Bolivia Is the Saudi Arabia of Lithium

tcd004 writes "You can literally scrape valuable lithium off the ground of many Bolivian salt flats. The country is poised to be the center of world lithium battery production, reaping the benefit of the metal's skyrocketing value. 'The US Geological Survey says 5.4 million tons of lithium could potentially be extracted in Bolivia, compared with 3 million in Chile, 1.1 million in China and just 410,000 in the United States. ... Ailing automakers in the United States are pinning their hopes on lithium. General Motors next year plans to roll out its Volt, a car using a lithium-ion battery along with a gas engine. Nissan, Ford and BMW, among other carmakers, have similar projects.' However, the government fears foreign countries might exploit their natural resources, so for the time being, the salt flats remain untouched."

Comments

Can't Help but be Supportive

[explosivejared]

I generally lean towards advocating market based solutions and free trade in most economic situations. Coming from rural southwestern Virginia, however, and seeing the grip the coal industry has on politics in some areas around here I know how people can really be disadvantaged by mismanagement of natural resources. I also think back to the damage done by the informal imperialism in the Middle-East at the hands of BP (formerly known as the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company) and their like. In this case I can't help but be supportive of Morales' efforts to put these lithium reserves to work for the Bolivian campesinos. Having mineral resources has proven to be a curse just as often as it has been a blessing in modern history. Here's to hoping one Latin American government can get it right.

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[eldavojohn]

Support is good. But maybe you should also be sending them a warning of what coal mining has done to your area?

If you're from Virginia, have you had a chance to witness any of the mountain top removal strip mining operations in West Virginia? There's an informative series on it at VBS.tv. Don't worry, they don't leave the non-fertile shale rock bare after they're done. They spray a grass seed in mutant green nitrogen fertilizer shit all over it so it can look unnatural for a year before transforming back into a Martian landscape.

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[explosivejared]

I am actually very aware of strip mining practices. My father actually works at one, funnily enough. It was a matter of economics and not ideals which is rather disheartening, but we had mountains of debt and there aren't exactly a lot of good paying jobs to go around. Moral of the story, take care of natural resources on lands so people aren't left with tough decisions of supporting a family or soul-crushing environmental destruction like my dad was.

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[ShieldW0lf]

Pass pass pass the buck, off to someone else...
I got paid, I don't give a shit, economics is hell...
We need food and we need heat, what are we to do...
Screw the farm, screw the axe, I'll take what I need from you...

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[eldavojohn]

My father actually works at one, funnily enough. It was a matter of economics and not ideals which is rather disheartening, but we had mountains of debt and there aren't exactly a lot of good paying jobs to go around.

I don't mean to attack you or your father (or even the region as a whole) but how self sustaining is strip mining? I mean, has a generation or two of jobs and income been worth something that will forever be exposed rock? It's plain to me that even the timber industry would have lasted longer.

I don't want to sound preachy a la The Giving Tree (I realize I do) but our ancestors saw those mountain top ecosystems as worthless ... and now maybe we see them differently. Bolivia should be wary of losing their salt flats and deserts even if they think they are wastelands. Limit strip mining and plan for the future, even if it's just setting aside funds to deal with inevitable environmental impacts. Even if it's using 10% of your strip mining income to plant/repair forests in other parts of your state.

The money is drying up for West Virginia and what is left? West Virginia has many areas where there once were trees and snow and water runoff but for the sake of a few decades of jobs there is nothing ow but heavy metals in their drinking water ... possibly nothing for a long time. The world has been making poor decisions for far too long, think about your future.

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[dkleinsc]

You'd almost think that US corporations had a long history of using the US government to bully or overthrow Latin American countries in order to improve their profit margins.

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[Anonymous Coward]

They should follow Norway's example. Norway had a nationalised oil industry where all of the profits went to the country and people, and thus they're rich and can retire early with big state pensions.

Britain, exploiting the same sea bed, didn't do that, and we're all poor with naff pensions ahead of us.

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[cayenne8]

"Bolivia should be wary of losing their salt flats and deserts even if they think they are wastelands. "

Well, Bolivia has other resources. Heck, I'm betting that one of the problems with opening up the salt flats for lithuim harvesting, is the cocaine industry there. I'm guessing they don't want the competition for US dollars?

:)

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

In this case I can't help but be supportive of Morales' efforts to....

! C...cuh....coah....COMMUNIST!!!

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[russotto]

Support is good. But maybe you should also be sending them a warning of what coal mining has done to your area?

Imagine what West Virginia would be like _without_ coal mining, however. Very pretty, I'm sure. But certainly far poorer.

Same goes for Bolivia. They want to preserve the natural beauty of their salt flats or stick it to the developed countries or whatever, they can do so. But that lithium will do them no good in the ground.

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[explosivejared]

Oh no I understand your argument. Resource extraction of any kind is never sustainable on a long enough time scale. Any country, region, etc. that builds its economy entirely on resource extraction is doomed to one day be overrun by poverty. The sad thing is the decision to sacrifice the long term health of the are has already been made here for the most part. That's why I'm on board with Morales. He's one leader that has learned from history, at least in this respect.

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[Anonymous Coward]

Resource extraction of any kind is never sustainable on a long enough time scale.

I'm not saying that WV or Bolivia could use the discussed areas for it but what about farming?

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[Rei]

Imagine what West Virginia would be like _without_ coal mining, however. Very pretty, I'm sure. But certainly far poorer.

Well, if WV coal deposits correlate at all with per capita income, I'd say it's probably negative. The only real exception seems to be Kanawha County, but that's simply because Charleston is there.

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[conspirator57]

What about making lithium batteries in Bolivia? Or making fair trade practices part of any extraction contracts.

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[explosivejared]

Have you been to West Virginia? It's dirt poor now. They have both poverty and environmental destruction. People want to act like there is a constant negative association between the two, when there is none. I wouldn't advocate a complete end to coal mining like some I know. Just from observation the whole practice could be a lot saner.

Morales has no intention of leaving the lithium on the ground. He has example after example of resource rich developing country gaining no benefit from allowing foreign firms come and extract said resources. That lithium is a Bolivian resource and Morales government has every right to negotiate the best price he can for the Bolivian people, and to keep the extraction process from causing negative externalities. Practicing sound economics does not mean giving into to corporate imperialism.

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[conspirator57]

correlation is not causation

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[conspirator57]

we've constrained ourselves to Latin America? that's news. i thought we had something to do with forcing Japan to trade with us in the mid 1800s by rolling a fleet into Tokyo Bay or helping the Brits hose Iran in the 1950s.

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as we have people who are willing to sell one of their kidneys for a few grand or take up smoking after decades of obvious great risk and no benefit we will have generations willing to destroy the land at the expense of their children.

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[Al Dimond]

When West Virginia runs out of coal it will be ugly and poor (there's a "your mom" joke in there somewhere...), just like other ecologically devastated places.

The lithium can't do them any good in the ground, and they can get some fairly well-understood value by taking it out. But it's impossible to value now what could potentially be lost by the processes that remove it -- we don't know what damage could occur or whether it will be possible to mitigate effectively. And, to be sure, any foreign company that gets mining rights will take most of the profits for themselves, and stick the locals with the true uncertain part of whatever problems come about because of it (if there is toxic pollution of some sort caused by the mining process, for example).

I can't view TFA because it's a fucking video (the Web = HTTP, where the HT stands for HYPER TEXT... I'm sick of having to watch videos and listen to sound clips on the Web because they not only take away the benefits of TEXT, ie, that I can control the temporal aspect, but also the benefits of HYPER, ie, that there's a natural way to cross-reference documents)... but if the Bolivian government is deliberating how to make sure its resources work for its people and not against them, or even how it can be sure to get the best price for them (perhaps by waiting until it's scarcer, even), good for them. An exchange of Bolivia's lithium, and Bolivian labor to extract it, for some part of global automakers' wealth, could benefit both parties eventually but it will take lots of diligence on the part of the Bolivians not to get screwed in the exchange. To make sure that they can turn it into a lasting benefit for their people and not just a hole in the ground.

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[conspirator57]

Who knows, maybe the Bolivian land owners will be savvy enough to throw the battery makers and car manufacturers over the barrel. That'd be nice and un-communist. One might even say libertarian-capitalist. But if they did, we'd probably just overthrow their government like we did Iran's in the 50s. For the same reason. Which is a Communist (or rather collectivist-fascist) action on our part. So sometimes Communism really is just a Redd Herring.

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[explosivejared]

Well, ideally the Bolivian government would negotiate the best price they could for selling off the lithium to foreign firms that hold a comparative advantage in producing batteries. If foreigners had to buy lithium batteries from Bolivia that were much higher priced due to Bolivia's high cost of producing batteries en masse would depress demand for the lithium in the first place, leaving Bolivia no better off. The best thing for Bolivia to do is to negotiate the best trade deal possible and take the gain from that deal and invest it in infrastructure and education making the Bolivian economy that much more sustainable.

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[Fred_A]

I'm not saying that WV or Bolivia could use the discussed areas for it but what about farming?

It has been considered too, but batteries don't grow on trees. That's precisely the problem.

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[moondawg14]

Strip-mining prevents forest fires.

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[Hurricane78]

Yes, poorer and much emptier. BUT. Nowadays those resources are not as important to survival anymore. Nowadays, you can simply offer services over the Internet. Any service. You can live in the most remote pampas, and still make good money this way.

I always wished, this would happen to poor countries without anything else to sell. But then I learned that whole Africa is full of rich resources. But it hasn't helped them a bit, because there are other forces at work.

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[Rei]

I didn't say it is. But it is evidence.

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[jhol13]

Sorry, but *lack of correlation* does prove there is no causation.

Or to be more accurate: if there is, it is so small that it is lost in noise. And this is all the GP said ...

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[conspirator57]

Usually having your source of materials close by gives you a competitive advantage in making something... just history talking that nonsense again. It is, however, perfectly possible for Bolivians to price themselves out of the market as it stands now, but in a decade or two their prices might seem quite reasonable. And depending on what the difference is, it may make sense for them to leave the Lithium where it is, collecting interest as an investment of sorts... but that's not what people who want to exploit both the resource and the current owners of that resource want to hear.

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[conspirator57]

but so too is there evidence linking piracy and global temperatures.

There are other industries in WV and SWVa. Forestry for example. However, there is also a cultural acceptance of the status quo there as normal, both externally (we expect it to be so) and internally (they buy into it too).

Other correlations might be drawn to WV's economic situation, like for example, taxation and business costs. Infrastructure's another one, but thanks to a mountain of cash brought back to WV by its congressional delegation *cough* Byrd *cough*, there are vastly overprovisioned Interstate highways versus the traffic in the state. Why has business lagged in expanding to WV if it's so attractive? There must be a reason other industries aren't flocking in to take advantage of the low labor costs in WV. And thus drive up wages somewhat through competition until they reach equilibrium with the surrounding states.

and oh, wait, here's a bit of evidence:
http://www.usnews.com/articles/business/small-business-entrepreneurs/2009/02/02/the-7-worst-states-to-start-a-business.html
and its primary source:
http://www.sbecouncil.org/uploads/sbsi%202008%5B1%5D1.pdf

The other 10 states below WV in the second resource rankings all have other factors buoying their economies. In the case of NY, NYCs dwindling preeminence in finance is being milked to keep their economy and standard of living better than their business cost environment would merit. WV hasn't got a NYC to milk.

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[EvilBudMan]

I don't know about Mingo County WV. I also live in Southwest Virginia and the rules are a little stricter here but mining is mining. We have both strip mining and underground mining are gonna cause damage.

One of the main problems with underground mining is that it destroys the water table in the local vicinity. The residents sue every year and every year they get paperwork that says the mines are not responsible for their bad water.

Before you put us down, guess who owns the mineral rights in coal country? Mostly people from up north that more or less waged a little civil war with the government on their side to take what they wanted by force if necessary. That was a long time ago, but these rights are perpetual.

Oh and the severance taxes that the state levies from them to make things better for us, guess where that goes? To build shit up in the Northern Virginia DC area because there is more people that vote up there than there are here.

But... saying all of that is giving the world a distorted picture of Appalachian Culture. And coal mines aren't everywhere because coal ain't.

Now, this is a pretty cool place to live if you can make any money at all the cost of living is low and there is plenty to do.

We have real nice parks pretty damn close to those mines. A mine is a mine. You wouldn't have half of the comforts that you have if it were not for someone doing this dirty work.

And at least here your description mine reclamation is complete bullshit. These days you would get put out of business completely if you did that. Of course there are areas like that from the 70's and before that that look like that.
Putting top soil back and almost everything else like it was is a requirement here in Virginia.

I have been to WV too. Some of it is nice as hell.

http://www.nps.gov/cuga/

http://www.breakspark.com/

http://www.kingdomcome.org/kcsp/

It ain't like this any more. Read the book too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0t9V227meio

http://openlibrary.org/b/OL2216184M/Bloody-Harlan

Also where I live, where the limestone is on the other side of the mountains where the coal is, there are probably more unexplored caves and undiscovered biology in those caves than anywhere in the US. Some you have to repel 50' just to enter them. There is also whitewater rafting. If your into four wheeling, those old abandoned strip jobs are fun for that. In Eastern Kentucky it is still legal to ride four wheeler during certain hours of the day and there are 3 or 4 for every household. They have everything you have and more except clean water. They have trash pickup. They have real good broadband.

I'm not sure what "grass seed in mutant green nitrogen fertilizer shit" is? It is called hydro seeding and some uses recycled newspaper. That stuff has a lot of different seeds besides grass in it. It's probably on just about every median in the US by now. Strip mining is just like building roads you know, except they don't get paved. They have to have their erosion and sediment output strictly enforced in VA. I think it's a federal thing now with the EPA.

What is grandfathered back that stuff doesn't apply to. There is an underground mine nearby that caught fire in the early 70's and is still slowly burning till this day. They buried it filled it in but a little smoke still comes off of the top of the mountain.

I wish I could say more but we are not all a bunch of dumb morons like Jed Clampett. Most of the stuff you depend upon to survive came from a mine somewhere. You don't treat people from Butte Montana like that. They have way more environmental problems than we do. Where did the copper in your PC come from or the steel in your car?

I just hope whomever goes down to Bolivia doesn't steal

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[dkleinsc]

No, we haven't constrained ourselves to Latin America, but we've done that sort of overthrowing and bullying to a majority of Latin American governments: Argentina, Cuba, Chile, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatamala, Haiti, Hondurus, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, and Venezuela (including very recently if you believe Hugo Chavez) have all at one point or another had military coups with US involvement.

