La primera generación de coches eléctricos se moverá con baterías de iones de litio, pero a medio plazo las baterías de zinc-aire son mucho más prometedoras. Quizás el litio pase de largo y tanta palabrería se quede en nada.
Parece muy dudoso que en Bolivia, digan lo que digan sus candidatos, se vaya a crear una industria de automóviles eléctricos de la noche a la mañana, sin mercados ni tecnología. Todo parece un poco surrealista.
El coche eléctrico hoy va a necesitar el litio. Pero dentro de una década está por ver.
Mientras los fabricantes de coches se apresuran a encontrar una alternativa sostenible a los vehículos que funcionan con petróleo, Bolivia espera que sus reservas de litio puedan servir como fuente de energía, y sean la llave a una nueva fuente de riqueza.
La inversión que requerirá el Estado para la industria del litio en el salar de Uyuni será de alrededor de 800 millones de dólares. La cifra incluye todo el complejo industrial químico que se proyecta crear a su alrededor, además de la infraestructura necesaria.
La información la dio el director nacional de Recursos Evaporíticos de la Corporación Minera de Bolivia (Comibol), Saúl Villegas, durante su exposición en un evento organizado el jueves por la Cámara de Comercio e Industria Boliviano-Alemana (AHK). El complejo industrial, según las estimaciones del Gobierno, empezará a operar el 2015.
El litio es un metal blando utilizado para la fabricación de baterías de teléfonos móviles y cámaras fotográficas, entre otros. Ahora se trabaja en el desarrollo de baterías para vehículos eléctricos.
Villegas explicó que “la planta industrial del litio tendrá un coste que estará entre los 250 y 300 millones de dólares. Adjuntando el proyecto conglomerado de la industria química básica, la inversión sube a 520 millones, y con la infraestructura (caminos, gas y electricidad) llega aproximadamente a los 800 millones, de acuerdo con nuestra primera proyección”, detalló.
En el último año, el litio ha cobrado bastante importancia por el interés mundial de la industria automotriz que proyecta crear coches eléctricos. Este hecho ha despertado el interés en el litio boliviano por parte de empresas como Mitsubishi y Sumitomo (Japón), LG y Kores (Corea) y Bolloré (Francia).
Sin embargo, el Gobierno decidió que el Estado ejecutará solo la industrialización del litio, hasta la fabricación de carbonato de litio, y únicamente aceptará la participación de socios externos o privados para la segunda fase, que es la industria de baterías u otros productos, explicó Villegas.
Dijo que ya existen propuestas de entidades financieras para otorgar el financiamiento de 800 millones, y adelantó que el Gobierno, paralelamente a la construcción de la planta piloto, realiza una ingeniería financiera para optar por el préstamo más conveniente para el país.
La estatal coreana Korea Resources Corporation (Kores) firmó un memorándum de entendimiento con el Gobierno para formar parte del comité científico que estudia el proceso a seguir para la explotación y la industrialización del litio del salar de Uyuni, informó el ministro de Minería, Alberto Echazú.
“Representantes de Kores van a acreditar expertos científicos en nuestro comité científico, que tiene gente también de Mitsubishi y Sumitomo del Japón, para coadyuvar en las investigaciones para el diseño del proceso final de obtención de carbonato de litio”, manifestó.
El proceso será probado por el comité científico en laboratorios de Japón y en la planta piloto que estará concluida el próximo año. El director nacional de Recursos Evaporíticos de la Comibol, Saúl Villegas, aclaró que el valor de inversión de la planta ahora será de 8 millones de dólares. El ministro Echazú señaló que los ejecutivos de Kores llegaron al país para ratificar su intención de invertir en Bolivia.
También indicó que se firmó otra acta de entendimiento abriendo la posibilidad de un contrato de compra venta de minerales complejos entre la empresa KoreaZinc y la Federación Nacional de Cooperativas Mineras (Fencomin).
Morales acusó a Quiroga de haber copiado su plan para la industrialización del metal, un día después de que el líder opositor anunciara su candidatura a la Presidencia y su propósito de desarrollar la explotación de litio como parte de su programa electoral.
El gobernante boliviano criticó que "Tuto" Quiroga no hizo nada por el desarrollo del litio ni cuando fue presidente entre 2001 y 2002, ni como vicepresidente de Hugo Banzer (1997-2001).Además, Morales dijo que el plan emprendido por su Gobierno incluye la producción en Bolivia de baterías de litio y de automóviles eléctricos, en tanto que la de Quiroga sólo se queda en la primera fase.
