El litio latinoamericano en la post-pandemia

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic represented a watershed in the dynamics of global socio- environmental change, consolidating the need to implement a new energy paradigm and electromobility as palliatives for the crisis unleashed by burning fossil fuels. Against this transforming scenario, extractive pressures on lithium reserves in the Global South increased. We hypothesize that the “Lithium Triangle” made up of the salt flats of Argentina, Bolivia and Chile, has given way to a “Latin American lithium-bearing quarry”. Furthermore, the Lithium Triangle also witnesses the unfolding tensions between the Asian block and the Atlantic world, visible centrally in the dispute between the United States and China. China monopolized various lithium reserves in Latin America. Likewise, this picture is completed with a commitment by some nations (Bolivia, Chile, and Mexico) to create national public lithium companies and grow locally in lithium technology. With increasing pressure on lithium resources, under the prevailing “evaporite” technique, it is difficult to achieve the UN sustainable development goals related to land and water use. Methodologically, the research combines research data collected over a decade on the lithium debate, bibliographic review, statistics, interviews with key informants, and participant observation.