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[mdielmann]

Practicing sound economics does not mean giving into to corporate imperialism.

But why not follow the rest of the developed world and fail on both counts?

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[drizek]

Yes, it is good that these countries have governments generally more stable and more populist than those of the Middle East and Africa. The model from Saudi Arabia is generally to be resistant enough to keep foreigners groveling at your feet, but not so closed as to reduce demand or invite an invasion(see: Iraq).

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[conspirator57]

and it's fun to note that all that was done by mangling an early doctrine aimed at keeping European governments out of the western hemisphere.

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[Anonymous Coward]

Some you have to repel 50' just to enter them

So, they use magnets?

If your into four wheeling

They have real good broadband.

I wish I could say more but we are not all a bunch of dumb morons like Jed Clampett.

Uh huh.

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[Rei]

but so too is there evidence linking piracy and global temperatures.

You and I are looking at different things here. You're looking for proof. I'm looking for evidence. You're not going to get proof. But you can find evidence. Evidence is something that logically suggests but doesn't prove a conclusion. There is no logical connection between piracy and global temperatures.

As for the rest of your post, I'm at a loss as to how that defends the stance that coal is making West Virginians wealthier than they would be otherwise.

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[russotto]

Morales has no intention of leaving the lithium on the ground.

That depends on whether he's a true believer socialist or an ordinary kleptocrat. In the latter case, he'll sell the lithium rights and enrich himself and his cronies in the process. In the former case, he'll effectively leave it on the ground.

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you know why Bolivia is still a 3rd world shithole? Because, years and years after they became independent nothing has been done. Those guys are completely useless, like most Southamerican countries.

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[Chris Burke]

Well, Bolivia has other resources. Heck, I'm betting that one of the problems with opening up the salt flats for lithuim harvesting, is the cocaine industry there. I'm guessing they don't want the competition for US dollars?

The cocaine industry is already pissed at the lithium industry, ever since they convinced GM to cancel their cocaine-powered vehicle, the Chevy White Horse, and their proposed cocaine-heroin hybrid, the Saturn Speedball (to be called the Belushi in the North American market), in favor of the Volt.

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[conspirator57]

Well, i thought it followed logically that in the absence of a major current industry people would either have a lower standard of living or have to move to another location, but hey, sometimes it takes a bit of prodding to see the obvious conclusion.

Shortly, WV's economy is as it is today. Coal mining is a large part of it, providing income from outside the state (however paltry compared to other industries in other states.) Removing that segment of the economy forces those workers into the unemployed labor pool, lowering the prevailing wage, or in the case of minimum wages, increasing the unemployment rate over the long term. You may argue that some magical *other* industry will step in to take advantage of these lower cost workers. The data regarding business climate in WV I presented above indicates that that possibility is less likely to occur, and certainly not in sufficient scale to absorb the available labor pool resulting from firing all those workers.

Further, I assert that were such a trend of new industry creating jobs in WV to be likely, we would see indications of it happening already because WV has both high unemployment and low wages already. Unfortunately, WV is very unfriendly to business and so few new businesses are starting and succeeding. So, with no jobs to replace those lost in the coal industry, yes, I feel very comfortable in my assertion that West Virginians will be worse off with the loss of the coal industry, and will be even worse off if that industry is removed precipitously.

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[Samy Merchi]

"it may make sense for them to leave the Lithium where it is, collecting interest as an investment of sorts"

What needs to also be remembered is that what is valuable today may not be valuable tomorrow.

Lithium may be valuable today for batteries, but what happens when a new battery technology is invented that is based on something other than lithium?

It would be smart to sell your lithium resources before that happens.

So just waiting and saving your natural resources may not always be the smartest move. Like stocks, you want to sell them at their peak value. Will lithium be more valuable or less valuable in the future? That is the question to ask here.

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[conspirator57]

mmm... FUD

yes, all investments have risk. there's no such thing as a sure thing. yadda yadda yadda.

Act now!

for only three payments of $99.95...

(I'm betting that easily recoverable resources of any stripe will continue to be valuable. We keep discovering more industrial uses for the materials around us, and the number of us people competing for use of those resources keeps increasing.)

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Recently Bolivia elected a left government and threw out the abusive elitist right government that had ruled for decades. What happened was the USA took their eyes off the ball in South America, and that small breathing space allowed a change of direction in many countries.

Did you know that there is a South American Union now? Perhaps you do. Most don't though.

But just before Bush left office, he got a bug up his ass and started bullying Bolivia around again. In October 2008 the US cut off Bolivia from a trade deal, because they wouldn't play ball with their stupid war on drugs.

Now they've got the lithium, and we need their lithium, look out for some kind of dumbass plot to get rid of the lefties in Bolivia.

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[smoker2]

Prick !

You obviously prefer short term wealth over long term survival. So ends the human race...

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[hviniciusg]

Well, I live in Bolivia and I can say that the salt flats are beautiful, but Evo Morales sucks, he is destroying this country, he have dedicated himself to destroy our region, destroyed the economy and made terrible mistakes whit several foreign governments, including the United States. Recently the government has killed supposed terrorist of Hungary nationality. There are proves that this supposed terrorist were tourist on our country and some of them where working here in IT jobs. Can u imagine a geek doing terrorist activities?
I support the idea of extracting this minerals and increasing the quality of life of the citizens of this forgotten land. It will generate a lot of jobs, that we are lacking right now, there are more benefits that drawbacks.

here are some pictures of the uyuni flats
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=salar+de+uyuni

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[hwyhobo]

Nowadays those resources are not as important to survival anymore. Nowadays, you can simply offer services over the Internet

You mean entire regions can survive on porn alone?

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[cayenne8]

"The cocaine industry is already pissed at the lithium industry, ever since they convinced GM to cancel their cocaine-powered vehicle, the Chevy White Horse, and their proposed cocaine-heroin hybrid, the Saturn Speedball (to be called the Belushi in the North American market), in favor of the Volt."

Well, to be honest, the best car for the coke industry was the Delorean.

All you had to do, was "snort start" it, and it would follow any white line down the road....

:)

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[Anonymous Coward]

African countries keep getting screwed because of the Dutch Economy factor.

Virginia has sort of the same problem (state government decides to support only one industry that is disproportionately profitable).

Bolivia will have the same problem if the money gained is not put into stimulating other economic endeavours to diversify the economy away from lithium mining.

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[jwhitener]

Imagine if West Virginia and all the other coal states got together and imposed strict environmental laws in mass before coal mining took off full force.

Coal prices would be higher, but higher for everyone, encouraging alternate energies, the land would be less polluted, drinking water safer, and the natural beauty preserved.

What I hope Bolivia does, is say "Come back to us when the cost of Lithium is worth extracting given xyz strict regulations".

Tearing their country up for a (relatively) quick cash influx is not worth it in the long run.

A slow, steady, safer influx of cash would prevent the boom/bust that most aggressive resource mining seems to cause.

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[ksheff]

Can't they encourage any local entrepreneurs to start a mining company? If they don't want foreign multinationals taking over or a government run enterprise wasting a lot of time and money, that seems to be what needs to be done if they want to develop this resource. The government would still get royalties, the profits from the lithium sales would stay in the country, and you wouldn't have a bunch of political yes men trying to run something they know nothing about.

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[justin12345]

Between the lithium and the cocaine, Bolivia may be poised to be the most energetic nation on the planet.

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[AHuxley]

Thats where movies like "Quantum of Solace" or "The International" made the topic so easy to understand.
If a resource rich developing country gets delusional about benefits, Moscow or Washington have 'words'.
If that fails, just swap out the leadership.
If slashdot readers want it in 1970's text try the
"National Security Study Memorandum 200 (NSSM 200) - April 1974" by the United States National Security Council under the direction of Henry Kissinger.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Study_Memorandum_200
http://www.population-security.org/28-APP2A.html#III
"Short of famine, unless some minimum of popular aspirations for material improvement can be satisfied, and unless the terms of access and exploitation persuade governments and peoples that this aspect of the international economic order has "something in it for them," concessions to foreign companies are likely to be expropriated or subjected to arbitrary intervention. Whether through government action, labor conflicts, sabotage, or civil disturbance, the smooth flow of needed materials will be jeopardized."

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[turbidostato]

"Well, ideally the Bolivian government would negotiate the best price they could for selling off the lithium to foreign firms that hold a comparative advantage in producing batteries"

What you propose seems akind to sell the goose so others get the golden eggs.

"If foreigners had to buy lithium batteries from Bolivia that were much higher priced due to Bolivia's high cost of producing batteries en masse would depress demand for the lithium in the first place, leaving Bolivia no better off."

Bullshit. If the header is right, Bolivia would hold a near-monopoly comparable to that of middle east regarding oil so it hardly suffers the pressure of other producers taking away its market so they *will* sell their batteries almost no matter how high the price as much as Arabia is selling its oil almost no matter how high the price.

And while it's true that Bolivia holding such a grip on the market would depress demand at least for a while, till they get to speed, that would be bad for everbody else *but* Bolivia which even if it sells just one battery will earn more than with current status -not selling anyone, that is.

Eventually, being the major worlwide provider it will be Bolivia itself the one with "a comparative advantage in producing batteries" so in the end they will get the cake and eat it too which would never happen if they sell off that market for an easy start.

It is not as if it were the first time that South America tries the strategy of giving raw materials to foreign third parties to manufacture and I don't think they are glad with the remembrances.

"The best thing for Bolivia to do is to negotiate the best trade deal possible and take the gain from that deal and invest it in infrastructure and education making the Bolivian economy that much more sustainable."

That seems to me awfully shortsighted. While it's true that it would mean an easier and better start for Bolivia, they have the obligation to think not for a ten years timespan but fifty or even a century. There's no way they can squeeze an overall better deal by subcontracting than holding themselves the whole vertical market.

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[turbidostato]

"Well, i thought it followed logically that in the absence of a major current industry people would either have a lower standard of living or have to move to another location, but hey, sometimes it takes a bit of prodding to see the obvious conclusion."

Because that's not the obvious conclusion. This is not a case of 'tertio excluso', so it is not "this or that". In the absence of a major current industry, people would get to move, lower their current standard... or find a different cash cow. New York doesn't have coal mines but they don't go so bad economycally wise.

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[Hurricane78]

Well, yo momma does! ^^

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[tsm_sf]

It's important that money goes to just a few people because otherwise it's socialism. This is the entirety of my argument.

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[Anonymous Coward]

"Morales has no intention of leaving the lithium on the ground. He has example after example of resource rich developing country gaining no benefit from allowing foreign firms come and extract said resources."

iow that Marxist is a complete dick. Us "developed" nations will simply work around him.

His route is going to be "right" but not reap any returns, so he might as well leave it in the ground.

Fact is, if Bolivia chooses the money for his country and the pseudo-sane route as you attest, that's fine--there is other battery tech around and other lithium resources. They'll be the Venezuela of lithium--hard to extract, putting their foreign alliances with the worst of the bunch, and still remain rather undeveloped, for the sake of sticking it the so-called developed nations.

Battery tech the last few years has been flying at a rapid pace, and that's looking aside from generating liquid fuels from other sources. I thought I was reading something in Technology Review or Scientific American this past month where metal hybrid battery tech was already beating lithium. Hell, by the time his country gears up fully, frakin galium and aluminum mixed with water would probably win out given the rate of PEM development--the main reason we don't see these are because of companies holding their patents too damn close, not licensing them, or making it difficult to even contact them (see BASF).

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[orasio]

Well, I get your point, but let's take everything into account here.
Bolivia can't just do whatever they want.
If powerful countries want their resources, they will get them, one way or another.
As an undeveloped country, they have to take what they can. Trying to leverage too much the natural resources might result in losing them by force.
In the end, countries only own the resources and the land they can defend. It would not be sensible to risk foreign intervention.
Nowadays, as an example, it would not be that hard for a foreign company (with its own government support) to get rid of Bolivia's president, accusing him of drug dealing or something like that, and put another guy in his place, more friendly with foreign companies.
So, while I share your view in theory, in practice I think countries like Bolivia just can't play hard ball.

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[adavies42]

Imagine what West Virginia would be like _without_ coal mining, however. Very pretty, I'm sure. But certainly far poorer.

probably much better off, actually. abundant natural resources are about the worst thing that can happen to a political entity--they almost invariably lead to corruption and government-sponsored concentration of wealth. the less free stuff you have sitting around in the ground, the more your people have to learn to actually create value themselves, which is where real prosperity always comes from.

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[Tenebrousedge]

Clearly the only proper course of action is to go to the source on this one: we should strip mine the sun!

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[hesaigo999ca]

I always thought it was weird how humans seemed to stay in the area of resource to be mined or cultivated...when they could easily live elsewhere. I am understanding the fact that culture and history plays a part in why they stay where they do, but if you are literally sitting on a coal mine, to get to it properly you would have to move...

I am not knowledged enough about extraction process for lithium, but I imagine, like coal, that some big company comes in buys out all the farms, and starts digging...then if after 10years they bleed the land dry, then you can buy your land back , in the mean time, you enjoy a sort of
capital from revenue each month/year/ based on your lands production.

The political situation usually comes from when people do not want to move, and the means to make them realize they have to move for the greater good turns ugly.

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[conspirator57]

and I was pointing out that that third option appears to be closed to WV in the broad sense.

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[Anonymous Coward]

But what do you sell them _for_ ?
Will $$ be more valuable or less valuable in the future?

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[elfprince13]

no kidding. Are you familiar with what happened in Tokelau?

Re:Can't Help but be Supportive

[ggarron]

Hi, Do not worry, We already know what mining can do, remember, we had the biggest silver mine in the world, and were one of three tin biggest providers in the world. But Morales is nof looking for any good thing for bolivian campesinos, he is just looking how to stay in the government, just like Castro did. He wants to stay there forever, campesinos are just being used to achieve that. that is just soooo sad. I am bolivian, living in Bolivia

Where Will the Money Go? Pollution Concerns?

[eldavojohn]

"The previous imperialist model of exploitation of our natural resources will never be repeated in Bolivia," said Saul Villegas, head of a division in Comibol that oversees lithium extraction. "Maybe there could be the possibility of foreigners accepted as minority partners, or better yet, as our clients."

Well, I'm glad somebody's thinking with their head.

I also hope that money goes towards improving their infrastructure and fostering internal business instead of some bullshit palace for some bullshit dictator. All too often third world countries squander their resources on some nationalistic project in their capital or some aggressive military campaign when they don't even have electricity, utilities, law enforcement or running water in half their country.

