Photos: Bolivia Seeks Electric Car Future in Salt Flats

Valuable Slush

Photograph from Idealink/Alamy

A Bolivian worker holds raw materials at the lithium extraction factory in the Salar de Uyuni.

Lithium, the lightest metal in the world, can be mined from rocks or extracted from water. The extraction method is used here; workers pump the mineral-rich water to the surface, then wait for it to evaporate. The brine leaves behind sodium, potassium, magnesium, and lithium, which is separated out and then sold.

The high concentrations of other elements make processing lithium here more costly than elsewhere, but the sheer quantity of lithium buried in Uyuni has made the area attractive to would-be investors like Japan, South Korea, and Iran. Japan and Iran have both signed "memoranda of understanding," committing resources and know-how to the country's project.

Also, the economist Zuleta said, the other elements, currently thought of as impurities to be disposed of, are also commercially valuable, so selling Uyuni's magnesium could offset the cost of purifying the lithium.

(Related: “Afghanistan’s Lithium Wealth Could Remain Elusive”)

Published December 10, 2010

Drilling Into a Mineral Cache

Photograph by Aizar Raldes, AFP/Getty Images

A worker drills to reach the lithium-rich brine during a ceremony in which Bolivian President Evo Morales received the first samples of the slush that sits below the Uyuni salt flats.

Morales, known for his fiery left-wing rhetoric, had originally argued that Bolivia should not just extract lithium but manufacture batteries and even electric cars domestically. But finding the money to develop those industries has proven impossible, so far, thanks to mutual distrust between Bolivia's government and the international corporations that might have capital to invest. Instead, Bolivia's state-run pilot plant was built with mostly Bolivian money, with some financial and technical assistance from Japan, which wants a reliable source of lithium to create the batteries for its auto industry.

"It's not going to work," the economist Zuleta said. "I have some doubts about the kind of technology they're going to use . . . it seems this technology is obsolete." Zuleta suggested that an extraction process using natural gas instead of solar energy could cut the time required to a few weeks, rather than 14-18 months. In Zuleta's view, finding a viable method for mining the lithium here is important not only for Bolivia, but for a world that is looking to electrify vehicle transport.

Published December 10, 2010

Keeping Wealth in Bolivian Hands

Photograph by Aizar Raldes, AFP/Getty Images

President Evo Morales, right, received the first samples of lithium carbonate from Alberto Echazu, manager of Bolivia's state-owned mining company, when work began at the state pilot plant.

Morales increasingly has sought a role on the world stage as voice for the developing world. "Either capitalism dies, or Mother Earth dies," he said on Thursday in a speech before the assembly at international climate negotiations in Cancun, where he called for sharp, mandatory cuts in greenhouse gas emissions in industrialized countries.

Before signing the memorandum of understanding with the Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation, leaders from Bolivia and Iran had been in talks about a possible deal. That "deal" was in reality a non-exclusive agreement in which Iran would provide technical expertise in exchange for a supply of the finished product. Analysts see the agreement as one of a series of efforts by Iran to build influence in Latin America as a counterweight to the United States.

Morales has been adamant that the majority of the profits from any deal remain in Bolivian hands, and has asked potential investors to show interest in building battery-manufacturing plants on Bolivian soil, not just carting away the raw materials.

Published December 10, 2010

Lightweight Energy Storage

Photograph by Mark Thiessen, National Geographic

A cross-section of the lithium battery reveals the energy storage advance that analysts believe makes electrification of vehicle transport possible. Lithium is valued as a material for batteries because it is so light: the General Motors EV1, a pioneering electric car manufactured in the 1990s, used traditional lead-acid batteries weighing a cumulative 3,086 pounds (1,400 kg), but the new Chevrolet Volt uses a lithium-ion battery pack weighing less than 400 pounds (181 kg). And the lighter the battery, the easier it is to power the vehicle—a virtuous cycle that automakers believe is key to affordable electric cars.

(Related: “Light is the Bright IDEA for Transport”)

Despite lithium's importance, the battery is just 1 percent lithium and 99 percent other materials. So even without Bolivia's reserves, electric car manufacturers will not need large volumes of lithium at first.

However, says economist Zuleta, "in order to have electric cars, you need them to be affordable to the masses. In order for that to happen you need Bolivia. If Bolivia is ignored in this lithium rush, then my impression is there will be electric cars in the world, but there won't be an electric car era."

(Related: “Cheap Renewable Power Key to BMW’s Electric Megacity”)

Published December 10, 2010

Building a New Industry

Photograph by Gaston Brito, Reuters

Looking like skyscrapers in a desolate desert, blocks of salt tower over the flats of Uyuni. Despite its remote location, the area is currently a tourist destination—with 60,000 visitors yearly. The government says that lithium mining should not affect the tourists or locals, but environmental groups say that the process could cause a major water shortage or contaminate the water that remains.

Infrastructure may also pose a problem: a report from The Democracy Center, an activist group based in San Francisco, California, and La Paz, Bolivia, said that "the region that Bolivia hopes to turn into the high-tech industrial equivalent of a mini-Detroit or Tokyo is a place where, today, visitors to the main hotel can only take a hot shower for six minutes, and that only during one designated hour per day."

Published December 10, 2010

Soaking in Changing Waters

Photograph by Martin Bernetti, AFP/Getty Images

Tourists bathe in hot springs near Agua Brava, in the salt flats of Uyuni. Other attractions in the area are giant cacti, geysers, volcanoes, and three species of flamingo.

If the salt flats were to be destroyed or degraded in the process of extracting lithium, local people would lose the tourism business for the lithium industry, a trade that some are not convinced is fair to the mostly indigenous Quechua who now live and work here. Yet others note that locals will likely benefit from additional roads, more reliable electricity, and other infrastructure that the government will have to build to exploit its lithium treasure.

Published December 10, 2010

Tears of a Giant

Photograph by Patricio Crooker, DPA/Corbis

An island, covered in giant cacti, protrudes from the Salar de Uyuni. Local legend says that the salt flat was formed when the tears of a giant mixed with the milk she was breast-feeding her son.

In reality, the Uyuni formed thousands of years ago, when the area was covered in a saltwater lake. When it dried, it left behind the mineral-rich brine that now forms the salt flat.

Published December 10, 2010

Salt Sentinels

Photograph by Gaston Brito, Reuters

Salt figures are lined up inside the salt hotel on Salar de Uyuni. Because other building materials are scarce, many hotels have been built entirely from salt blocks cut from the salar. There is even a "hostel de sal," or salt hostel, for budget-minded student travelers.

However, the revenue generated from tourism will likely pale compared to what could be generated from lithium extraction, and Bolivia knows it: government officials are calling their country "the Saudi Arabia of lithium."

Published December 10, 2010

A Fading Ritual

Photograph by Dado Galdieri, AP

A salt miner loads his truck in the Salar de Uyuni, a process that has been carried out for hundreds of years—the trucks simply replaced the llama trains.

Nearly all the economic activity in the region revolves around salt harvesting, quinoa production, llama herding, and tourism, according to the Democracy Center.

Published December 10, 2010