International
‘We don’t eat lithium’: S. America longs for benefits of metal boon
| By AFP | Martín Silva |
The turquoise glimmer of open-air pools contrasts sharply with the dazzling white of salt flats in Latin America’s “lithium triangle,” where hope resides for a better life fueled by a metal bonanza.
A key component of batteries used in electric cars, demand has exploded for lithium — the “white gold” found in Chile, Argentina and Bolivia in quantities larger than anywhere else in the world.
And as the world seeks to move away from fossil fuels, lithium production — and prices — have skyrocketed, as have the expectations of communities near lithium plants, many of whom live in poverty.
But there are growing concerns about the impact on groundwater sources in regions already prone to extended droughts, with recent evidence of tree and flamingo die-offs.
And there are scant signs to date of benefits trickling down.
“We don’t eat lithium, nor batteries. We do drink water,” said Veronica Chavez, 48, president of the Santuario de Tres Pozos Indigenous community near the town of Salinas Grandes in Argentina’s lithium heartland.
A poster that meets visitors to Salinas Grandes reads: “No to lithium, yes to water and life.”
Lithium extraction requires millions of liters of water per plant per day.
Unlike in Australia — the world’s top lithium producer that extracts the metal from rock — in South America it is derived from salars, or salt flats, where saltwater containing the metal is brought from underground briny lakes to the surface to evaporate.
Soaring prices
About 56 percent of the world’s 89 million tons of identified lithium resources are found in the South American triangle, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS).
The world average price rose from $5,700 per ton in November 2020 to $60,500 in September this year.
Chile hosts the westernmost corner of the lithium triangle in its Atacama desert, which contributed 26 percent of global production in 2021, according to the USGS.
The country started lithium extraction in 1984 and has been a leader in the field partly because of low rainfall levels and high solar radiation that speeds up the evaporation process.
But Chilean law has made it difficult for companies to gain concessions from the government since the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet declared the metal a “strategic resource” for its potential use in nuclear bombs.
Only two companies have permits to exploit the metal — Chile’s SQM and American Albemarle, which pay up to 40 percent of their sales in tax.
In the first quarter of this year, lithium’s contribution to the public coffers surpassed those of Chile’s mainstay metal, copper, for the first time, according to government records.
Yet, the environmental costs are starting to stack up, and locals fear there is worse to come.
This year, a study in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B found a link between lithium mining and a decline in two flamingo species in the Salar de Atacama.
“The development of technologies to slow climate change has been identified as a global imperative. Nonetheless, such ‘green’ technologies can potentially have negative impacts on biodiversity,” said the study.
In 2013, an inspection at the SQM site — which reported using nearly 400,000 liters of water per hour in 2022 — found that a third of carob trees in the area had died.
A later study pointed to water scarcity as a possible cause.
“We want to know, for sure, what has been the real impact of the extraction of groundwater,” said Claudia Perez, 49, a resident of the nearby San Pedro river valley.
She was not against lithium, said Perez, provided there are measures to “minimize the negative impact on people.”
‘Leave us alone’
Across the Andes in Argentina, the salt lakes of Jujuy host the world’s second-largest lithium resources along with the neighboring provinces of Salta and Catamarca.
With few restrictions on extraction and a low tax of only 3.0 percent, Argentina has become the world’s fourth-biggest lithium producer from two mines.
With dozens of new projects in the works with the involvement of US, Chinese, French, South Korean and local companies, Argentina has said it hopes to exceed Chilean production by 2030.
But not everyone is sold on the idea.
“It is not, as they say, that they (lithium companies) are going to save the planet… Rather it is us who have to give our lives to save the planet,” said Chavez, of Santuario de Tres Pozos in Jujuy province.
A neighbor, 47-year-old street food seller Barbara Quipildor added fiercely: “I want them to leave us alone, in peace. I don’t want lithium… My concern is the future of my children’s children.”
Will locals benefit?
About 300 kilometers (190 miles) north of Jujuy, the salar of Uyuni in Bolivia holds more lithium than anywhere else — a quarter of global resources, according to the USGS.