"Si tuviéramos 1.500 millones de dólares de acá a cinco, siete o tal vez en diez años (…) produciríamos carros a litio. No estamos lejos de eso y cuando ‘Tuto’ plantea solo baterías de litio a mi me causa risa", dijo Morales en un discurso.
El mandatario se refirió al tema durante un acto en el que los campesinos de la región oriental de Santa Cruz (este) proclamaron su candidatura a la reelección presidencial.
El litio boliviano se encuentra en el Salar de Uyuni, que tiene una superficie de 10.000 kilómetros cuadrados, una profundidad de hasta 220 metros y está ubicado en la región andina de Potosí.
Inversores de Europa y Asia han puesto sus ojos en el potencial de Bolivia como productora de este metal para obtener la energía destinada a la fabricación en serie de vehículos eléctricos.
Por su lado, el ex presidente Quiroga desafió a Morales a un debate "tranquilo y civilizado" sobre las propuestas de cada uno para industrializar el litio.
"El presidente hoy ha salido a hablar de ese tema por primera vez, a raíz de la propuesta que hemos hecho anoche. Que diga cuándo vamos a debatir cómo se hace la industrialización, cómo se atrae la inversión, cómo se da la seguridad jurídica, cuál es su programa", replicó Quiroga en conferencia de prensa.
El ex mandatario sostuvo que el actual Ejecutivo "mal podría hablar de la industrialización del litio" porque en tres años y medio de gobierno no logró industrializar "ni una molécula de gas".
Según Quiroga, el Gobierno no podrá desarrollar esta industria porque la administración del presidente venezolano, Hugo Chávez, principal aliado de Morales, lo impedirá.
"Un país petrolero es enemigo de las baterías de litio (…) Automóvil con batería de litio boliviana requiere menos combustible venezolano. El señor Chávez saboteó el etanol, va a sabotear el litio y a este Gobierno no lo va a dejar avanzar", sostuvo.
Quiroga es uno de los doce políticos opositores que anunciaron su postulación a la presidencia de Bolivia para enfrentarse a Morales en los comicios generales de diciembre próximo.
El ex presidente lidera la principal alianza opositora de Bolivia, Poder Democrático y Social (Podemos, derecha), que durante esta legislatura ha controlado el Senado pero que se encuentra dividida por las discrepancias con algunos sectores autonomistas de Santa Cruz.
Según el calendario electoral, la fecha límite para la entrega de listas de candidatos vence el 7 de septiembre próximo.
El Gobierno de Bolivia anunció que la estatal surcoreana Kores se integrará al comité científico que investiga las posibilidades de explotación del litio del Salar de Uyuni, yacimiento situado al suroeste de Bolivia.
El ministro nacional de Minería, Luis Alberto Echazú, explicó que la decisión está incluida en una carta de intenciones que firmará en las próximas horas con el presidente de Kores, Kim Shin-Jong, quien es parte de una delegación surcoreana que arribó a Bolivia el jueves para identificar programas de cooperación bilateral.
El Estado boliviano construye en Uyuni una planta piloto para producir carbonato de litio en pequeñas cantidades, con el propósito de adquirir experiencia y luego iniciar una fase de industrialización del metal.
La empresa francesa Bolloré y las niponas Jog-mec, Sumitomo y Mitsubishi forman parte del comité que desarrolla la tecnología para explotar el litio de Uyuni.
Estas empresas, además de la surcoreana LG, han manifestado su interés en participar en el proyecto para explotar el litio del Salar, si bien el Gobierno de Evo Morales decidió emprender "en solitario" la primera fase del proyecto.
Actualmente, Kores invierte en la mina de cobre Corocoro, a 15 kilómetros de La Paz, que explotará a partes iguales con la estatal Corporación Minera de Bolivia (COMIBOL).
Corea del Sur no sólo está interesada en el litio y en el cobre, sino que también prevé ampliar sus inversiones en la explotación de zinc, explicó hoy el ministro Echazú.
En este marco, la delegación surcoreana que arribó al país se reunió hoy con el presidente Evo Morales y representantes del área minera estatal para intercambiar información sobre tecnología y proyectos que ambas naciones podrían emprender en forma conjunta.
El ministro de Minería explicó que la carta de intenciones que se firmará refleja "la intención de ambos de cooperar en la explotación e industrialización" de los recursos mineros bolivianos.
