Lithium Bonanza?
Tuesday, 10. February 2009, 15:16:31
When I was young I thought that if you had sand, you made a sand pit, if you had clay you made bricks, if you had gold you dug it out, if you had oil you pumped it up etc.
A quick glance at the following overview of lithium production from the U.S. Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries, January 2009 demonstrates that this is not always true.
High in the Andes, in a remote corner of Bolivia, in Salar de Uyuni, the world’s largest salt flat, lies more than half the world's reserves of lithium, but the output is zero.
Lithium salts are found in evaporites and salt lakes. Subsurface brines have become the dominant raw material for lithium carbonate production worldwide because of lower production costs as compared with the mining and processing costs for hard-rock ores. Two brine operations in Chile dominate the world market; a facility at a brine deposit in Argentina produces lithium carbonate and lithium chloride. A second brine operation is under development in Argentina.
The market for lithium compounds with the largest potential for growth is batteries, especially rechargeable batteries. Non-rechargeable lithium batteries are used in calculators, cameras, computers, electronic games, watches, and other devices. Demand for rechargeable lithium batteries continues to grow for use in cordless tools, portable computers, mobile telephones, and video cameras. Future generations of electric vehicles may use lithium batteries (so-called lithium-ion batteries). Mitsubishi, which plans to release its own electric car soon, estimates that the demand for lithium will outstrip supply in less than 10 years unless new sources are found.
Lithium is a limited resource and may one day be as important as to-days oil. Bolivia can become the Saudi Arabia of lithium, but for the time being it is waiting - hoping for even better times. At the same time geologists and economists are debating whether the lithium reserves outside of Bolivia are enough to meet the climbing global demand.
President Evo Morales is an ardent critic of the United States and has already nationalized Bolivia's oil and natural gas industries. For now his government talks of closely controlling the lithium itself and keeping foreigners at bay. The indigenous groups in the remote salt desert where the mineral lies are pushing for a share in the eventual bounty. Their grandparents lived on the salt. They arrived from the valleys in caravans of llamas, but the market forced them to leave. Now they want to return to live on the salar and to improve their living conditions.
I call it high stake gambling and hope for the Bolivian people that they do not become the losers in their president's gamble.
Rest to say that lithium plants produce sulphur dioxide which is a pollutant.
• http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7707847.stm
• http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/03/world/americas/03lithium.html?_r=1
• http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/02/02/america/lithium.4-421488.php
• http://seekingalpha.com/article/118098-lithium-bonanza-in-bolivia
In Danish:
• http://ing.dk/artikel/95515
Subscribe to olelog by Email
A quick glance at the following overview of lithium production from the U.S. Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries, January 2009 demonstrates that this is not always true.
High in the Andes, in a remote corner of Bolivia, in Salar de Uyuni, the world’s largest salt flat, lies more than half the world's reserves of lithium, but the output is zero.
Lithium salts are found in evaporites and salt lakes. Subsurface brines have become the dominant raw material for lithium carbonate production worldwide because of lower production costs as compared with the mining and processing costs for hard-rock ores. Two brine operations in Chile dominate the world market; a facility at a brine deposit in Argentina produces lithium carbonate and lithium chloride. A second brine operation is under development in Argentina.
The market for lithium compounds with the largest potential for growth is batteries, especially rechargeable batteries. Non-rechargeable lithium batteries are used in calculators, cameras, computers, electronic games, watches, and other devices. Demand for rechargeable lithium batteries continues to grow for use in cordless tools, portable computers, mobile telephones, and video cameras. Future generations of electric vehicles may use lithium batteries (so-called lithium-ion batteries). Mitsubishi, which plans to release its own electric car soon, estimates that the demand for lithium will outstrip supply in less than 10 years unless new sources are found.
Lithium is a limited resource and may one day be as important as to-days oil. Bolivia can become the Saudi Arabia of lithium, but for the time being it is waiting - hoping for even better times. At the same time geologists and economists are debating whether the lithium reserves outside of Bolivia are enough to meet the climbing global demand.
President Evo Morales is an ardent critic of the United States and has already nationalized Bolivia's oil and natural gas industries. For now his government talks of closely controlling the lithium itself and keeping foreigners at bay. The indigenous groups in the remote salt desert where the mineral lies are pushing for a share in the eventual bounty. Their grandparents lived on the salt. They arrived from the valleys in caravans of llamas, but the market forced them to leave. Now they want to return to live on the salar and to improve their living conditions.
I call it high stake gambling and hope for the Bolivian people that they do not become the losers in their president's gamble.
Rest to say that lithium plants produce sulphur dioxide which is a pollutant.
• http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7707847.stm
• http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/03/world/americas/03lithium.html?_r=1
• http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/02/02/america/lithium.4-421488.php
• http://seekingalpha.com/article/118098-lithium-bonanza-in-bolivia
In Danish:
• http://ing.dk/artikel/95515
Subscribe to olelog by Email
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