Half of the residents in the region — which is also rich in silver and tin — live in poverty, household surveys show.
The country’s former leftist president Evo Morales nationalized hydrocarbons and other resources such as lithium towards the start of his 2006-2019 mandate and vowed Bolivia would set the metal’s global price.
In Rio Grande, a small town near the Yacimientos de Litio Bolivianos (YLB) lithium plant, Morales’ plans were met with excitement.
In 2014 Donny Ali, a lawyer now aged 34, opened a hotel with the expectation of an economic boom.
He called it Lithium.
“We were expecting major industrial technological development and more than anything, better living conditions,” he told AFP. “It didn’t happen.”
Hoping to boost the struggling lithium sector, the government opened it up to private hands in 2018, though domestic legislation has not yet denationalized the resource, and no private extraction has yet begun.
“Some think that Bolivia will ‘miss the boat’ of lithium,” said economist Juan Carlos Zuleta. “I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
The real question, he said, is: when the boat comes, “will lithium extraction benefit Bolivians?”
The three countries are now looking towards battery manufacturing — possibly even building electric cars — as a way to turn the natural lithium bounty into a modern-day industrial revolution.
“There is a concrete possibility for Latin America to become the next China,” said Zuleta.
In the meantime, the Hotel Lithium stands empty.
International
The Kremlin accuses the United States of throwing “firewood” by authorizing Ukraine to use long-range missiles
The Kremlin today accused the United States of “adding fuel to the fire” of the war in Ukraine by authorizing, according to the Western press, long-range missile attacks against Russian territory by Kiev.
“It is evident that the outgoing Administration in the United States intends to continue to add fuel to the fire and continue to cause an escalation of tension around this conflict,” said Dmitri Peskov, Kremlin spokesman, in his daily telephone press conference.
The spokesman stressed that if it is confirmed that the West has given the green light to Kiev, it will mean “qualitatively a new phase of tension and a new situation regarding the involvement of the United States.”
The authorized weapons are, specifically, guided supersonic missiles called ATACMS that can carry conventional or cluster heads and have a range of about 300 kilometers.
Biden authorized the use of missiles only in the Russian region of Kursk
US President Joe Biden has authorized Ukraine to use limited long-range missiles, for the moment, to defend its offensive positions in the Russian region of Kursk, where the Moscow army receives the help of thousands of soldiers from North Korea.
CNN and The New York Times report this unprecedented decision by the Biden administration, which will end its mandate on January 20, and which occurs when Moscow has deployed almost 50,000 troops in Kursk, the southern region of Russia where Kiev launched its surprise counteroffensive last summer.
The American network, which cites two officials from the country as sources, assures that the weapons are intended to be used, for the moment and mainly, in Kursk.
For its part, the newspaper highlights that Biden’s decision is an important change in American politics and has divided his advisors, since the measure occurs two months before his successor, the president-elect, Republican Donald J. Trump, takes office, after having promised that he will limit support for Ukraine.
Zelenski on missiles: “Those things are not announced”
Washington had refused to provide ATACMS to Ukraine during the first two years of the war, partly due to concerns about its manufacture, since the powerful missiles require time and complex components to produce them.
But Biden secretly approved the transfer of those missiles in February for use within Ukrainian territory. The United States delivered them in April, and has now allowed them to be used against Russian territory.
In his usual nightly voiceover, the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, spoke about the information that appeared in US media about the authorization of the White House.
“The plan to strengthen Ukraine is the ‘Victory Plan’ that I have presented to our partners. One of the key points is about the long-range capabilities of our Army. Today there has been a lot of talk in the media that we would have received permission for these actions. But attacks are not done with words. These things are not announced. The missiles speak for themselves and there is no doubt that they will,” Zelenski said.
International
The number of deaths rises to 111 in Gaza in one of the most violent days of the month
The Palestinians killed throughout Sunday in Gaza rose at the end of the day to 111, according to the local news agency Wafa, which makes yesterday’s one of the most violent days in the Strip in the last month.
According to the daily report sent by the Ministry of Health, the total number of deaths as of today amounts to 43,922 people and 103,898 the number of injured in 13 months of war.