"La nación coreana ha asimilado nuestra política y es por ello que hemos llegado a acuerdos (con ese país) antes que con otras empresas. Esperamos que la experiencia de Corocoro pueda extenderse a otros campos", concluyó Echazú.
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Lithium development could cost Bolivia $800 mln
Developing the huge lithium deposits in Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni, which have attracted interest from French, Japanese and Korean companies, will cost 800 million dollars, an official said Saturday.
The soft, lightweight metal is considered "gray gold" in Bolivia, the poorest country in South America, as mining groups from across the world are pressing for permission to get at the lithium to produce batteries for electric or hybrid cars.
"The industrial lithium plant will cost between 250 and 300 million (dollars)," said Saul Villegas, director of the state-owned Mining Corporation of Bolivia (Comibol).
"When you add the construction of basic chemical industrial facilities, the figure become 520 million, and with the infrastructure needed for the project, the total is around 800 million."
The lithium deposits are expected to be developed in two stages, with the Bolivian state company handling the first stage and contracting out the second part to a foreign company.
Firms including Mitsubishi and Sumitomo of Japan, LG of Korea and Bollore of France, are reportedly interested in bidding on the contract.
Salar de Uyuni, a salt desert stretching across 11,000 square kilometers (4,200 square miles), is believed to hold at least half of the world’s lithium reserves.
Official Bolivian figures say the site high near the crest of the Andes mountains in the southern part of the country could hold 140 million tonnes of lithium.
The US Geological Survey has a much more conservative estimate, at 5.4 million tonnes, although that still amounts to about half the world’s reserves.
The Bolivian government is also setting up a pilot factory for lithium carbonate, which is used in medicine and manufacturing.
Electric car sparks lithium boom
Little-known lithium has emerged as the hottest commodity of the moment as investors look for a way to cash in on the anticipated flood of electric cars into the marketplace.
The lithium mania swept up a number of Bay Street institutions Thursday, which were buying anything for clients that happened to have the magic L-word in its name. By the end of the day, Canada Lithium Corp. was up 41 per cent, Western Lithium Corp. was up 28 per cent, and First Lithium Resources Inc. was up 67 per cent, all on massive volumes.
"I just think people are realizing there are going to be an awful lot of lithium batteries used in electric vehicles over the next while," said Jon Hykawy, an analyst at Byron Capital Markets. He said that if a couple of million electric cars are sold in the next five years, that alone would equate to about 10 per cent to 15 per cent of current lithium demand.
The market for lithium, a very light silver-white metal, has grown steadily over the past decade thanks to rising demand for batteries in consumer electronics such a mobile phones and laptop computers.
But it is the pending release of the Chevy Volt, the Nissan Leaf, and other electric vehicles that is getting investors most excited about the metal. Some auto companies are already speculating that pure-electric cars could make up 10 per cent of vehicle purchases by 2020, which could put major strain on lithium supplies if it happens.
"The real inflection point is that an automobile needs about 3,000 times as much lithium as a cellphone. This is where we’ve got a very large potential supply requirement," said Jay Chmelauskas, president of Western Lithium.
The fact that the electric car build-out is getting billions of dollars of subsidies and strong political support, particularly in the United States and China, only adds to the excitement for lithium. In the United States, the support comes as no surprise given the government controls General Motors. But China has also emerged as a leader in electrification. It is the world’s largest car market, and experts said that almost every company producing lithium-ion batteries for cars has a plant in China.
The lithium industry is small, with annual production of only about 120,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate. There are also very few ways for investors to get involved in the sector, as it is dominated by four companies: SQM SA of Chile, Rockwood Holdings Inc., FMC Corp., and Talison Minerals Pty Ltd., a private Australian company. "And then you’ve got a whack load of juniors that are doing anything from the sublime to the ridiculous to come up with lithium," Hykawy said.
He said that the price of lithium, which is not widely published, reached about $6,600 US a tonne this month. That compares with about $2,500 US a tonne at the beginning of the decade.
The biggest source of lithium is Chile, and Argentina and Australia are major producers as well. Bolivia is described by some as the Saudi Arabia of lithium, but experts said that a lot of the deposits there are contaminated with magnesium and are too costly to mine. Political risk has also kept many companies out.
Prosperity promise of Bolivia’s salt flats
As international carmakers scramble to find a suitable alternative to petrol vehicles, Bolivia hopes its lithium reserves could be harnessed to provide an energy source – and hold the key to new-found wealth and political influence. Peter Day has been to the Uyuni salt flats.
The sky is an infinite blue. The land is perfectly flat, and dazzlingly white, stretching to a line of distant volcanoes.