Neither articles seemed to mention much about pollution. I also hope that they move forward with the caution of the scars of pollution that mining has left on other countries--even Canada. My coworker once commented at lunch (around the time of the Olympics) that we aren't exporting jobs or industry to China but rather just our pollution. Because it's cheaper to pollute there and the government doesn't care. Take precautions, Bolivia, develop standards now! Don't squander your resources!

Can lithium really power all cars?

[SuperKendall]

There's a lot of concern from everyone about "peak oil".

Why is there not just as much of a concern about "peak lithium". If we really make a push to convert all cars to being electric, that's a ton of lithium required - and it's used in a lot of other applications too.

That's why solutions like hydrogen as truly alternative fuels make more sense to me that rushing to consume a metal which is truly a non-renewable resource, unlike even coal and oil (which are simply slow to produce but are produced over time).

Re:Can lithium really power all cars?

[Vancorps]

Lithium batteries are quite recyclable. While your concern is probably warranted I don't think it's near as big a deal as you think.

Re:Can lithium really power all cars?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because we aren't pushing to make all cars electric.

Re:Can lithium really power all cars?

[explosivejared]

If you'll notice, the article specifically mentioned that the Bolivian salt flats with these lithium deposits are projected to only be a sustainable source for a few decades. We are very aware of the scarcity of the resource.

As for promoting hydrogen, I've always understood fuel cells to be just simply to inefficient. Plus, batteries are recyclable, so I'm not sure how non-renewable of a resource you can consider them.

Re:Can lithium really power all cars?

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything is "peak" in the long run. Even the universe..

Re:Can lithium really power all cars?

[Animaether]

In addition, it's an element used here for battery tech. We already -have- existing battery technology, and they're coming up with new ones all the time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rechargeable_battery

That's not to say that we should squander Lithium resources any more than we should oil, thinking there'll be an alternative at hand anyway - but there's far fewer reasonable alternatives to oil (think about the uses beyond fuel) than there are to random-electric-battery-tech-X.

Re:Can lithium really power all cars?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oil is an energy source. Lithium isn't. We are still deluding ourselves if we think we can burn oil to mine lithium so we can drive electric cars (on roads built and maintained by oil-powered machinery) that get their electricity from burning coal in most cases. Lithium can be recycled, but only in an oil-powered economy where cars and trucks can haul the batteries to factories where enough energy exists to recycle them.

Re:Can lithium really power all cars?

[rackserverdeals]

If we really make a push to convert all cars to being electric, that's a ton of lithium required

And it is estimated that there are 5.4 million tons, so by your estimates, we could convert all the cars 5.4 million times over.

But maybe you're estimate is a bit off :)

Re:Can lithium really power all cars?

[iluvcapra]

Lithium can't power anything. A lithium battery is mostly a repository of power that you generated somewhere else. It's the same problem that we have with hydrogen. It's just a carrier medium; it's not like oil or coal, or Uranium, (or the Sun), which actually have intrinsic exploitable energy.

Re:Can lithium really power all cars?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a lot of concern from everyone about "peak oil".

Why is there not just as much of a concern about "peak lithium". If we really make a push to convert all cars to being electric, that's a ton of lithium required - and it's used in a lot of other applications too.

There is: peak oil, peak lithium, peak helium, peak copper, peak aluminum .... the list goes on. Every time you throw a way a piece of metal, toss away a battery thus ensuring it will end up in a landfill instead of recycling it you move us a little bit closer to that moment. The problem is not so much that we are running out of these substances as it is that sooner or later, not necessarily within our lifetimes, but sooner or ater we will run out of sources that are economically exploitable. There is already a strong business case for mining landfills for recyclable resources on a large scale. It has been even been suggested (not that I necessarily agree) that the reason we have found no signs of spacefaring alien races out there is because most advanced civilizations are doomed to collapse due to resource exhaustion before they reached the point where they became technologically, capable of truly large scale interstellar, or even interplanetary travel.

Re:Can lithium really power all cars?

[Colonel Korn]

There's a lot of concern from everyone about "peak oil".

Why is there not just as much of a concern about "peak lithium". If we really make a push to convert all cars to being electric, that's a ton of lithium required - and it's used in a lot of other applications too.

That's why solutions like hydrogen as truly alternative fuels make more sense to me that rushing to consume a metal which is truly a non-renewable resource, unlike even coal and oil (which are simply slow to produce but are produced over time).

Yes, lithium may be scarce, but you've got a deep misconception that may be coloring your view and comparison with oil. Oil is a fuel. Allowing it to burn produces energy. Lithium in car batteries is not a fuel. It's a storage device.

Comparing it to a gasoline system, you should think of it like the steel that makes up your gas tank. It stores energy, which must be produced elsewhere (like through burning oil or coal, for example). If we run out of oil, we need a new energy source. If we look to be running out of lithium, we can take worn out batteries and pull the lithium out of them to make new batteries.

Hydrogen, as you point out, is plentiful. However, it is also just another gas tank, not a fuel. Hydrogen is produced by cracking methane. Two years ago I interviewed with the company that does 90% of the hydrogen production in the world. They pointed out that per mile on the road, more CO2 is produced by hydrogen production than gasoline consumption.

Both hydrogen and lithium will be used as STORAGE for energy. Both can be reused basically unlimited times - managed well, we should never run out of either. Oil and coal, on the other hand, generate the power we can then store in lithium batteries or hydrogen, but that generation breaks the oil and coal permanently.

Re:Can lithium really power all cars?

[SuperKendall]

A lithium battery is mostly a repository of power that you generated somewhere else. It's the same problem that we have with hydrogen.

No it isn't.

If you need more hydrogen, it's easy to get from anywhere.

If you top out consuming lithium (in terms of simple production of batteries for cars), how do you get more lithium to build batteries with? Even if you don't exactly run out in making new batteries, the consumption of it in quantities needed to make car batteries will drive the price up substantially - while if we could figure out a good way to transport and extract hydrogen, it has a far greater potential to level costs.

Re:Can lithium really power all cars?

[Heddahenrik]

The thing is that power from the grid is about 4-10 times cheaper than power from a car diesel engine (which is more efficient than a gas engine). So if you see the battery and the power grid as one system, the battery is actually the bigger part of the power system, economically speaking.

With your logic a blade for a wind turbine doesn't produce any power either. It's sort of true, but as the blade is a part of a power system, you can also think of it as a producer of power.

Re:Can lithium really power all cars?

[vlm]

SuperKendall is trying to be funny, I think. Everyone knows hydrogen comes from turning huge amounts of electricity (or steam and coal, or cracked crude oil, etc) into small amounts of burnable hydrogen. Hydrogen storage is quite a bit less efficient than just storing the electricity in a (lithium?) battery.

No one consumes lithium except in some weird fusion/fission reactor designs. It's all out there, somewhere.

The sea is full of lithium. Of course it would be stupid to refine sea water if there is a much higher concentration in Bolivian salt. Therefore no one refines sea water to make lithium.

Re:Can lithium really power all cars?

[zippthorne]

No, hydrogen is worse. Like helium, if you release it, it's gone. You have to pray that it combines with something before it reaches the thermosphere, because after that it's solar wind city.

And, if that's not bad, when fossil sources run out, you have to crack it from the very compound you need the most.

Lithium is just an "ease of extracting" problem. It's the most common element in the earth's crust, so it's not that you can't find it literally everywhere, it's just that some of it is bound up in compounds that would be expensive to break apart.

Re:Can lithium really power all cars?

[iluvcapra]

Where are you going to 'get' hydrogen? Number 1 source presently is extraction from fossil fuels, a process that liberates carbon, I might add, and is less efficient than plain burning the fossil fuel. Number 2 method of electrolysis of water, which just turns electricity input into chemical potential energy as free hydrogen, minus losses. You can't mine hydorgen, and no one has a process wherein you put x amount of energy and get x+y in hydorgen potential energy back.

You understand the point I'm making, right? Lithium doesn't actually "have" energy, it's just a way of moving energy around. The comparison with Saudi Arabia is false because Saudi Arabia has mineral resources that actually manifest terawatts of potential energy. Lithium in the ground can't run a pocket calculator, and the amount of energy you spend processing it and turning into a battery and then CHARGING it will never be less than the amount of work the battery will perform.

Lithium may be an important strategic asset I suppose, like palladium or gold or Indium, but it isn't a power source.

Re:Can lithium really power all cars?

[cayenne8]

"Every time you throw a way a piece of metal, toss away a battery thus ensuring it will end up in a landfill instead of recycling it you move us a little bit closer to that moment."

People recycle batteries??

Re:Can lithium really power all cars?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lithium is recyclable, unlike energy resources. As we saw with copper up until recently, once the demand gets high enough, prices go up, and recovery of copper becomes increasingly efficient (so much so that *stealing* copper becomes a problem), and deposits that were too low in grade become economic. It would be the same for lithium.

Concern over lithium supply may be overblown for other reasons anyway.

Coal and oil are "produced over time" by geological processes at rates that are insignificant compared to the rates of consumption. At human time scales the generation of new coal and oil is therefore irrelevant. All the oil and gas that is out there at this instant is all that will matter in the next century (or millenium).

The threshold for economic recovery of energy supplies is also very different from recovery of metals. For metals, as long as the demand and price goes high enough we can continue to extract them from ever-lower concentrations (a good example of this are diamonds, which aren't intrinsically worth all that much, but are extracted at extremely high cost in money and energy because of high demand for them). For energy supplies, once the extraction process takes as much energy as the energy resource contains (or anywhere close to that), there's no point in bothering with it. Leave it in the ground and keep the energy you have -- you'll be better off.

In summary, you have the situation completely backwards in terms of the constraints or the economics of the situation. Energy will be a problem long before lithium will be. In fact, the substantial energy required for lithium extraction and processing is probably going to be a problem before the lithium supply is.

Re:Can lithium really power all cars?

[vadim_t]

Lithium isn't the only thing that batteries can be made from.

Electric cars need electricity, which can be stored in many forms. If there's not enough lithium perhaps we'll use NiMH batteries, or flywheels, or ultracapacitors, or superconductors, or...

And unlike with oil, lithium running out shouldn't be a huge problem. Existing car batteries won't stop working. All that will be needed is to figure out a new system for new cars, and a compatible way to replace worn out batteries.

Re:Can lithium really power all cars?

[phulegart]

Just a note.

Hydrogen does not equal Fuel Cell. Sure, you can use a Hydrogen fuel cell... but that is not the only way to use Hydrogen.

Did you know...
You can power a gasoline engine on straight hydrogen, if you advance the timing enough? Hydrogen gas fed into the cylinder... works wonders.
You get hydrogen by running a DC current through water. It is that simple. Drop a 9volt battery in a glass of water. Watch bubbles form at each terminal. One side, the bubbles are Oxygen. The other side, Hydrogen.
There are improved electrolysis techniques which are making the possibility of hydrogen production on-the-fly feasible. This means that it is not only conceivable, but attainable to have a personal transportation vehicle, with an internal combustion that used to run on gasoline, that now runs on water.

Yep.

Put water (or urine, or any H20 based liquid) into the gas tank, the water is converted on the fly to Oxygen and Hydrogen, the Oxygen is bled off into the atmosphere and the Hydrogen is burned as fuel. Not only would your exhaust be free Oxygen and water vapor, but you would CLEAN the air as you drove through it... because if the way that Hydrogen burns.

No Fuel Cell involved. Just thought you should know.

Re:Can lithium really power all cars?

[NeutronCowboy]

What do you think Oil is? The carbon bonds in oil store energy. The electric charges in Lithium ions store energy. Hydrogen is an energy store.

The only difference between oil, lithium and hydrogen is that with oil, we're taking advantage of millions of years of work done by mother nature. The energy stored in oil has already been produced elsewhere, and it will run out at some point. Just like lithium will. Hydrogen we really won't run out, but there are a host of problems associated with turning it into a fuel.

There is really only a single unlimited and (on a human-scale) permanent source of energy in the entire solar system: that burning disk in the sky. Everything else is just a battery storing energy in one form or another.

Re:Can lithium really power all cars?

[Ragzouken]

You heard of renewable energy?

Re:Can lithium really power all cars?

[Rei]

Just ignoring that the energy needed to produce batteries is far less than the vehicles consume in their lifetime... are you saying that electric-powered freight trucks can't exist? That's big news! You better inform Balqon, Modec, Smith Electric Vehicles, and ElectroRides that their products are impossible.

And do we really have to *yet again* cover the "long tailpipe" argument? Why won't this zombie die?

Re:Can lithium really power all cars?

[Rei]

Hydrogen is not the equivalent of lithium in the fuel cells to batteries comparison. Platinum is the equivalent to lithium in that comparison. And platinum is *incredibly* rare. And mining it, unlike lithium, involves vast quantities of tailings, often toxic.

If you want the battery equivalent of hydrogen on a fuel-cells-to-batteries comparison, you're looking for electrons. Or more precisely, where they're located.

Re:Can lithium really power all cars?

[bdcrazy]

I sometimes wonder when concentrations of specific elements will be higher in landfills than they are in "natural" deposits and we start mining landfills.

Re:Can lithium really power all cars?

[conspirator57]

Oil and coal are also STORAGE mediums for energy. It's just that *we* didn't expend time or effort or resources ourselves to put the energy in the storage. The energy in oil and coal is stored in chemical bonds that are stable, but with just a bit of added energy and the right conditions release far more than it cost to get them started. It could be about chemical potential energy or somesuch, but whatever. When all is said and done energy comes from two major places: the sun, and any matter we turn into energy through fission and eventually fusion. And in those cases, it's still coming from technically *STORED* energy. In the case of the sun, it will eventually (or so say some PhD mumbo jumbo dudes) run out of reaction mass and die. In the case of nuclear energy, we will eventually run out of either atoms on the earth or places to put the consumed ones we haven't developed a way of working with yet.

Re:Can lithium really power all cars?

[AnotherBlackHat]

If we really make a push to convert all cars to being electric, that's a ton of lithium required

And it is estimated that there are 5.4 million tons, so by your estimates, we could convert all the cars 5.4 million times over.
But maybe you're estimate is a bit off :)

I estimate 10 kWh of storage per car, 128 Wh per kilogram, and 500 million cars which works out to 39 billion kilos, or 43 million tons.

My estimates are probably a bit off too, but with only 5.4 million tons in Bolivia and 13.4 million tons world wide, I think we're still quite a bit short of the mark.

Re:Can lithium really power all cars?

