Lithium has become white gold. It has become a strategic element due to its importance in the global energy transition. Among other things, and while we find alternatives, it is what allows us to create the batteries for electronic devices, but also critical systems for decarbonization such as electric car batteries and renewable energy storage. There is a problem: extracting it requires huge amounts of water.
Chile has one of the world’s largest lithium reserves, and its exploitation shows us the hidden cost of the energy that wants to “save” the planet.
Atacama. The Atacama desert, located in northern Chile, is very peculiar. This is the driest desert in the world, being 250 more arid than the Sahara. It is a gigantic dump due to the culture of fast fashion, but also has huge solar parks that are the country’s energy pride: 500 operational projects and another hundred under construction. In addition to sun, there are minerals such as copper -which China is accumulating at pleasure -, iron, gold and silver, but also other strategic ones such as the Boto or Lithium.
Within the region, the Salar de Atacama stands out. It is this area that has large lithium concentrations that have allowed Chile to become the largest global exporter of this element during the last two decades. It is so important that the Chilean regulatory regime gives the State property over lithium, considering it “non -concessionable” and restricting foreign exploitation only to special contracts.
Salar in 1995
In 2005
And today
Ecosystem transformation. In the superior images we can see how the Salar landscape has been transformed from 1990 to the present, with increasingly large lithium farms. And something that we can see with the naked eye is the amount of huge ‘swimming pools’. The process of obtaining lithium is based on the evaporation of brine, being something that consumes billions of liters every year that is extracted from both the surface and the subsoil.
In the Salar de Atacama, that is causing sinking, loss of vegetation and rich microscopic diversity, as well as the emblematic fauna of the place: flamenco. Faviola González, a biologist of the Chilean National Reserve, is one of those who denounces that the population of Flamencos has decreased in recent years. It is not just your observation. As we read in the BBC article, the Natural Resources Defense Council, based in the United States, published a report in 2022 in which it indicated that almost a third of the native Algarrobos began to die in 2013 due to the impact of mining.
Without brake. This transformation of the landscape has led to judicial demands, especially by indigenous communities that denounce the degradation of water resources and the loss of cultural identity of the desert. Because yes, Atacama’s is a desert, but with great biological wealth. The problem is the aforementioned importance of lithium for the country. Chile is within the so -called ‘Lithium Triangle’ with Bolivia and Argentina and, as the second largest world producer and possessor of the largest reserves on the planet, he has the power to dominate the supply chain.
It is an economic engine, with an estimated export value of 2,895 million in 2024, and its importance will go to more. The global lithium demand is expected to exceed 1.3 million tons in 2025, with the forecast to triple by 2040.
Measures to mitigate damage. And here comes the big question: if the lithium is needed to decarbonize the planet, but at the same time we are damaging the ecosystems in their obtaining, is there nothing we can make? Valentí Barrera, sub -manager Sustainability of SQM Lithiuum (the Chilean company that manages some of these farms) states that they understand the concerns of indigenous communities and are carrying out pilot programs to mitigate the impact of mining.
One is the extraction of lithium directly from the brine, without the need for evaporation pools. Another is the reinjection of water on earth once the lithium is obtained. The problem is that they are arguments that do not convince those who live from that land, who have seen the ecosystem disappear and those who claim that they do not have a significant carbon footprint and that the electric cars will go to the hands of the Europeans and Americans, but the contaminated water will be left.
Because at some point, lithium will run out and the miners will leave. Or the Price will fall so much that it will cease to be profitable to extract it to Mansalva.
Imagenes | Google Earth, General Coordination of Earth Observation/Inpe, Heretiq
In WorldOfSoftware | The Atacama desert is one of the most arid places on the planet. And right there a handful of “crazy” is trying to get water out of the fog
