Earth Equity News

Lithium Flats of Bolivia. By Eitan Haddok, Scientific American, March 18, 2010. "'Gray gold' may be the key to a future filled with hybrid or electric vehicles. That's because lithium is the most important ingredient in the batteries that power these cars... Lithium is found in many places on the planet, but among all of them no deposit is richer than the vast salt flats of Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia, covering more than 10,000 square kilometers of the remote high plains... Peasant salt harvesters still predominate in this part of the so-called Lithium Triangle -- salt deserts perched atop the Andes at the junction of Argentina, Bolivia and Chile. The bulk of common table salt from the salar is still harvested by Aymara people, their faces sheathed by sheets or wooden masks to protect against the blinding sun, using hatchets or iron bars and often breaking through to the blue-green brine beneath the crust, rich in minerals ranging from boron to lithium... Although increasing demand has driven lithium prices from $350 to $3,000 per ton in the past five years, ultimately it will be the proliferation of electric cars that pushes consumption of the element to new heights."