[Cyberax]

Because there's A LOT of lithium. Nope THERE'S A LOT OF LITHIUM.

It can be mined _extremely_ cheap in Bolivia, literally for several dollars per 1 kg. And a car will probably need just 10-15 kg of lithium for the lifetime of its battery. Which then can be recycled. So, not many problems at all.

If you are prepared tp pay slightly higher price, say $30 per kg, then you'll have so many options, you'll have a hard time choosing which one to use.

Oh, and no-one performed geological surveys to specifically search for lithium ores (because lithium is needed only in small quantities).

Re:Can lithium really power all cars?

[Lonewolf666]

I suspect lithium-ion batteries will be only a temporary solution. Because there is some research that promises an even better technology, the Sodium-ion Battery. The original article is on nature materials and costs $ to view, but this blog has an overview:
http://entropyproduction.blogspot.com/2007/10/sodium-ion-batteries.html

So if the electric car industry takes off in a big way, there will be enough money in making batteries that this technology should see serious research. My bet is that Lithium-ion will be rather popular in the medium term, but in the long term there will be something even better.

Re:Can lithium really power all cars?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lead-acid vehicle batteries are recycled at a ~97% rate.

Linky!

Re:Can lithium really power all cars?

[Anonymous Coward]

I pray to god, any god, that you're joking. Otherwise, your SHOCKING ignorance of BASIC PHYSICS is truly frightening. You're in a waking COMA if you think the way you do. What's truly frightening is that many people think like you. You're in an oil-powered nirvana right now. You're sleepwalking through life. See how much lithium you can mine when the barrel of oil goes back to 146$.

Re:Can lithium really power all cars?

[lm317t]

Just a note.

Hydrogen does not equal Fuel Cell. Sure, you can use a Hydrogen fuel cell... but that is not the only way to use Hydrogen.

Did you know...
You can power a gasoline engine on straight hydrogen, if you advance the timing enough? Hydrogen gas fed into the cylinder... works wonders.
You get hydrogen by running a DC current through water. It is that simple. Drop a 9volt battery in a glass of water. Watch bubbles form at each terminal. One side, the bubbles are Oxygen. The other side, Hydrogen.
There are improved electrolysis techniques which are making the possibility of hydrogen production on-the-fly feasible. This means that it is not only conceivable, but attainable to have a personal transportation vehicle, with an internal combustion that used to run on gasoline, that now runs on water.

Did you know it requires more energy to convert water to hydrogen than you get out of the hydrogen it produces? I know thats a smartass question and you knew this already and are just being silly with this idea right?

Yep

Yep.

Put water (or urine, or any H20 based liquid) into the gas tank, the water is converted on the fly to Oxygen and Hydrogen, the Oxygen is bled off into the atmosphere and the Hydrogen is burned as fuel. Not only would your exhaust be free Oxygen and water vapor, but you would CLEAN the air as you drove through it... because if the way that Hydrogen burns.

No Fuel Cell involved. Just thought you should know.

Re:Can lithium really power all cars?

[Don853]

That would, of course, be a perpetual motion machine. You can get at most the amount of energy back from combusting hydrogen as you used to electrolyze it, leaving no net energy to power the vehicle.

Please tell me this post is a joke and I missed the punchline.

Re:Can lithium really power all cars?

[Anonymous Coward]

gasoline and diesel in a sense are also just as renewable as hydrogen. When we run out of methane, natural gas, and oil from the ground where will we source the hydrogen? Its easy to take biomass or other energy sources and synthesize diesel and gasoline like fuels. Then all you need is a steel and plastic tank to hold it, no crazy platinum or lithium necessary.

Re:Can lithium really power all cars?

[Attila Dimedici]

There are improved electrolysis techniques which are making the possibility of hydrogen production on-the-fly feasible. This means that it is not only conceivable, but attainable to have a personal transportation vehicle, with an internal combustion that used to run on gasoline, that now runs on water.

No, it now runs on electric, not water. I don't see how separating water to produce hydrogen and then burning the hydrogen is more efficient that just running the motor on electricity in the first place.

Re:Can lithium really power all cars?

[Anonymous Coward]

In the case of nuclear energy, we will eventually run out of either atoms on the earth or places to put the consumed ones we haven't developed a way of working with yet.

Sure we have. But our stupid energy policy won't allow us to do it. First, we should be recycling spent fuel, not burying it in a hole. Second, regarding the radioisotopes which have half lives in the tens of thousands of years, if not more: we should be processing this stuff to make it more radioactive, i.e. have half lives of minutes, hours, days or months... I'll have the net effect of making the waste less hazardous in the long run.

Re:Can lithium really power all cars?

[squoozer]

If I were you I'd have a little read up on thermodynamics. Splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen will always take, at a minimum, the same amount of energy as you get from combining them. In reality the if you get 20% of the energy back when you recombine them you are doing well. However, and here's the interesting bit, fuel cells themselves are very efficient so over all the transfer of energy from the source to the point of use can be acceptible.

Re:Can lithium really power all cars?

[conspirator57]

and you point out *policy* limitations, which were amongst the thousands of other contributing factors that I omitted in favor of keeping my argument clear. but yes, there are some process for some isotopes that have varying degrees of economic cost/benefit (again, in the instant case neglecting both policy and potential for storage to go badly (fail catastrophically))

and there will always be some portion of the waste stream of any activity that makes little sense to continue recovery efforts on.

Re:Can lithium really power all cars?

[mariushm]

Oil, natural gas and coal are not the only sources of energy... there's also solar, wind, tidal, hydro and nuclear power and maybe others.

From the alternatives above, only the nuclear can run out... there may be problems making cells for solar power because of the components used... solar, hydro power and wind are possible the most secure and the easiest electricity to produce.

Re:Can lithium really power all cars?

[afabbro]

Not only would your exhaust be free Oxygen and water vapor, but you would CLEAN the air as you drove through it... because if the way that Hydrogen burns.

So you're saying we could put tons of excess oxygen and water vapor into the atmosphere?

What could go wrong...

Re:Can lithium really power all cars?

[Anonymous Coward]

People recycle batteries??

In a word: Yes.

Re:Where Will the Money Go? Pollution Concerns?

[Austerity Empowers]

I think we're exporting our pollution, along with our jobs and industry. Unless you really think all those dead end middle management jobs that we're being pushed to are actually going to be necessary in the long run.

WMD spotted!

[Mishotaki]

I'm sure the US government has the plan of "spotting" some Weapons of Mass Destruction... otherwise, they'll find a way to invade them and plunder the ressources...

Re:WMD spotted!

[zerocommazero]

They're gonna have to piss of the Prez's daddy first. Then it will work. Then it will be ...personal.

Re:WMD spotted!

[ChrisMaple]

Nope, no paranoia here, none whatsoever.

Re:WMD spotted!

[Lilith's Heart-shape]

Let's just hope, for the sake of the Bolivian people, that Islam doesn't catch on over there. Then Bolivia is really fucked.

Re:WMD spotted!

[rah1420]

Gonna be hard to piss off Barack Hussein Obama Sr. - he's been pushing up daisies for quite some time now.

Re:WMD spotted!

[tnk1]

Sorry, you didn't get the memo. George Bush is no longer President of the United States. Big Oil/Industry is now only a minority shareholder in the US Government.

The current shareholders are representatives of the Media Industry, which happily for Bolivia, will probably only crack down on pirated DVDs there, leaving the Bolivians and Evo Morales free to exploit the shit out of their Lithium supplies for themselves.

Hopefully, they actually know how to invest the money in infrastructure for the day when the Lithium gravy train runs its course.

Re:WMD spotted!

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's just hope, for the sake of the Bolivian people, that unrestricted capitalism doesn't catch on over there. Then Bolivia is really fucked.

Re:WMD spotted!

[Lilith's Heart-shape]

We don't even have unrestricted capitalism in the United States, AC, so I don't think Bolivia has anything to worry about. If we did, those Wall Street banks and GM would have been allowed to collapse months ago.

Re:WMD spotted!

[mjwx]

The current shareholders are representatives of the Media Industry, which happily for Bolivia, will probably only crack down on pirated DVDs there, leaving the Bolivians and Evo Morales free to exploit the shit out of their Lithium supplies for themselves.

So the US will be invading^W liberating Bolivia to hunt down and destroy the massive stockpiles of pirated DVD's that Morales has been creating in his backyard labs then.

I for one...

[jhfry]

I for one welcome our...

That is getting so old.

Way to go Bolivia, be stingy until everyone else runs low then lease the mineral rights for massive profit. Just hope that an alternative for Lithium isn't found in the mean time.

Oh... and don't you love our new energy independance?

Re:I for one...

[ColdWetDog]

Just hope that an alternative for Lithium isn't found in the mean time.

Probably will be. A very cursory web search brought up this. Seems likely that given some time, other reasonable deposits will be found. This actually makes it harder on Bolivia - they have a fairly small window of time (likely years) to figure out how to maximize revenue and hopefully minimize social and environmental issues.

Being the cynic I am, I'm sure it will come out helping some fat cats and mostly screwing over everybody else. But that's just me.

Re:I for one...

[damn_registrars]

our new energy interdependence

There, fixed that for ya.

Re:I for one...

[Anonymous Coward]

An alternative is Sodium, in terms of energy/power it won't nearly as good as Lithium, but in terms of "explosiveness" it is very dangerous. I think scientists will really consider Sodium if there's a run on Lithium ... or if going with Lithium doesn't really result in energy independence... only oil independence : -)

Re:I for one...

[tnk1]

Bad move. The Bolivians want to make money on the Lithium, but holding out for *too much* money will also make them a target.

There are only three real reasons for conflict. Ideologies, religions and "honor" are just excuses for pride, fear and access to resources.

If Bolivia hoards towards the day that Lithium can make them King, they had better also invest in weaponry and counter-intelligence, because they are in for a wild ride. They had better hope for their own sake that they never make the money the oil shieks do, because the Middle East is one fucked up place, and most of that is due to the jockeying around to control oil.

Re:I for one...

[MozeeToby]

Energy independence isn't about having every single resource needed to produce all of our energy, it's about having options. Currently, it would be impossible to move from oil to a different fuel source for transportation, even ethanol won't work in the majority of cars on the road.

If we move to electric vehicles and Bolivia decides to stop mining lithium, we simply need to find a different medium for our batteries, or use fuel cells, or develop larger super-capacitors, or use radio-thermal-isotope generators (heh, that would be awesome, if ludicrously dangerous). The point is that there are options, if Bolivia stopped shipping batteries, we could find ways to do without them.

Uyuni

[neiras]

I hired some guy with a truck to drop me off out on those salt flats once, just for the hell of it. Incredible lightning shows kept me up most nights. Spectacular place. You could walk in any direction and feel like you weren't moving. It was utterly featureless, aside from the geometric pattern on the ground. I was pretty glad that the truck actually came back a couple of days later.

On one hand, I'd be sorry to hear that the flats were being mined. On the other, Bolivians need something like this; I hope their government acts wisely and on behalf of all of their people.

I'll be watching these events with interest.

Re:Uyuni

[Anonymous Coward]

Incredible lightning shows kept me up most nights.

Would you say you reached a state of Nirvana?

Re:Uyuni

[jameskojiro]

Yeah, they shouldn't mine the salt flats because it will kill all the salt trees, salt grass and salt creatures that live there.

Personally I think they should work together with Brazil and Iceland , and share the transports on their way to Iceland to process Bauxite.

Lithium and aluminum both made using cheap clean geothermal energy from Iceland!

Re:Uyuni

[Trinn]

(I imagine this is actually some movie reference I'm missing entirely and I'll look dumb, but:) This sounds like a great place for a little exploring of internal landscapes, delving into the deep reaches of mind and soul as it were

mod parent Insightful

[Anonymous Coward]

nt

They Like It

[geoffrobinson]

They like it, they're not gonna crack.

Re:They Like It

[guyminuslife]

YEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!

Fantasic!

[mc1138]

Yet another country that can be exploited for their natural resources!

Re:Fantasic!

[A non-mouse Coward]

Anyone else wondering if "Bolivia is the Saudia Arabia of lithium" that it means they're the #1 most important import country when it comes to politics and wars, but the #3 biggest import country by actual imports, behind Canada and Mexico?

Better

[Bootle]

than Dr. Manhattan!

Blood batteries

[Anonymous Coward]

They only way to go truly green is to drive a horse carrage to your own funeral, jump in the hole, and mulch yourself.

Did not say recyclable, said renewable

[SuperKendall]

Lithium batteries are quite recyclable.

But there is certain to be some loss over time from repeated recycling. And recycling does not help if the total amount you need is greater than the total amount available. That's why it may be important to consider using a resource you can actually renew, as in create.

You may not think it's a big deal, but that's the problem - who actually knows if it's practical in the end to have all cars run off lithium batteries? If not, then it would make more long terms sense to direct efforts into fuel cell research for cars than improving batteries specifically for car use, which is a very different running scenario than smaller consumer batteries go through.

Re:Did not say recyclable, said renewable

[drinkypoo]

1. Batteries and Fuel Cells are not an either-or problem any more than GNOME and KDE
2. Everyone working on batteries and fuel cells could not/would not work only on one or the other any more than everyone working on GNOME and KDE would work on one or the other.
3. If we can't make enough batteries with Lithium in them, we'll make some other kind of battery — research on other kinds of batteries isn't going to stop, either.

Fuel cells suck. Barring true nanotechnology (as in, molecular assembly) they will probably always be energy-intensive to produce. Batteries suck, too. In fact, everything is pretty lame if you have very high expectations. In the mean time, try only to realize that hybrid cars are total boondoggles which consume vastly more energy in production to give you less mileage for more money than just buying a car with a small turbo diesel engine; meanwhile diesel has more energy than gasoline, and takes less non-free energy to produce, especially if you talk about biofuels but even when talking about dino juice. We need full-electrics so we can centralize power generation, and we need batteries which are at least twice as good as what we have now (as in, twice as favorable a price:performance ratio) in order to make them feasible for the mass market. Fuel cells are also disadvantaged because liquid fuel is harder to transport than electricity. Their only real benefit today is refueling time.

Re:Did not say recyclable, said renewable

[Kral_Blbec]

Wow, a linux analogy for a car on slashdot? I think I've seen it all now.

Re:Did not say recyclable, said renewable

[Anonymous Coward]

http://gas2.org/2008/10/13/lithium-counterpoint-no-shortage-for-electric-cars/

^ that's why.

