Let's Not Get Ahead of Ourselves

Erik Loomis points to this article in Tuesday's New York Times regarding Bolivia's lithium reserves and their location at the nation's famous Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt flats in the world. He expresses concern that the extraction of lithium would have a harmful impact on the region.

I think he's overstating the case. Here's how the lithium is extracted:

Technicians first need to get a brine, or water saturated with salt that is found deep beneath the salt desert, to the surface, where it is evaporated in pools to expose the lithium. Mr. Morales wants the plant finished by the end of this year.

This is similar to what people have been doing in the region for centuries:

On the flat salt desert of Uyuni, such debate seems remote to those still laboring as their ancestors did, scraping salt off the ground into the cone-shaped piles that line the horizon like some geometric mirage. The lithium found under the surface of this desert seems even more remote for these 21st-century salt gatherers.

It seems similar to how salt has been extracted from seawater for centuries and is still extracted. This is mining purley in the sense that it involves mineral extraction. No shafts are being dug, no mountains being stripped, no mountaintops being leveled.

I have been in a lithium mine near Araçuaí, Minas Gerais, Brazil, my father-in-law's hometown. This was a hole in the ground that we drove into in cars with hard hats, boots and ear plugs on. Drilling and blasting took place there. Three shifts work 24/7 in this mine. There is no comparison to this and the methods described in the article.

Erik also expresses concern about lithium extraction reaching a peak level as oil extraction. there's a difference and a major one, however: lithium batteries are recyclable. There is one company that does this and here's a description of their process:

Toxco’s lithium battery recycling facility is located on 11 acres adjacent to the Columbia River near picturesque Trail in southern British Columbia. With over 70,000 manufacturing square feet, Toxco Trail was the company’s first recycling facility. The facility inventories incoming lithium battery waste. The waste is then stored in earth covered concrete storage bunkers. Residual electrical energy is removed from larger, more reactive batteries. If necessary the batteries then begin Toxco’s patented cryogenic process and are cooled to -325°F. Lithium, although normally explosively reactive at room temperature, is rendered relatively inert at this temperature. The batteries are then safely sheared/shredded and the materials are separated. Metals from the batteries are collected and sold. The lithium components are separated and converted to lithium carbonate for resale. Hazardous electrolytes are neutralized to form stable compounds and residual plastic casings and miscellaneous components are recovered for appropriate recycling or scrapping. If the batteries contain cobalt this is also recovered for reuse. [my emphasis]

Sounds good to me. I usually agree with you Erik, but this time I think you need to look into this a little further.