Chile's Lithium Mining Triggers A New Wave of Environmental Wrestling

Lithium mining in Salar de Atacama has triggered a new wave of environmental wrestling as this lithium-rich place is highly fragile. A top environmental judge in Chile renewed a call for a government-vetted water study to help stamp out lingering questions about sustainability that have cast a pall over Chilean lithium-rich Salar de Atacama.

Water - both fresh and saline, where the lithium lies - has long been a sticking point for miners at the Atacama, one of the world’s richest reserves of the ultralight battery metal. The flat sits amid the world's driest desert. Mauricio Oviedo, president of the Environmental Tribunal of Antofagasta, a region home to the country's lithium production and much of its copper output, called the salt flat "highly fragile."

Mauricio Oviedo called on the government to conduct water research once again. It is nothing to conduct water research, but the reason why it attracts all parties' struggle and attention is all because of a kind of mineral-lithium. The Salar de Atacama is the rainiest place in the world. The 2305-meter-high desert in South America is the quietest place in the world. Nowadays, because of the rapid growth of electric vehicles Demand, and here is rich and high-quality, providing 27% of the world's lithium.

In fact, both American lithium ore manufacturer Albemarle and Chile's SQM both have mining locations in the Salar Basin of the Atacama Desert. However, the Chilean government wants to increase the production capacity of lithium while simply taking advantage of the location of production to make it in Chile. Lithium batteries broke the South American model of only supplying raw materials, and merged mining and production. SQM's behavior of extracting too much saltwater brought "extreme risks" to the ecological environment and saltwater reserves of the salt lake basin, which attracted protests from environmentalists, mining unions, and nearby indigenous people.

Chile is the only country in the world that completely privatizes water resources and related management. This year, with the participation of German auto Volkswagen VW and Daimler Daimler in the more sustainable lithium mining activities in Chile, the situation here has become lively. It seems that the rapid development of electric vehicles and the strong demand for lithium batteries have caused damage to the earth's environment for lithium mining. This is probably a matter of special attention to the development of electric vehicles.

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