The big point of the article is this: lithium can be extracted from the ocean for as cheap as $30 / kg, and there are 238 *trillion* tons of lithium in the ocean. Considering that a lithium battery uses about ~3 pounds of lithium, we're not going to be seeing a shortage for a long, long, time.

Not to mention that lithium is not a *spent* resource like oil: the total amount of lithium we'll *ever* need is pretty constant assuming we're not horrible about recycling, and the viability of recycling programs is proportional to the price, so those won't be going away any time soon.

In conclusion, someone does know if it's practical in the end to have all cars run off lithium batteries. I know, and the answer is yes.

Re:Did not say recyclable, said renewable

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact, everything is pretty lame if you have very high expectations. In the mean time, try only to realize that hybrid cars are total boondoggles which consume vastly more energy in production to give you less mileage for more money than just buying a car with a small turbo diesel engine

While I did mod you up, I wanted to note that in the US the only turbo diesels I've seen have been VW or Audi (the TDI models). I think there might be others coming, but they would be BMW or Mercedes (also not cheap). I do want an A3 TDI, but it will cost more than a Prius, have comparable MPG, and cost more to fuel (diesel is normally more expensive than 87 Octane).

Re:Did not say recyclable, said renewable

[JSBiff]

". . .who actually knows if it's practical in the end to have all cars run off lithium batteries?"

I do. The answer is "no". I suppose in the near-term, lithium batteries are not a bad idea, but cars that get 40 or 60 miles then need other energy sources (or swapped battery packs) to get you any farther are not going to get us away from using petroleum as an energy source. Yes, they can help reduce demand somewhat, and that's good, but if you reduce the demand, people will just drive more, and more people will drive (I heard just the other day on NPR about how China is having an automobile buying boom), and your demand will eventually end up right back where it started, despite vehicles like the Volt.

Is anyone doing (or has anyone in the past) done any research on creating synthetic fuels? That is to say, well, hydrogen is one example of a synthetic fuel - where you take energy (heat or electricity), and use it in a chemical process to synthesize fuels. I have seen a lot of people discussing the problems of using hydrogen gas or compressed liquid hydrogen as such a fuel, though (apparently, it's difficult to keep it contained, requiring heavy tanks with very hiqh-quality seals at every place the fuel hoses make connections, and if it loses containment, is highly explosive).

So, I've been wondering for awhile, instead of just synthesizing hydrogen, can you take that hydrogen, and somehow bond it with carbon which has been re-captured from the atmosphere (this would make such fuels carbon-neutral), to produce synthetic hydrocarbons (that is, something akin to gasolene or ethanol, which can easily be used in internal combustion engines)?

It's just really hard to beat liquid hydrocarbons for energy density, ease of containment/safety, etc. We already have infrastructure all over the world for delivering gas/ethanol to vehicles (fueling stations), and everyone is already driving cars and trucks that use those fuels.

If it's possible (I don't know enough about chemistry to know for sure if it's possible, but it seems like it *should* be possible to synthesize fuels), and possible to do it efficiently (I realize sometimes things are possible but you lose substantial percentages of energy in the process, so they aren't practical), it really seems to me that synthetic gas or ethanol is the route we should be pursuing in our R&D efforts.

Re:Did not say recyclable, said renewable

[Martin Blank]

Unless you cleared your cookies or changed to another browser that didn't have your login, your mod was dropped when you posted, even as an AC.

Re:Did not say recyclable, said renewable

[Patch86]

...and if it loses containment, is highly explosive)

Small point- that's a little bit of a common misconception. Although hydrogen is of course extremely flammable and explosive (doy), it's actually not as dangerous in real world situations as, say, petrol.

The thing about hydrogen is that, as soon as it loses containment, it dissipates. If you're in a hellish car crash and your hydrogen tank is punctured, the hydrogen rushes off into the atmosphere very very fast. Petrol and other liquid fuels, though, just sit around in a puddle under the vehicle. When the hydrogen ignites (what's left of it) will produce a single bang, with much of the energy directed away from the vehicle. When petrol ignites, it creates a firestorm that can burn for hours, setting light to every other flammable item in easy reach.

Just about the only time when the situation would be reversed is in a confined space where the gas would build up, like a tunnel or an enclosed car park. But a petrol fire would be pretty devastating then too, so it's all much of a muchness.

Re:Did not say recyclable, said renewable

[mdielmann]

That's why it may be important to consider using a resource you can actually renew, as in create.

Do you know how hard it is to create physical resources? That leaves solar power, which require resources of some kind to capture. The only truly renewable resource there (and not exactly 'created') is biomass. Burn a tree today?

it would make more long terms sense to direct efforts into fuel cell research

Um, you realize all our fuel cell technologies rely on rare materials, expensively produced materials, or optimal operating temperatures that many cars aren't used in, right?

Re:Did not say recyclable, said renewable

[Anonymous Coward]

use it till its gone. Then find another.
It ain't a spotted owl, its lithium.

Re:Did not say recyclable, said renewable

[JSBiff]

"Unless you cleared your cookies or changed to another browser that didn't have your login, your mod was dropped when you posted, even as an AC."

Which is why it's kind of stupid to ban moderators from posting - because they'll just clear their cookies and post as AC anyhow. I would moderate a lot more (I've probably lost 100 mod points over the years from expiration), but I'm too lazy to do the AC thing, and would rather have my posts in my name. I don't want to be gagged on an article just so that I can moderate, so I just don't bother moderating, most of the time.

I know the reasoning behind that was to try to prevent abuses, but honestly, I don't think it actually accomplishes anything positive.

Re:Did not say recyclable, said renewable

[Anonymous Coward]

With enough energy, lithium could be permanently recycled - though you suffer from crippling diminishing returns due to that entropically unfavourable situation.

But say that no alternative transport to electric cars is found, say that no social changes address the absurdity of everyone owning a car, and say that all batteries for the electric cars will always have some niche that only lithium can fill. In that case, those diminishing returns might be acceptable, and we can recycle lithium nearly infinitely.

Or more likely, we won't need as much of it for as long as you might suppouse. Either way, I'm not losing sleep over it yet!

Re:Did not say recyclable, said renewable

[jareds]

Yes, synthetic fuel is currently possible.

Re:Did not say recyclable, said renewable

[JSBiff]

Well, that's a little different than what I had in mind - the article there refers to starting with something like coal, and producing gasoline from the coal. That's potentially a short-term solution to at least help us reduce our dependence on foreign oil, here in the U.S. (because we have a lot of coal), but longer term, I'm thinking of something which is more environmentally friendly. The article does talk about synthesizing the fuel from biomass, and that is definitely something which sounds interesting, but I wonder if it's possible to even remove the biomass from the process?

That is, to essentially produce hydrocarbons from water and air, with energy as basically the only inputs (or maybe some very common/cheap elements or compounds)? Is that possible?

Re:Did not say recyclable, said renewable

[afabbro]

Yes, synthetic fuel is currently possible.

Nazi Germany fed its war machine on 100% synthetic fuel - oil derived from coal. Keep in mind that what's expedient in war may not be practical or economical in peacetime, nor did the Nazis likely worry much about the environmental consequences.

Re:Did not say recyclable, said renewable

[Martin Blank]

Agreed. To prevent moderation of one's own posts, a quick check of the moderator ID and user ID would suffice to prevent such actions. With all of the other changes they've been making, it wouldn't be that hard to do.

Re:Did not say recyclable, said renewable

[drinkypoo]

If a few more people would bite the bullet and buy the VW (which btw is being made in wolfsberg these days) then the other manufacturers would kick out some little turbo diesels as quick as you can say "Technology Licensing." (That's quite a few syllables, but we ARE talking about the automotive industry.)

Re:Did not say recyclable, said renewable

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

In the mean time, try only to realize that hybrid cars are total boondoggles which consume vastly more energy in production to give you less mileage for more money than just buying a car with a small turbo diesel engine

Source, please? "Everyone knows" that hybrids are bad for the environment.

The data says otherwise.

And, might I ask, where are these mythical mid-size cars with small turbo diesel engines? The Prius is not a small car; it's considerably bigger than a "minicar" (like the Yaris or Fit). And those are considerably bigger than a "microcar" (like the Smart).

Diesel also has higher NOx/SOx emissions (even with today's cleaner diesel engines) and higher CO2 emissions (per gallon).

Here are the typical mistakes you see when someone trashes hybrids:

• Unrealistic lifetime estimates. Modern vehicles last much longer than 100k miles.
• Comparing fuel economy of diesel and gasoline, when diesel has more energy and higher CO2 emissions per gallon.
• Comparing a mid-sized hybrid (usually the Prius) with a considerably smaller diesel-powered vehicle (e.g. the Golf).
• Comparing fuel economy using different standards. US fuel economy numbers are considerably more conservative than the UK or Japanese numbers (Prius NHW20 gets 54 mpg-US combined according to the UK, 46 mpg-US combined according to the US).
• Comparing fuel economy numbers in US and UK gallons. The UK gallon is considerably larger.
• Comparing lower-performance vehicles to higher-performance hybrids.

Re:Did not say recyclable, said renewable

[turbidostato]

"While I did mod you up, I wanted to note that in the US the only turbo diesels I've seen have been VW or Audi (the TDI models). I think there might be others coming, but they would be BMW or Mercedes (also not cheap). I do want an A3 TDI, but it will cost more than a Prius, have comparable MPG, and cost more to fuel (diesel is normally more expensive than 87 Octane)."

News you might find interesting: Europe is full of turbodiesels now; about 65-70% of all new tourism-class sells are diesels. Just for an example, the VW group fills the whole market: from the comparatively cheap Skodas to the top of the rank Audi R8 passing through Seat and VW offers; the same goes for all other brands: BMW, Mercedes, Jaguar, Saab, Volvo, Renault, Citroen, Fiat, Alfa... you name it. And they are now only just a bit more expensive instead of 25/30% more it used to be. I don't think there is 87 Octane gasoline in Europe but I can say diesel is cheaper than the "standard" 95~98 Octanes used here both per volume and per mileage so I think the higher price in USA comes from lack of distribution, not production costs. And they are as driveable and comfortable than their gasoline counterparts (the days of black fumes, noise and vibrations passed away).

If this market hasn't exploded in USA yet is because gasoline is quite cheaper and due to a matter of tradition.

Re:Did not say recyclable, said renewable

[bussdriver]

Batteries do not suck. They are different.

If gasoline was SOLID, you'd swap out your tank.

If gas had less energy density, you'd have a bigger tank and smaller range.

If gasoline was a GAS it would be in changeable pressure tanks like propane.

Gas engines are horribly wasteful while most batteries are also highly wasteful.

FYI: A Flow Battery is not portable but does not waste energy; its a really great battery that is being used for solar and wind power.

Re:Did not say recyclable, said renewable

[drinkypoo]

• Unrealistic lifetime estimates. Modern vehicles last much longer than 100k miles. The study that showed the hummer beating out the Prius also shows it breaking even at 300,000 miles. The Prius is not going to last 300,000 miles. A Diesel-powered hummer MIGHT, and it can run on currently-available biofuels.
• Comparing fuel economy of diesel and gasoline, when diesel has more energy and higher CO2 emissions per gallon. Uh, no, see, the former's an argument in favor of diesels while the latter is an argument in favor of biofuels. Also, the only thing a modern diesel produces much more of than a gasoline vehicle is NOx.
• Comparing a mid-sized hybrid (usually the Prius) with a considerably smaller diesel-powered vehicle (e.g. the Golf). Pure fucking bullshit. The only place the golf falls down considerably is rear legroom; Here I give numbers with the prius/golf, in cubic inches or cubic feet as appropriate: Headroom 39.1/39.3, Rear Headroom 37.1/38.5, Front legroom 41.9/41.2, Rear leg 38.6/35.3, Shoulder Front 55/54.7, Shoulder rear 52.9/54.6, Seating 5/5, cargo 16/15, volume 96.2/94. In other words, the Prius has 2 cubic feet more interior room and 1 cubic foot more cargo space than the golf. They are both small cars, and you are a fucking liar since the golf has more shoulder room and the prius has more rear leg room, but the cars are otherwise practically identical in size. Lying liars and the lies they tell. Incidentally, a Passat is even bigger and still gets about the mileage of the Prius.
• Comparing fuel economy using different standards. Well, I'm not doing that. The simple truth is that the ONLY way to get a Prius (which gets real-world mileage of about 42 mpg in NORMAL driving) up to the mileage of a Golf (which gets about the same, with the caveat that freeway driving is typically over 45 mpg in the real world) up to the mileage of a Golf is to drive it like a total dick, slowing down dramatically up every hill, and ruining the mileage of everyone else on the road trying to keep momentum up hills. Sorry, but I'm not interested in mileage estimates, only in real-world reports.
• Comparing fuel economy numbers in US and UK gallons. I'm not doing this either, but thanks.
• Comparing lower-performance vehicles to higher-performance hybrids. The TDI Golf fucking cooks and also, I could give one tenth of one shit anyway because we're talking about cost and environmental benefit here, not performance. The Prius has shitty performasnce compared to my 1982 Mercedes 300SD; it allegedly only has 120bhp and 170ft-lb (also crank) but makes 30 mpg on the freeway and instead of buying a new car I bought a used car. That means that I saved 100% of the energy production cost of buying a new vehicle, which makes up for a lot of "reduced" mileage — I'm still way ahead of most people on the road. And since I can run biofuels, I can run carbon-neutral. Since there's still no biofuels available for a Prius (nobody is making butanol yet) you don't actually have that option.

Your post consists of lies, and damn lies. Oddly enough, I was able to debunk it with statistics. Please don't post on this subject again until you are willing to say something relevant.

Re:Did not say recyclable, said renewable

[drinkypoo]

If gasoline was SOLID, you'd swap out your tank.

Tanks can be easily inspected and pressure tested, batteries cannot. Result: YOUR POINT IS INVALID. Also known as the "If the river were whiskey, we'd all drink wine" theory.

If gas had less energy density, you'd have a bigger tank and smaller range.

If wishes were fishes, we'd all cast nets.

If gasoline was a GAS it would be in changeable pressure tanks like propane.

If wishes were horses, beggars were ride. Also known as "Gasoline isn't a gas, it's a liquid, which is why it has great energy density.

Batteries are energy-intensive to produce and energy-intensive to recycle. Gasoline doesn't go into fuel cells, so we weren't talking about it anyway. Biodiesel from Algae is the only liquid fuel whose acceptance I have ever pushed. Your comment is entirely devoid of value and you should have realized this before even clicking preview.

