11/23/2023 0 Comments Risen 1 prospectingMost mining companies aren’t waiting for the rollout of cleaner tech. In June, after a pilot scheme examining lithium recovery rates and water use, officials announced that six DLE companies, including Lilac, will be allowed to compete for lithium contracts there.īut amid the scramble for lithium, Argentine environmentalists say that a fairer future is far from secure. “He says that they’re not going to use as much water as other projects-that they have a new method that has never been tried before in Argentina.”īolivia’s leftist government, which controls the world’s largest lithium deposits but has feared the social and environmental impact of exploiting them, appears to see DLE as the solution. “He was very polite,” recalls Florentín Vasquez, a friendly 38-year-old in a floppy black sun hat, standing with his two brothers by a half-built adobe farmhouse in March 2022. Some local communities in these areas-the Argentine Puna, is home to some 50,000 people-say they are about to meet the same fate as those in Chile: seeing their resources taken and lands irrevocably altered to feed the markets of richer countries-neocolonialism dressed up as a green revolution.īut Stephen Promnitz, an Australian mining executive, told the Vasquezes he had a way to extract lithium while preserving their homeland. But with the global energy transition set to trigger a 40-fold increase in lithium demand between now and 2040, per the International Energy Agency, mining companies are competing to secure supplies in less developed locations, like Argentina and Bolivia, as well as Serbia and Mali. Most of it was sourced from well-established mines in Chile, Australia, and China. Argentina’s nascent boom reflects a rapid shift in the lithium market: a few years ago, lithium was a fairly niche product, used to make glass, ceramics, and lubricants. The country, which alone accounts for 21% of the world’s reserves, has just two mines in operation today, but 13 more are planned and dozens more are under consideration-the world’s largest lithium project pipeline. Argentina is now on the forefront of a global scramble for lithium.
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