In Lithium Mines Beneath the Atacama Salt Flats, a Crisis Waits to Erupt 30/12/2020
Featured image: Salar de Atacama – the Atacama Salt Flat. Photo: Pixabay/TravelCoffeeBook
Lithium is one of Earth’s most widespread elements. The metal is found just about everywhere, even in small traces in drinking water. It’s a key element in the batteries that experts say could guide us to zero-emission electricity and transportation. That is, if it can be mined fast enough.
But in Chile, scientists are finding that the rapid rate of removal may be disrupting water availability in the surrounding desert. Beneath the Atacama Salt Flat, a Rhode Island-sized expanse of salts, a major source of lithium is locked in an underground reservoir. As mining projects there expand to meet skyrocketing demand, they have met resistance from Indigenous communities that surround the salt flat, and from regulators who are trying to understand a one-of-a-kind water cycle.