Re:Did not say recyclable, said renewable

[drinkypoo]

I don't think there is 87 Octane gasoline in Europe but I can say diesel is cheaper than the "standard" 95~98 Octanes

I am too lazy to look it up, but I know that octane numbers in different countries vary because of different measuring standards. I would be very surprised to find that your fuel was substantially different from our fuel. The same cars run on both.

I think the higher price in USA comes from lack of distribution, not production costs.

Since the same distribution equipment is used for both fuels, it's something else entirely. The two most plausible theories I've heard are 1) just simple collusion and market manipulation to try to convince people not to buy diesels 2) the military is buying it all up and using it to kill mideasterners.

Re:Did not say recyclable, said renewable

[SuperKendall]

Do you know how hard it is to create physical resources?

"Create" is perhaps not the best term, as I am speaking of things like hydrogen extraction - basically obtaining an element that exists in abundance and is nearly universal in location.

Um, you realize all our fuel cell technologies rely on rare materials, expensively produced materials, or optimal operating temperatures that many cars aren't used in, right?

Um, you do realize that the amount of materials used are several orders of magnitude less than the amount of lithium used for a single electric car, and that with money poured into research all those factors would improve dramatically?

You luddites should really think things through before you post. Sheesh.

Re:Did not say recyclable, said renewable

[turbidostato]

"I am too lazy to look it up, but I know that octane numbers in different countries vary because of different measuring standards."

It might be true but then it only makes my argument stronger.

"Since the same distribution equipment is used for both fuels"

I included refineries in the distribution chain, since usually they are domestic facilities. While they can be retuned for certain production levels they can't do it by night.

"the two most plausible theories I've heard are 1) just simple collusion and market manipulation to try to convince people not to buy diesels"

Again, I didn't stated what the root causes for such lack in distribution might be.

"the military is buying it all up and using it to kill mideasterners."

Doesn't seem to hold water: it is not as if such mideasterners were precisely lacking their own share of oil.

Re:Did not say recyclable, said renewable

[drinkypoo]

Doesn't seem to hold water: it is not as if such mideasterners were precisely lacking their own share of oil.

That doesn't help when the refineries have been bombed and can't produce diesel.

Also, when the price of any fuel product goes up anywhere a certain amount of shipping happens and the prices go up everywhere.

Why Not?

[SuperKendall]

Because we aren't pushing to make all cars electric.

Long term that's how it will be. Powered by batteries or fuel cells, 99% of cars will be electric in some form (or perhaps it will be 80% with something else like compressed air taking up the remainder). So why not think ahead of time what makes the most sense in car design when that is the case.

Re:Why Not?

[Martin Blank]

Unless the energy capacity of batteries or fuel cells can increase dramatically, there will still be a need for a sizable portion of them to be fueled by internal combustion. Trucks, for example, may become hybrids, but probably will not go all-electric, simply because of the need to deliver more overall energy than exists in battery designs as things stand right now or in the near future (going out 10-15 years). Even taking off those that (in the opinion of many Slashdotters) don't need trucks, there are still a lot of commercial trucks that aren't semis as well as people that pull boats, camper trailers, off-road vehicles, etc, for whom batteries may prove to be a poor solution.

Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like the CIA is gonna have to sell a whole lot of crack to fund ANOTHER overthrow of a democratically elected latin american government...

They need to wake up.

[chill]

The "foreign imperialists" didn't exploit South America without hand-in-hand collusion of the South American governments. The "foreign imperialists" paid tons of money to South American (and African) governments for rights to natural resources. It was the corrupt officials that were more interested in their limos, yachts, palaces and personal wealth than building infrastructure and passing wealth to their peoples. Their own governments are just as guilty, if not more so, than foreign corporations.

Bravo to Bolivia's President Morales for wanting to slow down and study how this is going to affect things. He wants to learn something about the market so he doesn't get screwed by it.

But, they better not wait too long. As the video states, if the battery companies can't get the lithium they will find a different solution. It is really going to suck for Bolivia if the demand for lithium drops because the main use for it no longer needs it. Whale oil, kerosene oil for lamps and bone buttons all come to mind as examples.

Re:They need to wake up.

[Chris Burke]

Their own governments are just as guilty, if not more so, than foreign corporations.

In many cases that is certainly true. In other cases of governments that were not corrupt (or at least, wanted to keep power and wealth inside the country rather than sell it out to a foreign company), the government of the country the foreign company was from would overthrow the insufficiently corrupt government and install one that was sufficiently corrupt. In which case the guilt of the foreign corp and their government is not just exploiting a poorer nation's national resources, but subverting their sovereignty itself.

What happens when it rains?

[Classic Guy]

I mean, if metallic lithium is just lying around on the ground, wouldn't that be pretty spectacular?

Re:What happens when it rains?

[smaddox]

Well, since it is a salt flat, I'm guessing the lithium is in salt form (LiF, LiCl).

Re:What happens when it rains?

[CuriHP]

Since it's a SALT flat, I think it's a safe bet that it's tied up in lithium chloride or some other SALT.

Aling car manufacturers need lithium ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ailing automakers in the United States are pinning their hopes on lithium

Yeah, they really need to be taking their meds now - can't have those manic-depressives (oops - it's now "bi-polar syndrome") getting all manic and building even bigger hummers.

Re:Aling car manufacturers need lithium ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ailing automakers in the United States are pinning their hopes on lithium

Yeah, they really need to be taking their meds now - can't have those manic-depressives (oops - it's now "bi-polar syndrome") getting all manic and building even bigger hummers.

I could use a hummer right now.

Re:Where Will the Money Go? Pollution Concerns?

[CubicleView]

Hi, I'm Boliva, I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Bolivia's new future

[snaz555]

0. Evil Bolivian liberals start talking about using the proceeds from sale of lithium for things like national defense, highways, electricity, water plants, schools, research facilities, health care, a functional judicial system - all this first-world stuff they could only dream of affording previously
1. Coup
2. Generals clean out subversives who think Bolivians should own their own natural resources, and make country safe for U.S. and European mining co's
3. Generals sell off complete and exclusive rights for pennies on the dollar - no taxation or local businesses involved; Generals get rewarded with nice personal kickbacks
4. Generals provide local labor for cheap. Very cheap. After all, they have a virtually infinite supply of desperate people willing to work for subsistence wages
5. After 10-20 years as the locals revolt because of the total sell-out, generals escape to a first-world life in luxury
6. As the locals refuse to accept the previous BS deal they kick out foreign mining co's and nationalize the resources
7. U.S. decries evil commies and does its best to destabilize said evil commie government, by interfering with elections, supporting "freedom fighters" (read: insurgents and terrorists), and generally attempt to turn back the clock. The pretext is demanding "free elections", which of course can be rigged to practically restore the previous order
8. After a generation everyone eventually gets tired of conflict, forget what they were fighting over in the first place, and things are allowed to return to some semblance of where they should have been at point 0. Only with a lot of bad history.

Been there, done that. Got the t-shirt.

Re:Bolivia's new future

[Atrox666]

Well if super capacitor technology takes off then the demand for lithium will be a fraction of what it is now. Then the companies will leave that part of the world. Probably the best thing for them.

Re:Bolivia's new future

[drewvr6]

Why U.S. and European? Why not Chinese? They are investing a lot of money in South America right now trying to recruit new markets for their products. Quit being so anti-Anglo.

Re:Bolivia's new future

[Nicopa]

You should read a bit about history of Latin America =). Just one example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_massacre (there are more)

Re:Bolivia's new future

[drewvr6]

I know plenty of history. It was my minor in college. You should try reading up on current events. ;-)

Re:Bolivia's new future

[R2.0]

You are missing the point - for some people no nation can EVER be as bad as the US. Most of those people also were born and live in the US and have benefited from it's history and economy.

Were they to think that way about themselves such self loathing would be treated as a pathology.

Re:Bolivia's new future

[Nicopa]

You certainly don't sound like you know. Saying "trust me, it was my minor" is not very interesring or useful... The US has a history of messing with LA, an History other countries don't have. Nnot only private companies, but the CIA itself had participated in many LA tragedies. Go read a bit about this, very interesting.

Re:Bolivia's new future

[Johnny Mnemonic]

You forgot:

1) "First World backed" coup. We'll back who ever will cut us a deal in step 3.

4) Local labor is cheap because they are political prisoners acquired during steps 1 and 2. Furthermore, if they're prisoners instead of laborers no one cares if they die since they can't quit.

And wow, does step 8 ever happen? Where? Venezuela, maybe?

Re:Bolivia's new future

[khallow]

What of that? In case you haven't noticed, that was 80 year ago. Things have changed. And bottom line is that it was the Colombian government of that time that killed those people.

Where's the green savings?

[geekmux]

So, I'm curious as to how many tons of pollution we will generate with tankers, aircraft, and various other means of large cargo transit to move this metal to the areas of manufacturing to make all those "green" automobiles?

Really makes you wonder about the whole point of it all, and the validity (if any) of Al Gores award-winning theory...

Operation Bolivian Freedom shall commence!

[echtertyp]

It's clearly time to bring democracy to Bolivia.

Re:Operation Bolivian Freedom shall commence!

[Anonymous Coward]

exactly, in fact under those salt flats are weapons of mass destruction.

Norwegian oil model

[arabagast]

They could consider following the same model the Norwegian government used when oil was discovered in the sea outside Norway; create a lithium fund managed by the government, paid by taxes and exploration fees from the companies wanting to mine the lithium. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_Oil_Fund. It worked for Norway, it might work for Bolivia too.

Re:Norwegian oil model

[navyjeff]

It worked for Alaska, too.

Re:Norwegian oil model

[dedazo]

Bolivia cannot possibly pull that off, not in a million years. That country is way too corrupt, even by Latin American standards. And the current president is, to put it mildly, a populist idiot who thinks it's better to bedazzle the masses with short-term bullshit than to try to create foundations for long-term growth.

It's stupid to claim that the wealth is "staying here" when it's just being "stolen here" anyway.

Now most countries are corrupt, including mine of course. But Bolivia is especially special (sorry) in that department.

Re:Norwegian oil model

[Terentius]

I think the biggest issue is that Bolivia does not have a homogeneous population. Bolivia is divided by race and class and they have nothing but hate for each other.

Those Scandinavian countries also had corruption issues but they were mitigated and tolerated by their culture. That of course has changed today together with their change in population.

Re:Norwegian oil model

[khallow]

Those Scandinavian countries also had corruption issues

The difference is that those Scandinavian countries did something about it. They are well known as being among the least corrupt governments ever.

Re:Norwegian oil model

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, he's trying to dominate the masses with short-term bullshit like literacy:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7794293.stm

You of course will fell disgusted by who supported and who devised the campaign, but that does not change the fact that it is a real long term investment and a fundamental piece for a developed, civilized country.

Re:Norwegian oil model

[dedazo]

Bolivia is divided by race and class and they have nothing but hate for each other.

A division that is being actively exploited by Morales, unfortunately.

The Saudi Arabia of Lithium?

[bunyip]

An alternate view is that they'll limit the production and manipulate the price. Then profit!!!

Yes, I think the title pretty much sums it up.

Re:The Saudi Arabia of Lithium?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up.

Re:The Saudi Arabia of Lithium?

[Anonymous Coward]

fuck no

It'll attract the wrong type of people.

[Just_Say_Duhhh]

Butch: "Hey, Kid..."
Sundance: "Yeah, Butch?"
Butch: "We should go to Bolivia!"
Sundance: "Bolivia? What's there?"
Butch: "We could literally scrape Lithium off the ground! We'll be rich!"
Sundance: "Let's get packin'!"

Re:Where Will the Money Go? Pollution Concerns?

[dkleinsc]

I also hope that money goes towards improving their infrastructure and fostering internal business instead of some bullshit palace for some bullshit dictator.

President Evo Morales of Bolivia is many things, but "bullshit dictator" he is not. He was democratically elected in 2005, and won a recall election in 2008 by a two-thirds majority. The Bolivian government has been a democracy since the 1980's.

Concern is not consumption but simple totality

[SuperKendall]

Yes, lithium may be scarce, but you've got a deep misconception that may be coloring your view and comparison with oil. Oil is a fuel. Allowing it to burn produces energy. Lithium in car batteries is not a fuel. It's a storage device.

Yes I know (although I worded my original post very badly in that respect).

My concern is simply, is there enough lithium that every car could be powered by lithium batteries - that is, is the total amount of lithium sufficient to provide batteries for all the needs we intend to use it for, in a cost effective way.

It could well be there is enough raw lithium that is not a concern. But car batteries require a great deal more lithium than laptop batteries, and a lot more people drive cars than have laptops when you consider the entire world.

Re:Concern is not consumption but simple totality

[Greg_D]

There's enough lithium in the ocean to bury every bare patch of land on the planet in cars. Supply isn't an issue.

Imperialist exploitation?

[mveloso]

"The previous imperialist model of exploitation of our natural resources will never be repeated in Bolivia"

No, instead we will us the new model of exploitation perfected in Latin America: corporate officials will skim 80% of the revenues and buy condos in Miami and Buenos Aires. Si muy bueno!

Re:Imperialist exploitation?

[daem0n1x]

New model? Assuming it was true, what would be new about that?

Re:Imperialist exploitation?

[stephanruby]

Speaking of which, President Bush did purchase lots of property outside of the United States before he left office.

Re:Imperialist exploitation?

[Anonymous Coward]

If Bolivia has the local talent required to see the operation through, then good for them and their profits. If they don't, then they can suck at the teat of the multinational corps who do, and (perhaps) realize that the only way to protect yourself from imperialist predators is to develop your nation. 'Develop' being the opposite of exploit, ignore, rob, squander and all the other guiding principles of government with which Latin America has guaranteed themselves a squalid future for decades to come.

Electric Car myth #XX

[Hells]

Lithium is an extremely abundant resource, further more it's not consumed like oil. There's even several distinct batteries you can switch to that doesnt require lithium if neccesary. IF the lithium prices rises, the viability of mining elsewhere than bolivia rises too. In short this material is uncontrollable unlike oil.

I hope bolivians manage to get their fair share

[cpotoso]

Considering how their silver deposits were basically stolen from under their feet by the spanish conquistadores and then the tin reserved stolen again by the multinational corporations, and yet they remain one of the poorest countries in America... I hope they keep some of the wealth to improve their conditions. Evo (and successors) seems to be a person that may really achieve that goal. Yes, some of the $$ will go into the wrong hands (do you really think that Irak's war did not produce magnificent profit$ for some groups closely linked to GWB et al.?), but as long as this is a small fraction things should be OK.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Great news!