And here is the boss of a potentially huge project that Bolivia is pinning great hopes on, showing me his highly decorative chickens.
Twelve thousand feet (3,700m) up here in the high Andean plains of south western Bolivia, the subzero nights are bitingly cold, but the days are hot even in the middle of winter.
The unclouded sun is reflected upwards by the largest salt flats in the world, the Salar de Uyuni.
It is a spectacular desert. For decades now it has drawn young and hardy international backpackers to endure the dusty hours of jolting journeying by bus and train and 4×4 vehicles into a vast nowhere.
But now this arduous journey is being made by other people – engineers and businessmen from some of the world’s largest mining and chemical companies.
They are here every week. They are drawn to the salt flats by what lies metres below the ice-like crust of salt and mud.
Down there is a great reserve of brine, and contained in the salty liquid, the largest deposits in the world of the lightest metal, lithium.
For years lithium has been used for specialist purposes such as ceramics, and pills for depression.
But suddenly there is a huge new potential demand.
Great expectations
Over the past few years I have driven or been driven in several rechargeable electric cars.
Vehicle manufacturers old and new are rushing to build substitutes for the internal combustion engine.
Great hopes are being placed on batteries with this very light lithium at their core, much quicker to charge and discharge power (so they say) than heavy conventional batteries.
So if plug-in cars catch on, lithium may be one of the vital raw materials for the auto revolution.
And here in the Salar de Uyuni the experts think that the difficult and poverty-stricken country of Bolivia holds 50% of the world’s total supplies of lithium, contained in these vast hidden lakes of brine.
That is why Marcelo Castro, the man with the chickens (and rabbits too, he wants to be self-sufficient in this desolate place) is building a pilot plant to learn how to get the lithium out of these salt flats, and then how to evaporate the brine and separate the precious metal from the salt.
All this is raising great expectations in landlocked Bolivia.
To outsiders it is a very curious country, the second poorest state in South America after Guyana, a society riven by fault lines – great gaps between rich and poor, big geographical differences between the lush east and the towering Andes in the west, and sharp racial differences between successful former Europeans and a majority of indigenous peoples.
These last are the ones who voted the first indigenous president into office in 2006. Evo Morales has moved quickly to shift power in favour of the peoples he comes from.
State ambitions
He has nationalised the commanding heights of the economy including oil and natural gas. And he has moved to break up big land estates.
The president (with a kind of Beatles hairstyle) has also pronounced that the new windfall, raw material lithium, should not be exploited by predator overseas capitalist multinationals, but developed by the state for the benefit of Bolivia.
This brings great pride to a local campaigner I heard from in the town nearest the deposits.
Wearing her characteristic native hat, based on the British bowler imported more than 100 years ago, Domitila Machaca told me how the local people had marched hundreds of miles to the capital La Paz in the 1990s to block the foreign exploitation of the salt flats; and she grinned toothily when she praised the Morales tactics of homemade development of these riches.
Later, still slowed down by the altitude, I wheezed slightly breathlessly in La Paz as I put it to the mining minister Luis Echazu that Bolivia was taking a big risk if it really wants to be (as some have said) "the Saudi Arabia of lithium".
"Oh no," he replied, "we want to go further than that – we don’t want merely to process the metal, we want to make the batteries from it as well."
But that will take money and expertise, which Bolivia will have to import, and multinational companies are wary of socialist countries with big state ambitions.
Meanwhile, back at the salt flats, the plant construction manager Marcelo Castro gave me lunch – a vast egg sandwich made from one of the eggs from his chickens – delicious.
Despite the hardships, he was very proud, he said, to be taking part in this great Bolivian project.
If the world takes to the electric car, and if lithium really is the metal that will power it, and if the Bolivians can deliver, we may soon be hearing quite a lot more about the great Uyuni salt flats.
Electric cars spark lithium boom
Little-known lithium has emerged as the hottest commodity of the moment as investors look for a way to cash in on the anticipated flood of electric cars into the marketplace.
The lithium mania swept up a number of Bay Street institutions Thursday, which were buying anything for clients that happened to have the magic L-word in its name. By the end of the day, Canada Lithium Corp. was up 41 per cent, Western Lithium Corp. was up 28 per cent, and First Lithium Resources Inc. was up 67 per cent, all on massive volumes.
Over the past four weeks, Canada Lithium has gained more than 230 per cent; Western Lithium more than 90 per cent; and First Lithium more than 160 per cent.
Trading in the companies’ shares Friday was relatively flat.
