Can Bolivia become a green energy superpower?

GREEN ENERGY • Bolivia has vast reserves of lithium, seen as the green energy fuel of the future, which it wants to exploit on its own. But the lithium is locked underneath a 10,000 sq km salt flat.

By DAN COLLYNS / The Guardian

The Salar salt flat in Bolivia. Domestic opinion is divided about the exploitation of the country's lithium reserves. Photo © Dan Collyns®

Potosi, Bolivia .— Bolivia has more lithium than anywhere else in the world but its potential to fuel lithium-ion batteries for electric cars is in danger of failing.

The vast reserves of lithium dissolved in a briny lagoon underneath the crust of the world's highest salt lake have prompted all sorts of superlative comparisons – one of the most memorable is that the land-locked country will become the "Saudi Arabia of lithium".

It is not a description that goes down well with the socialist government of President Evo Morales. The nation's first indigenous leader has pledged that Bolivia will exploit the lithium reserves on its own, sustainably, and for the benefit of Bolivians.

But nearly four years after the start of a project to exploit the Salar salt flats' lithium reserves – estimated to exceed 100m tonnes – there is impatience about when Bolivians will start to benefit from its immense potential.

Lithium is seen as the green energy fuel of the future, powering iPods, mobile phones, laptops and electric cars, but Bolivia's reserves remain locked underneath a 10,000 sq km salt flat. While thousands of tourists are being welcomed to gaze at the dazzling white expanse fringed by mountains on the distant horizon, foreign investors are being forced to wait. More...

Source: THE GUARDIAN^®