[cashman73]

When do we start bombing the country?

Re:Where Will the Money Go? Pollution Concerns?

[rev_sanchez]

Latin America has had a few goes at this sort of thing in the past. One common outcome is that leaders looking to better the the quality of life for their people by maintaining fairly tight controls on these kinds of resources are called communists. Certainly some of these efforts have been ill conceived or terribly implemented or blatant power grabs but their governments are often overthrown violently by dictators aided by outsiders in exchange for the right to pillage those resources.

I don't see why lithium should be any different but for their sake I hope so.

Foreign Dependance for Resources

[BJ_Covert_Action]

Oh hey look at that, here countries are trying to reduce their dependence on foreign resources like oil with 'sustainable' solutions like solar, wind, and electric energy when all of the sudden its discovered that these fun things called batteries, required to store the energy from inconsistent sources (like solar and wind) are actually needed to make these solutions viable. Oh and wait, there are some countries with more battery materials than others? No, the rest of the world won't depend on them for these new resources like we did oil right?

*facepalm* *headbang desk*

Are people really so blind that they cannot see that something like new "green" energies are going to simply shift dependence to a new kind of resource? When the f**k are people going to wake up and realize that until we start funding and developing truly renewable and truly sustainable and truly consistent energy production methods based on fuels like hydrogen (like, oh, I don't know say fusion?) we are just going to be replicating the same problem we have run into with fossil fuels?

I am tired of people and their useless groupthink...

Re:Foreign Dependance for Resources

[drsquare]

Electricity is renewable. Lithium is used to store said electricity. What's the problem? I don't see what being foreign has to do with anything, unless you're an isolationist state with no global trade.

crap

[jollyreaper]

So does this mean that the next president after Obama should start practicing holding hands and kissing cheeks or whatever men do in Bolivia? I'd actually have to compliment Obama on his reserve, only "bowing" to the sheik instead of playing kissy-face like Bush did.

Don't underestimate "Bolivian Marching Powder"

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Maybe some Bolivian wise guy will invent a car that runs on cocaine?

I used to think that the Eveready Energizer Bunny kept on running, because it was powered by lithium.

Maybe it's powered by powder?

You forgot step 9...

[hellfire]

9. saintly American companies that never do anything wrong PROFIT!!

Re:Where Will the Money Go? Pollution Concerns?

[Rei]

I wouldn't really call lithium mining "exporting our pollution". It's pretty tame -- you take salt flat brines, selectively precipitate out the salts you want, and return the remaining salts. It's not like you're ripping off mountaintops or contaminating freshwater with lead or something.

Anyway, as with all discussions of "reserves", this whole discussion is incredibly misleading. The concept of a reserves figure also has a market price and technology level associated with it. As market prices change and technology changes, what "reserves" are available in each country changes dramatically. For example, at high oil prices, Venezuela has more oil than Saudi Arabia. The same sort of thing is true with lithium. For example, one the Kings Valley, Nevada mine owned by Western Lithium Corp, which they're currently developing, has 50% more "reserves" at the minimum concentration they're planning to recover than the figure this articles gives for the entire United States. The entire Kings Valley was estimated back in the 70s/80s to have 11m tons LCE (lithium carbonate equivalent, the standard form for trading lithium).

no repeats of middle east, please

[Anonymous Coward]

the world has had enough with one bunch of goons getting the control of everyone's technology, economy and lives.

we need to ensure that there are always mutliple sources of energy available.

So, if in the energy sector, you get any lawmaker asking for mandatory introduction of a particular type of energy, over the next 20-30 years, dotn vote yes for him. Stop him, shame him.

Anyone who supports "one standard" heckle him, boycott him.

We need variety to prevent a repeat of mass butchery. This time (10 years or more from now) the disasters will be far more serious than most we have seen.

Till now we have bombs, planes, nukes.
Now we have genomes, carbon nanotubes and neuro-robots.
Every war will be for survival and prevention of our extinction.

Till recently, nukes were the only thing.
Not any more - climate, genes, pandemics, robots, mass food poisoning, too many threats, each more serious than nukes.

A repeat of these 100 years of oligarchy is just not feasible.

(And you can't be real about surviving in space as a nomadic race. That is just not done, however many constraints we overcome.)

They should . . .

[SebaSOFT]

[quote]However, the government fears foreign countries might exploit their natural resources, so for the time being, the salt flats remain untouched.[/quote]
They should, foreign countries have been exploiting South American soil for centuries. England, Spain, Portugal, and the US are the main life sux0rs to fear.

Exploit is not always a bad word

[JSBiff]

It's kind of sad what people have done to the word "exploit". One of it's meanings (and I think the original meaning) of the word is simply to put something to use. In that sense of the word, it would be a good thing to 'exploit' Bolivian Lithium. Of course, the other meaning of the word is that when putting something to use, you do it in an way which is unfair to people, or bad for the environment.

Would it not be better for the people of Bolivia to be getting fair prices for that Lithium, under reasonable commercial exploitation, than for it to sit in the ground and the people of Bolivia not to make any money off it at all?

Re:Exploit is not always a bad word

[SebaSOFT]

What would be good for the people of Bolivia is to be selling batteries and not the Lithium, that would generate jobs, industry and a fair share. Instead the US or US based corps would buy the Lithium at the cheapest price possible and then manufacture the batteries in order to sell the Bolivians back the batteries at 1000x the price. If that doesn't work, provide the opposite party of the current Bolivian government, all the means necessary (even military) to reach the presidency and give heavy price cuts to the Lithium. Ready the history of the region and you'll see.

Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Your mother naked. On a popsicle stick!

Also needed for fusion (it that ever happens)

[expatriot]

Besides batteries, there will be a huge demand for Lithium if fusion ever becomes practical. It is used to capture the neutrons and also generate more He.

Re:Also needed for fusion (it that ever happens)

[JSBiff]

Does fusion consume the lithium, or is it more of a catalyst (sort of) in the process? As long is it's not consumed, then it seems to me like using the Lithium in fusion reactors is a far better use for it than in car batteries.

Is there enough lithium ?

[BlueParrot]

If you assume something like 100kg per car, and five people per car, that works out to well beyond present lithium reserves. Seems the cost of lithium ( and hence the batteries ) is likely to go up.

Déjà Vu

[rickb928]

Not the first white powder Bolivia is famous for...

Oh great! Now we'll have to invade

[Anonymous Coward]

They have a valuable resource? Now we'll have to come up with a reason to invade their country and keep a permanent military force there. I'm sure we can find some bullshit reason (terrorists? drugs?). It is getting harder and harder to be a materialistic, hypocritical, greedy superpower.

Re:Where Will the Money Go? Pollution Concerns?

[dkleinsc]

There's reason to think this may be different:
1. Everyone already knows President Evo Morales is a communist. He's made no secret of that.

2. The various left-wing Latin American governments have been building efforts to prevent precisely that sort of pillaging or overthrow. That bloc includes regional powerhouse Brazil.

3. The Cold War is over, so being a communist is not grounds for immediate US intervention.

4. The US regime with a tendency to interfere in other countries in support of corporate interests has recently been removed from power.

super capacitors

[MountainLogic]

Atrox' I agree that advances in super capacitor are important to electric vehicles, but I've yet to see any number that suggest that they will be the main energy storage device. They ave a great fast response curve. Need to accelerate or dump power back from regenerative breaking they are perfect. There may even be a place for fast mini fill-ups. If you need to story huge amounts of energy in a reasonably small place for a long time then capacitor do quite fit the bill. They can and do need to be added to vehicle power supplies, but only as part of the solution to improve the efficiency of the batteries. It is really a question of power density vs. energy density.

Maybe Bolivia can use this, maybe not.

[khallow]

No offense to Bolivia, but their current state of poverty indicates that they haven't had a government in a while that could properly take advantage of a windfall like this. The current government looks like one of the worst of the lot with little respect for law, incompetent with respect to economic matters, and implementing slightly worse than normal racist policies (classic leftist move, implement racist policies to hypothetically and ineffectually undo endemic racism).

My view is that even the most impoverished of countries can greatly improve their well being with a couple of decades of competent government. There are simple things that government can provide to improve the lot of life and increase the value of economic activity in a country without requiring a great outlay of funds. For example, they could implement rule of law and limit the government's ability to subvert said law. Even an amoral, greedy multinational corporation should have rights. Second, public health is important, low-lying fruit. You can't magically eradicate disease, but a lot of countries, like Bolivia, have made no serious attempts at public health. Finally, there's education (both k-12 and college). It sounds like this Bolivian government is serious about that (with a greater expenditure of their GDP on education than the US had) so that's in their favor. And once these basic needs have been met, any competent government will have the revenue to build more sophisticated infrastructure.

My view is that Bolivia has made little serious effort on the first two things with potentially a good investment in education. So why should we expect them to be able to properly manage these lithium deposits well? My view is that the current salt deposits would probably go fast, if they were exploited by developed world technology (rather than by people with pick axes). It'd provide a nice short term windfall, but Bolivia is not prepared to receive that windfall. It will most likely be squandered unless there are serious changes in how the government does business.

that could explain

[serbanp]

the recent attempt at Morales' life and the struggle of some of Bolivia's provinces to get full autonomy...

Chile vs. Bolivia

[cenc]

I live in Chile.

Yea, Chile might have less but it is cheaper and safer source to get at.

1. Bolivia is a really dangerous corrupt unstable country (nearly been killed there myself), that no one is really in control of.

2. It has no access to ocean ports.

Until both of the above are solved, don't bet on Bolivia.

Re:Chile vs. Bolivia

[Nicopa]

Of course, Bolivia doesn't have access to ocean ports because Chile took Bolivian coast by force.

Re:Chile vs. Bolivia

[dedazo]

Many years ago one of my grandfather's companies had potassium nitrate concessions in the Atacama (after lots of acquisitions and whatnot most of that ended up with SQM and Codelco)... unfortunately they divested all that in the 80s because of sustainability concerns. Back when that wasn't even fashionable to do that sort of thing. I believe those are the same brine (?) deposits that yield the lithium.

If this really takes off --and your point about Bolivia and Super Evo is of course correct, no one's going to risk being suddenly nationalized-- I bet someone's going to regret that. Oh well :)

Saludos!

Re:Chile vs. Bolivia

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in Chile too, but things need to be fair and square. Bolivia _was_ a RDCUC with a few elite percentage of the population really rich while most of the rest poor, until Evo Morales was elected, and he is thinking in all the Bolivian people. He is fixing diplomatic relationships with Chile too. Nevertheless, there is a lot of work to do in that country. Is in the right process.

Re:Chile vs. Bolivia

[Anonymous Coward]

So... What you are saying is that the 'stabilizing' military force that will be sent to Bolivia will have to go through Chile because of the ocean ports? Excellent! That's two countries for one action! Talk about efficiency!

Re:Chile vs. Bolivia

[Chris Burke]

2. It has no access to ocean ports.

Until both of the above are solved, don't bet on Bolivia.

Are you sure that you, a Chilean, want to encourage the Bolivians to solve this problem?

Re:Chile vs. Bolivia

[theolein]

That war was over 100 years ago. That kind of complaining about lost territory is the root cause of much of the world's wars and conflicts. Grow up.

Re:Chile vs. Bolivia

[Nicopa]

Ask in Bolivia if they have forgotten.

Re:Chile vs. Bolivia

[cenc]

There has been on going talks / plans to open a rail corridor for some years to give Bolivia port access.

As far getting the territory back, that is likly not going to happen any time soon.

Bolivia and Peru also tends to forget they picked that fight with a superior military force:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Pacific

Re:Chile vs. Bolivia

[cenc]

Not Chilean, and not too concerned about Bolivia solving (not by armed conflict) that problem any time soon. Bolivia has a lot of other more pressing internal issues at the moment.

Re:Chile vs. Bolivia

[pablodiazgutierrez]

Thank you, Nicopa. I hereby reclaim California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas for Spain. As a reward I shall be satisfied with something small. San Francisco, for example. Start brushing off that Spanish book from high school.

Re:Chile vs. Bolivia

[khallow]

Ask me if I care. My view is that if you're still simmering over slights, a century old, then you haven't done enough to pick up more recent ones.

Re:Chile vs. Bolivia

[auric_dude]

But they do have a navy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolivian_Navy

Bolivia has large rivers that are tributaries to the Amazon which are patrolled to prevent smuggling and drug trafficking. There is also a Bolivian Naval presence on Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world, across which runs the Peruvian frontier..

Re:Chile vs. Bolivia

[Anonymous Coward]

inb4 Chile vs. Bolivia shit storm.

Re:Where Will the Money Go? Pollution Concerns?

[Nicopa]

Your message might look "Intereseing" to the Latin America history ignorant. The truth is that most of the time the money go to foreign companies, based on countries like yours.

Competition for Lithium

[BoRegardless]

Not surprisingly, the lead-acid battery makers have been using modern technologies including, nano-manufacturing to improve the lead-acid battery and those are much more efficient and easily reproccessible to above 99% as I recall reading.

Ultra-capacitor storage (eeStor is one) are likewise claiming they will compete with batteries and a recent announcement of using Carbon (yes that super-abundant and inexpensive organic material which can be reclaimed from combustion processes amongst many other things) nanofibers to yield impressive gains in ultra-capacitor storage density are being worked on diligently.

The world will have multiple energy storage systems and cost will likely determine who wins on this. I would not want to bet on lithium for the longer term.

Cat got my tongue

[Anonymous Coward]

Take the popular LiFePo4 batteries. the lithium part of it is only 3% of that battery by weight. If we say a future automobile battery pack will weigh 1000 lbs, the 410,000 tons windable lithium in the US would be enough for.. 14,3M cars

Why editing is still important

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

FTFA:

Japanese and European companies are trying to strike deals to tap the resource, but a nationalist sentiment about the lithium is building in the government of President Evo Morales, an ardent critic of the United States who already has nationalized Bolivia's oil and natural-gas industries.

The way this reads, the criticism of the US stems from the fact that the US has nationalized Bolivia's hydrocarbons. The correct interpretation of the sentence (simplified) is : "Morales has nationalized Bolivia's oil and natural gas industries. Morales is an ardent crtiic of the United States." These two thoughts don't even belong in the same paragraph, nevermind the same sentence.

Just because you're posting articles online doesn't excuse you from editing them.

