could lead to serious problems in the future. Lithium, as valuable as it has become to the world economy, could be put in peril if relations between indigenous peoples and governments and those mining companies involved break down. The consequences of such a breakdown could be hard to fathom, sending the global economy into a tailspin.
The Lithium Triangle also suffers competition from Australian lithium mining interests. A 2020 article in _The Guardian_ by Max Opray highlights just how competitive Australians are when it comes to the mining of precious lithium resources. Australia is home to some 6.3 million tons of lithium, making it a serious competitor in the market.[11] The market competition could depress the going rate for lithium, hurting more cash-strapped countries within the Lithium Triangle.
Competition aside, Australia’s lithium resources present it, and even the Lithium Triangle, with a unique geopolitical bargaining chip, especially in a world where geopolitical actors are competing for lithium resources.[12] While these lithium resources offer great potential for bargaining, they also offer a problematic side, too. Looking at the Cold War between the Soviets and the United States, one can see where poorer countries, like Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile, could be pressured to keep mined lithium products cheaper. Although the United States has never publicly admitted it, its history in mineral-rich regions across the globe suggests it could take unilateral action to keep these resources flowing. The Americans aren’t the only ones who might be willing to keep the market open as well. The Chinese have some history of meddling in African countries mining precious raw materials needed to maintain the Chinese economy's momentum.[13]
While the dominant narrative concerning electric cars, and other forms of sustainable, green technology, have focused on being friendly to the environment, to people, and offering a sustainable alternative to fossil fuels, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, vehicles that are completely electric in nature are not exactly the sustainable technology we have been promised by manufacturers and politicians peddling lithium battery-powered vehicles. Instead, lithium batteries are inherently problematic from the get-go. They are environmentally impactful, producing a much larger carbon footprint than most consumers are aware of. Lithium batteries are not entirely recyclable, something researchers are struggling against in their quest to find effective methods of recycling lithium batteries.[14] Furthermore, lithium extraction presents very real social problems for indigenous peoples within the Lithium Triangle, who suffer from clean water pressures, extreme poverty, and indifference from mining and government interests involved in lithium extraction.
The lithium industry presents some serious ethical and sustainability problems. The dominant narrative is silent on the human, political, and environmental costs of lithium mining. Moreover, the very real lack of an effective recycling method makes lithium an environmental ticking time bomb, one that could have grave consequences for many ecologies across the globe. Ironically, the green technology narrative, maintaining its cravings for lithium, has created a very real problem for the world.
What happens when the regions within the Lithium Triangle are unable to sustain the water usage of the local lithium extraction practices? What happens to indigenous peoples in those areas? What is their Plan B when lithium-mining corporations have completely used up precious water resources? What happens to the Lithium Triangle, an area surrounded by impoverished and cash-strapped economies, if world powers deem lithium prices too high? What happens when we discover, and it is a very real possibility, that lithium batteries aren’t recyclable, at least at an economically viable rate?
I guess my final question, one that has weighed heavily on my mind as I wrote this article is the following: What happens when we discover our lithium addiction is no longer sustainable in terms of its cost in human misery and environmental degradation?
Bibliographic Notes/Further Reading.
1. The Economist. “The White Gold Rush: A Battle for Supremacy in the Lithium Triangle.” The Economist. June 2017. https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2017/06/15/a-battle-for-supremacy-in-the-lithium-triangle.
2. The Economist, 2017.
3. The Economist, 2017.
4. The Economist, 2017.
5. Beth Daley. “Bolivian Lithium: Why You Should Not Expect Any ‘White Gold Rush’ in the Wake of Morales Overthrow.” The Conversation. November 2019. https://theconversation.com/bolivian-lithium-why-you-should-not-expect-any-white-gold-rush-in-the-wake-of-morales-overthrow-127139.
6. Beth Daley, “Bolivian Lithium,” 2019.
7. Ricky Rogers. “The Lithium Triangle.” Photographers’ Blog. Reuters. Accessed 20 January 2021. http://blogs.reuters.com/photographers-blog/2013/04/05/the-lithium-triangle/.
8. Catherine Early. “The New 'Gold Rush' for Green Lithium.” Future Planet. BBC. Accessed 20 January 2021. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20201124-how-geothermal-lithium-could-revolutionise-green-energy.
9. Todd C. Frankel and Peter Whoriskey. “Tossed Aside in the ‘White Gold’ Rush: Indigenous People Are Left Poor as Tech World Takes Lithium from Under Their Feet.” The Washington Post. December 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/batteries/tossed-aside-in-the-lithium-rush/.
10. Todd C. Frankel and Peter Whoriskey, 2016.
11. Todd C. Frankel and Peter Whoriskey, 2016.
12. Max Opray. “How Australia's 'White Gold' Could Power the Global Electric Vehicle Revolution.” The Guardian. September 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/sep/10/how-australias-white-gold-could-power-the-global-electric-vehicle-revolution.
13. Opray, 2020.
14. Pádraig Carmody. The New Scramble for Africa. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2016. There is a new edition out, but I haven’t read it yet.
15. Amit Katwala. “The Spiralling Environmental Cost of Our Lithium Battery Addiction.” Wired (UK). August 2018. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/lithium-batteries-environment-impact.
16. Oliver Balch. “The Curse of 'White Oil': Electric Vehicles' Dirty Secret.” The Guardian, December 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/dec/08/the-curse-of-white-oil-electric-vehicles-dirty-secret-lithium.