This high number of deaths in the punished enclave is mainly due to the massacre with 72 dead committed by the Israeli Army when bombing several buildings in Beit Lahia, in the northern region of Gaza that has remained besieged for six weeks.
The Israeli offensive in the northern Strip
Beit Lahia has been the scene of two of the bombings with the most victims of the war in the last month, the result of the campaign of air raids and the ground incursion that the Israeli Army undertook there, as well as in Yabalia and Beit Hanoun, between October 5 and 6.
On October 29, another airstrike against a five-story building ended the lives of 93 Gazans, according to figures from the health authorities, although residents of the area said at the time that they had buried 103 corpses.
On the 20th, another bombing that according to the armed forces was “precision” killed another 73 people in Beit Lahia.
For more than six weeks, the Army has maintained a military siege in the north that has caused more than 2,000 fatalities, according to estimates by the Government of the Belt, and has drastically worsened the already deficient conditions in which its population lived, having limited access to humanitarian aid to the region to minimal levels.
In addition, the Army has besieged and attacked the three active hospitals in the north: Kamal Adwan, Al Awda and Indonesia, the latter having to cease its activity.
Israel attacks a “humanitarian zone” in southern Gaza
“We are without electricity, we only have four hours of generator operation and for three hours we use batteries, the rest of the day we have no electricity,” Mohammed Salha, acting director of Al Awda, denounced to EFE.
Salha warns that he has not received a shipment of fuel for 40 days that allows them to operate the generators to have electricity, since it is in the Kamal Adwan but has not managed to coordinate with the Army to allow the transfer of gasoline to Al Awda.
Last night, the Wafa agency collected a new bombing against Beit Lahia of which no victims have yet been reported.
In the south, an attack against the “humanitarian zone” where most of Gaza’s displaced people are (90% of the population at the moment) killed a couple and their two children, and seriously injured another daughter of the couple.
Israel established part of southwestern Gaza, along the coasts of Al Mawasi, Jan Yunis and Deir al Balah, as a “safe zone” for the almost 2 million displaced people because of its offensive, although it has been the subject of multiple attacks throughout the year.
International
More than 20 dead and a hundred injured in several missile attacks against residential areas of Odessa and Sumi
At least 11 people have died and 89 others were injured in the Ukrainian city of Sumi by the impact of a Russian missile against a residential building last night, local authorities reported on social networks.
The Ukrainian first lady, Olena Zelenska, has condemned the attack and explained that among the fatalities are two children.
“It is an attack not only against Ukrainians but against the very concept of humanity. And against all those who believe that the enemy can be stopped with concessions instead of by force,” Zelenska wrote on her social network account X.
According to Ukrainian emergency services, there are eleven minors among the injured.
Sumi is located next to the border with Russia and is regularly attacked by Kremlin forces.
At least 10 dead in another missile attack against Odessa
A few hours after the daylight attack on Sumi, at least 10 people died, including seven policemen and a health worker, in a Russian missile attack against a residential area of the city.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has condemned this attack against Odessa on his social networks.
“Russian terrorists hit with a ballistic missile against Odessa, against a residential area,” Zelenski wrote on his Telegram channel.
According to the Ukrainian president, the missile has fallen into a park and has caused damage to a residential building, a university and an administrative building.
Zelenski added that it is not “an accidental attack” and described the bombing as “exemplary.”
Zelenski: Russia is only interested in war
“After the calls and meetings with Putin, after all these words in the media about his supposed ‘renunciation’ of the attacks, Russia shows what it is really interested in: only in the war,” Zelenski said in reference to the calls that the US president-elect, Donald Trump, and the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, would have had in recent days with the Russian president.
Zelenski asked the leaders participating in Brazil at the G20 summit to “listen” to the message sent by Putin’s attack.
Monday’s attacks follow a day, Sunday, in which Russia launched 120 missiles and 90 drones against several regions of Ukraine.
This massive combined attack in which hypersonic missiles and other types were used was directed against Ukrainian electrical infrastructure.
The destruction caused has forced the authorities to reschedule power cuts throughout the country.
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