Re:Why editing is still important

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Troll? Seriously? Here, let me help - /. definition of troll:

"A Troll is similar to Flamebait, but slightly more refined. This is a prank comment intended to provoke indignant (or just confused) responses. A Troll might mix up vital facts or otherwise distort reality, to make other readers react with helpful "corrections." Trolling is the online equivalent of intentionally dialing wrong numbers just to waste other people's time."

What part of this description fit my post above - which is both factually correct, and relevant to the article being discussed?

commodity prices

[Anonymous Coward]

I also hope that money goes towards improving their infrastructure and fostering internal business instead of some bullshit palace for some bullshit dictator. All too often third world countries squander their resources on some nationalistic project in their capital or some aggressive military campaign when they don't even have electricity, utilities, law enforcement or running water in half their country.

There's also the fact that commodity prices fluctuate on things that are deemed essential to modern society (cf. collapse of oil prices).

It'd be wise to only spend on money you have in the bank, and not projected earnings. So if you want to spend $10M on roads or schools, make sure it's money you have. Projects can go out the window quite quickly.

Anything you build should also be run from general revenues that can be sustained without "resource revenues". A lot of the time people forget about OpEx when the money is flowing in for the CapEx.

Bolivian National Anthem

[docneuro]

Bolivia greatest country in the world.
All other countries are run by little girls.
Bolivia number one exporter of lithium.
Other countries have inferior lithium...

Re:Where Will the Money Go? Pollution Concerns?

[DanielHC]

Democracy is so much more than just elections...

So, what you're saying is...

[bondjamesbond]

We are invading Bolivia next?

I'll be here all week.

10 years later - like the song "Paradise"

[Ezekiel68]

"daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County Down by the Green River where Paradise lay Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away"

sodium ion batteries

[Colin Smith]

e.g.
http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/v6/n10/abs/nmat2007.html

 

Re:Where Will the Money Go? Pollution Concerns?

[oldhack]

Stop preaching to "the third-world countries" like they're buncha idiots, and maybe they might listen to your advice they didn't ask for.

Re:Where Will the Money Go? Pollution Concerns?

[dkleinsc]

In the case of Bolivia we have: A constitution that forms the highest law of the land, regular contested elections, a 3-branch government (executive, legislature, judiciary), and regional divisions that have some degree of autonomy. Is this sounding like a familiar political system?

Re:Where Will the Money Go? Pollution Concerns?

[Anonymous Coward]

I also hope that money goes towards improving their infrastructure and fostering internal business instead of some bullshit palace for some bullshit dictator. All too often third world countries...

All to often the bullshit dictators are imposed on the local people by the powers to be in rich countries. They establish corrupt dictators in these poor countries so that they can get access to the resources.

Actually, I wish we could create a block of countries that are considered free/democratic and only trade amongst ourselves. But we can't afford to do this. Take the case of Equatorial Guinea, for instance. A tiny country that has as much oil reserves as Kuwait. They should be living pretty well down there, right? Quite the contrary. The local population lives in abject poverty while a brutal and corrupt dictator supported by us lives as a king. Why do we do this? We cannot afford to loose Equatorial Guinea since it is one of our main suppliers of oil outside of the troubled middle-east/islamic world.

Re:Where Will the Money Go? Pollution Concerns?

[vux984]

Is this sounding like a familiar political system?

I read about such a thing in school. I hope they bring it to the USA one day. ;)

Paging James Bond

[dazedNconfuzed]

Now that Bolivia's water supply is safe from Dominic Greene, and 007 knows the political and geographic landscape there, we just need to know which thugs will now be out for the lithium supply.

"Quantum of Ford" next?

Re:Where Will the Money Go? Pollution Concerns?

[Anonymous Coward]

President Evo Morales of Bolivia is many things, but "bullshit dictator" he is not. He was democratically elected in 2005, and won a recall election in 2008 by a two-thirds majority.

Yes, and president Bush, too

Re:Where Will the Money Go? Pollution Concerns?

[afabbro]

Take precautions, Bolivia, develop standards now! Don't squander your resources!

LOL. Dude, you're talking about a country that practically invented the phrase "third world banana republic".

Re:Where Will the Money Go? Pollution Concerns?

[afabbro]

Stop preaching to "the third-world countries" like they're buncha idiots, and maybe they might listen to your advice they didn't ask for.

If they weren't a "buncha idiots," they wouldn't be third world...right?

Li vs. Carbon nanotube ultracapacitors in 10 years

[harvey the nerd]

Make hay while the sun shines. Boliva should establish the resource fund and take gringos' money as long as it lasts. In 10 years, the carbon nanotube ultracapacitors may blow lithium storage out of the water. Any leftover from mining 5.4 million tons of lithium would still treat a lot of bullet-resistant glass and bipolar cases... Schindall [2006] said. ``Then in 10 years, you begin to see the cost crossover point," when capacitors become as cheap as standard rechargeable batteries. Still progressing: http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/research/4252623.html, 2008, http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/21938/?nlid=1646&a=f, 2009

But no doubt a slow, intrusive Bolivian governement will then blame their lack of further sales on los norte americano diablos.

The problem with leftists

[tjstork]

Is that, they pretty much confiscate 95% of the money, give 5% to the people, and preach how much they love the common man as they decide which of 2000 army uniforms to wear in a day. How shocking, that, whenever you have a permanent class that decides how money is allocated, that they should allocate it to themselves.

Not to worry though, when their economies die from their own kleptocracy, they blame it on the USA, and, President Obama flies down for an apology, having wrapped up his own uh, stimulus package...

Re:The problem with leftists

[Nick Ives]

How shocking, that, whenever you have a permanent class that decides how money is allocated, that they should allocate it to themselves.

That fact is central to socialism; anyone who claims to be socialist in order to gain support for such policies is a liar and a hypocrite.

Re:The problem with leftists

[drsquare]

Who are these 5% who have all of Norway's oil money?

Re:Where Will the Money Go? Pollution Concerns?

[idontgno]

Prior art alert! Honduras was the first banana republic, ca 1910.

Oh yes!

[fireheadca]

This makes me happy. Very happy.

I visited Uyuni in January

[Inauro]

And I can honestly say that the salt flats and high desert (parts of it are over 4700 meters above sea level) contain some of the most striking and beautiful natural landscape I have ever seen.

The local industry, if you want to call it that, revolves around tourism, but the local people sell salt from the flats throughout South America.

The area has seen "true industry" in the past, and the remnants of it can be viewed just outside of town in the form of a train graveyard. Rusting hulks of engines dating back to the 1900s scatter a trash strewn area several hundred square meters in size.

The high desert supports populations of llama, vicuna and several distinct species of flamingo at the various lagunas in the area.

While Bolivia may be a relatively poor country, the last thing this area needs is to be destroyed in the process of multinationals mining lithium.

The Trouble with Lithium

[ferespo]

Executive Summary
Lithium Ion batteries are rapidly becoming the technology of choice for the next generation of Electric Vehicles - Hybrid, Plug In Hybrid and Battery EVs. The automotive industry is committed increasingly to Electrified Vehicles to provide Sustainable Mobility in the next decade. LiIon is the preferred battery technology to power these vehicles.
To achieve required cuts in oil consumption, a significant percentage of the world automobile fleet of 1 billion vehicles must be electrified in the coming decade. Ultimately all production, currently 60 Million vehicles per year, will be replaced with highly electrified vehicles â" PHEVs and BEVs.
Analysis of Lithium's geological resource base shows that there is insufficient Lithium available in the Earth's crust to sustain Electric Vehicle manufacture in the volumes required, based solely on LiIon batteries.
Depletion rates would exceed current oil depletion rates and switch dependency from one diminishing resource to another. Concentration of supply would create new geopolitical tensions, not reduce them.
http://www.evworld.com/library/lithium_shortage.pdf

Re:Where Will the Money Go? Pollution Concerns?

[iluvcapra]

The Cold War is over, so being a communist is not grounds for immediate US intervention.

I wasn't aware it was "grounds" during the cold war. Being communist doesn't make you a Soviet ally, or even a material threat to the US or US interests. A state actually has to act for there to be grounds for anything...

The US regime with a tendency to interfere in other countries in support of corporate interests has recently been removed from power.

Ah, well, I guess we'll see, but Bay of Pigs was authorized by a Democrat, and a relatively sober, pragmatic center-leftist at that. same guy also escalated our involvement in Vietnam, and his successor and secretaries, all sober establishmentarians, prosecuted the vietnam war quite zealously. Eisenhower, a very serious, non-partisan, conservative-in-the-old-sense conservative, who warned us of the military-industrial complex, authorized the CIA-led overthrow of a center-left government in Guatemala and another CIA-inspired coup in Iran, over another left-socialist, but very nationalistic and non-communist/non-soviet government. US Imperialism cuts pretty deep into the establishment and is non-partisan, and even if Barack Obama is a good diplomat, he hasn't really challenged the assumptions of people who think America should still be first among equals, and simply presume that the US should take a leading role in, oh, pacifying Pakistan border areas, or Kashmir, or fighting for the rights of Tibetans, or the many other myriad things that sound nice and humanist and ideal, but in the end are just interventionist.

w00t! Go Bolivia!

[sgt scrub]

From a white powder economy to a um white pow...

Nevermind.

No wonder GM is going bankrupt!

[alkheliw]

Then we'll see an organization called OLEC (Organization of the Lithium Exporting Countries) just like OPEC to form a cartel and dictate prices. So computer manufactures will raise their prices too and the cheapest laptop you will get will be no less than $2000. SWEET! that is exactly what we need in this economy! Turki,

Batteries suck, make everything windup!!

[LeonardoDiCrappio]

If anyone steals my idea you owe me royalties.

What about the other alkali metals?

[NewtonsLaw]

Lithium is relatively unreactive, as far as the alkali metals go so I'm wondering how long before we shift from lithium to potassium or sodium?

Would this not significantly increase energy densities?

Sodium would be good -- there's lots of it in seawater so it would be far more abundant than lithium -- ie: lower priced batteries?

Re:Where Will the Money Go? Pollution Concerns?

[drsquare]

Any more of this socialist talk, and Bolivia won't be a democracy for very long, the US will install their own American-friendly dictator who'll understand the benefits of partnership with US mining corporations.

Where is James Bond?

[bussdriver]

That last Bond movie should have been about Lithium instead of privatizing water!

Most realistic Bond movie ever! Somebody who can actually READ must have written that film; as opposed to previous Bond toons - which could have been done by an illiterate adult virgin who watched too many cartoons and movies from the 50s.

Having slaughtered that sacred cow, I will say the old Bond-Toons have their place in entertainment. "The Bond Identity" movies are Bond in name only.

(Ok, I'm reaching here-- but ideas in the movie are new to many Americans. baby steps...)

Maybe Bolivia can manage better than the USA

[bussdriver]

The USA squandered many of its resources and doesn't manage the ones it has left properly either (including the exploited external resources the USA has had working control over for decades.)

The USA mismanaged so much that its no surprise other nations ignore their "advice."

I don't see it

[khallow]

I don't see why you'd think that. The only resource-related whining these days I've heard about, that could legitimately be hung on the US is its somewhat above average carbon emission per GDP. Compared to everyone else, the US does pretty well. Compared to a dysfunctional country like Bolivia, the US is a model of efficiency.

That strays from the real problem here. The economy of a country, the beating of its heart if you will, is far more than just managing resources well. While I consider the US to be in a state of decline, it still exhibits the traits that have made the US great. There still is a great deal of freedom both in thought and economic activity. There is a massive infrastructure (transportation, education, healthcare, law, etc) supporting each citizen and business. These matter far more than how efficiently the US manages, say its copper resources, plastics recycling, or somebody else's banana production (which incidentally is somebody else's responsibility). If an unskilled, dirt poor, Bolivian indian were transported to the US, their economic value would increase considerably even if they couldn't speak English or Spanish. That's not due to management of resources, but rather the US built a society where people are valuable while Bolivia did not.

One does not need to ape the US and its mistakes in order to learn how to make their society better. But it's foolhardy to claim, as you do above, that it is all about management of resources. Bolivia could manage its lithium production quite well and still remain a dive due to lack of investment in infrastructure.

Re:I don't see it

[bussdriver]

Don't throw stones when your windows are made of glass.

Resource management advice isn't something the USA has the credentials on. I figured I'd trigger flag wavers.

Re:I don't see it

[khallow]

Well, do you have something concrete to say, or is "triggering flag wavers" what you do?

Not true

[Staale Nordlie]

The Norwegian oil fields were first explored and developed by multinational corporations.

The Norwegian government was and is heavily involved in the Norwegian oil industry, but it never got "all of the profits" (as parent claims).

I suspect the fact that Britain has 13 times more people and smaller offshore oil reserves might just possibly have something to do with Norway benefiting more from its oil on a per capita basis.

Salt flats remain untouched

[Durkheim]

Having visited te salar of uyuni one month ago, I can assure whoever wrote the summary that the salt flats are not left untouched, but are already exploited. The lithium is extracted and then sent to Chile for processing.

Re:Where Will the Money Go? Pollution Concerns?

[Xarvh]

President Evo Morales is an Ayamara, an oppressed minority, and has won election supported by grassroot movements.
He's more Obama than Obama himself, and Bolivia's was a lesson in democracy we Westerners should take at heart.

Invade!

[Anonymous Coward]

Cue US invasion of a foreign country with valuable natural resources in 3...2...1...

Re:Where Will the Money Go? Pollution Concerns?

[BoothbyTCD]

Remember kids: It's not Democracy unless the side you agree with wins.

Not invalid

[bussdriver]

Point was not literally... ug

Gasoline takes a lot to refine and collect but it is cheap because the energy is free; you can't recycle anything - that is the problem. Duuuuh, right back at you?

Entirely devoid of value? Try that last line. google flow batteries and see how the things are in use and have losses around 90%. I bet that we expend at least 10% of oil just refining and transporting it as gas. Its related to your post on how batteries all suck; this is a battery that does not suck, but its not portable.

ok more literal:

Propane is fuel container exchange in use today. not a new idea.

Batteries are different and have their downsides; but they are sustainable and if we replace them like we do propane tanks we can use them without inventing the super battery; plus lower initial costs for introduction and upgrades. I'd rather SWAP my "tank" all the time than have a combustion engine.

Re:Where Will the Money Go? Pollution Concerns?

[khallow]

President Evo Morales of Bolivia is many things, but "bullshit dictator" he is not. He was democratically elected in 2005, and won a recall election in 2008 by a two-thirds majority. The Bolivian government has been a democracy since the 1980's.

How about his successor? The thing about incompetent leaders especially in South America is that they're often followed by dictators.