July 14th, 2009
Bolivia:lithium=Saudi:oil?
What’s a poor country with rich resources to do? There’s the Nigeria model: tribal hatred and long-running civil war. There’s the Saudi model: bribe your own people, hire aliens to do the dirty work and execute any dissenters. There’s the West Virginia model: give the mining companies free reign. Can Bolivia find a better way?
Bolivia may be the most-courted nation on earth if electric cars really do capture a significant part of the auto market globally. From the Chevy Volt to your laptop, the lithium-ion battery seems to be the next mass-demand product. And who’s sitting on most of the world’s lithium? Decades of being the poorest, oft-ignored Andean outback may soon end for lithium-rich Bolivia. Lithium is the lightest of elemental metals, but it has a heavy role to play in the future of electric transport technology.
POLITICAL REALITY
But right now Bolivia is not like Saudi Arabia nor Nigeria. The government is more aligned with Venezuela. The socialist president in Bolivia led the nationalization of oil and gas industry there in 2006. One of his campaing slogans: ending 500 years of plunder of Bolivia by outside powers.
So outside investment in Bolivia’s lithium rich salt brine deposits has not been easy to negotiate. There are companies with the engineering skills to bring the lithium desposits into production and onto the world market. None are Bolivian, and none of the ones talking with the Bolivian government are American. So it looks like American battery users will be buying theirs from overseas for a long time to come.
RECYCLE?
There are many programs already for recycling of lithium batteries. Metallic lithium is non-toxic but highly flammable. Some lithium compounds used in batteries are toxic. None of this insurmountable. Mercedes, for example, already has process for reclaiming materials in the batteries of their new hyrbids.
Loading ...
A newsman since 1969, Harry Fuller has worked for CBS, ABC, CNBC Europe, CNET and was founding news director at TechTV. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
Subscribe to GreenTech Pastures via Email alerts or RSS.