"I just think people are realizing there are going to be an awful lot of lithium batteries used in electric vehicles over the next while," said Jon Hykawy, an analyst at Byron Capital Markets. He said that if a couple of million electric cars are sold in the next five years, that alone would equate to about 10 per cent to 15 per cent of current lithium demand.
The market for lithium, a very light silver-white metal, has grown steadily over the past decade thanks to rising demand for batteries in consumer electronics such a mobile phones and laptop computers.
But it is the pending release of the Chevy Volt, the Nissan Leaf, and other electric vehicles that is getting investors most excited about the metal.
Some auto companies are already speculating that pure-electric cars could make up 10 per cent of vehicle purchases by 2020, which could put major strain on lithium supplies if it happens.
"The real inflection point is that an automobile needs about 3,000 times as much lithium as a cellphone. This is where we’ve got a very large potential supply requirement," said Jay Chmelauskas, president of Western Lithium.
The fact that the electric car build-out is getting billions of dollars of subsidies and strong political support, particularly in the United States and China, only adds to the excitement for lithium. In the United States, the support comes as no surprise given the government controls General Motors. But China has also emerged as a leader in electrification. It is the world’s largest car market, and experts said that almost every company producing lithium-ion batteries for cars has a plant in China.
The lithium industry is small, with annual production of only about 120,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate. There are also very few ways for investors to get involved in the sector, as it is dominated by four companies: SQM SA of Chile, Rockwood Holdings Inc., FMC Corp., and Talison Minerals Pty Ltd., a private Australian company. "And then you’ve got a whack load of juniors that are doing anything from the sublime to the ridiculous to come up with lithium," Hykawy said.
He said that the price of lithium, which is not widely published, reached about US$6,600 a tonne this month. That compares with about $2,500 a tonne at the beginning of the decade.
The biggest source of lithium is Chile, and Argentina and Australia are major producers as well.
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Global Economy: The Geopolitics of Car Batteries
As global concerns about energy security and carbon emissions skyrocket, hybrid vehicles, which combine electric and gasoline power sources, are capturing greater market share and global attention. Incorporating a source of electricity into a car requires a battery — something for which several different raw materials can be used. Lithium is the most efficient raw material used in batteries, but the number of lithium deposits in the world is limited; most are found in South America. As the market for lithium grows, countries with large lithium deposits will become more important to the global economy. Countries with the technology to process lithium and manufacture batteries will also become more significant.
The current standard material for high-powered rechargeable batteries for hybrid vehicles is nickel metal hydride (NiMH). Australia has the world’s largest proven reserves of nickel, but Russia, Canada and Indonesia are the largest producers. With such wide distribution of easily accessed nickel deposits, an interruption in the supply or manufacturing of NiMH for batteries is relatively unlikely. NiMH batteries are quite expensive, but presently they are more cost-effective than the lithium-ion batteries being developed to replace them. For now, NiMH batteries will remain the standard (even the new 2010 Toyota Prius relies on NiMH batteries).
However, lithium-ion batteries will become the standard in the near future. Underpinning this shift is the simple fact that NiMH batteries are heavy and their energy per unit of mass is approximately half that of a lithium-ion battery. Though lithium batteries are effective, the industry has yet to develop a way to mass-produce them at the scale the automobile industry requires. As soon as the manufacturing technology becomes available, every car company in the world will be able to use lithium batteries. Carmakers are ready to shift to the lighter lithium batteries because they would boost vehicle performance.
The Making of a Lithium Battery
Lithium can be obtained in small quantities in the form of lithium chloride (LiCl) from just about anywhere in the world, but concentrated deposits — called salares — are found only in a few places. Salares result when pools of salt water, which contain LiCl, accumulate in basins that lack drainage outlets, allowing the water to gradually evaporate and leave dense layers of salt behind. Underneath the dried salt layer is a layer of brine — groundwater with a high concentration of LiCl in solution. It is this brine that is highly prized as a source of lithium.
For a lithium deposit to be commercially viable, it must have a large amount of lithium that is not contaminated with too much magnesium, and it must be in a location where natural evaporation will concentrate the watery solution where LiCl is normally found. Factors that contribute to increased evaporation include low air pressure found at high altitudes, low precipitation, frequent winds, high temperatures and exposure to solar radiation.
Thus, commercial lithium deposits are found along volcanic belts in the earth’s desert regions.
The process of harvesting LiCl exploits the same natural process that initially created the salt flat — evaporation. Brine is pumped from beneath the crust into shallow pools on the surface of the salt flat, where it is left to bake in the sun for about a year. During this period, the LiCl becomes more concentrated as the brine is reduced by solar radiation, heat and wind.
To be used in a lithium battery, however, the LiCl must first react with soda ash to precipitate lithium carbonate (Li2CO3), which can then be processed into metallic lithium for use in making a battery’s cathode. This usually takes place at off-site chemical processing plants, making it necessary to transport the lithium by tanker — something that becomes economically viable only after the lithium solution is sufficiently concentrated. Thus, the rate at which the water evaporates is quite important for economical harvesting of lithium, and it also influences the size (and therefore the environmental footprint) of the solar ponds required to achieve economic concentrations.
After the lithium is extracted, it must be processed for use in batteries, and only a few producers have the required capital and capacity to manufacture lithium batteries. Currently, most companies that can supply lithium-ion batteries for vehicles are joint ventures between auto manufacturers and technology firms. Of these, seven are based in Japan, two are in the United States, two are in Korea and one is in China. These few producers rely on even fewer suppliers for the components — primarily the anodes, cathodes, separator and electrolytic salt — of lithium-ion batteries. The most specialized step in the process is the production of the electrolytic salt used in lithium-ion batteries. That salt (lithium hexafluorophosphate) is produced only in Japan at two complexes, one in Okayama prefecture and the other in Osaka prefecture.
Lithium’s Geopolitical Power
An estimated 70 percent of the world’s LiCl deposits are found in South America. Chile is the world’s largest producer of LiCl — not only because Chile already has highly developed mining, transport and processing infrastructure, but because its climate and geography are favorable for the evaporation that is central to producing lithium.
The Salar de Atacama is located in the Atacama Desert, which receives almost no rainfall and has high winds, low humidity and relatively high average temperatures. Together, these features make the Salar de Atacama the second-driest place on earth, after Antarctica.
Argentina has the world’s third-largest estimated lithium reserves. Argentina’s Salar de Hombre Muerto’s average elevation is nearly twice that of Salar de Atacama, but what it gains in altitude it sacrifices in net evaporation. Though its evaporation rate is only about 72 percent of Atacama’s, Salar de Hombre Muerto is still commercially successful because costs are low and are further offset by the sale of recoverable byproducts like boric acid.
Bolivia produces no lithium, though it is sometimes called “the Saudi Arabia of lithium” because its still-untapped salares are thought to contain nearly 50 percent of the world’s estimated lithium reserves, most of which is found within the brines of the vaunted Salar de Uyuni. Attention to Bolivia’s reserves has increased strongly in recent years, with South Korea, Japan and France showing particularly strong interest (China is rumored to be interested as well). However, having a resource does not mean it can be brought to market at a reasonable cost.
Uyuni’s higher rainfall and cooler climate means that its evaporation rate is not even half that of Atacama’s. Achieving the necessary concentrations is further complicated because the lithium in the Uyuni brine is not very concentrated, and the deposits are spread across a vast area. Uyuni also has a high ratio of magnesium to lithium within the brine, which means the magnesium must be removed through an expensive chemical process. This is something Chile has handled with relative ease, but Uyuni’s deposits have three times the magnesium concentrations of Atacama’s, making investment in Bolivia’s deposits much less economical.
Bolivia also lacks established infrastructure, and any serious investments in Uyuni would require extensive spending upfront on infrastructure development. Combined with the highly unwelcoming investment climate in Bolivia, there is no guarantee that the country will be able to attract the massive investment necessary to develop its reserves, despite the rise of global interest in lithium. It will be difficult for the Bolivian government to achieve its goal of becoming a center of lithium processing. This is not to say that Bolivia could never be a major lithium producer, but in the short- to medium-term, Chile will continue to dominate global lithium markets.
Growing Market Share, Growing Importance
Because of the high level of specialization currently required in the lithium battery market and the limited number of sources for the materials, the growth and stability of the market depends heavily on a few manufacturers. In part, this is a result of the high levels of capital investment needed to develop and supply the batteries at scale. However, as car manufacturers begin to ramp up production of hybrid vehicles, the demand for lithium batteries will increase. Higher production will likely help reduce the cost of each individual battery, and opportunities for prospective manufacturers will increase.
The shift toward lithium-ion batteries will not be immediate, but lithium batteries will become more affordable as car manufacturers seek to increase vehicle performance while reducing gasoline consumption. This means that Japan’s technology centers and Chile’s lithium mines will become increasingly important to the global economy.
