The rise of green tech is feeding another environmental crisis

Raquel Celina Rodriguez watches her step as she walks throughout the Vega de Tilopozo in Chile’s Atacama salt flats.

It is a wetland, recognized for its groundwater springs, however the plain is now dry and cracked with holes she explains had been as soon as swimming pools.

“Earlier than, the Vega was all inexperienced,” she says. “You could not see the animals by way of the grass. Now every thing is dry.” She gestures to some grazing llamas.

For generations, her household raised sheep right here. Because the local weather modified, and rain stopped falling, much less grass made that a lot tougher.

Nevertheless it worsened when “they” began taking the water, she explains.

“They” are lithium corporations. Beneath the salt flats of the Atacama Desert lie the world’s largest reserves of lithium, a tender, silvery-white metallic that’s a vital part of the batteries that energy electrical vehicles, laptops and photo voltaic power storage.

Because the world transitions to extra renewable power sources, the demand for it has soared.

In 2021, about 95,000 tonnes of lithium was consumed globally – by 2024 it had greater than doubled to 205,000 tonnes, in line with the Worldwide Vitality Company (IEA).

By 2040 it is predicted to rise to greater than 900,000 tonnes.

A lot of the improve can be pushed by demand for electrical automobile batteries, the IEA says.

Locals say environmental prices to them have risen too.

So, this hovering demand has raised the query: is the world’s race to decarbonise unintentionally stoking one other environmental drawback?

Chile is the second-largest producer of lithium globally after Australia. In 2023, the federal government launched a Nationwide Lithium Technique to ramp up manufacturing by way of partly nationalising the business and inspiring personal funding.

Its finance minister beforehand mentioned the rise in manufacturing might be by as much as 70% by 2030, though the mining ministry says no goal has been set.

This 12 months, a serious milestone to that’s set to be reached.

A deliberate joint enterprise between SQM and Chile’s state mining firm Codelco has simply secured regulatory approval for a quota to extract not less than 2.5 million metric tonnes of lithium metallic equal per 12 months and increase manufacturing till 2060.

Chile’s authorities has framed the plans as a part of the worldwide battle towards local weather change and a supply of state revenue.

Mining corporations predominantly extract lithium by pumping brine from beneath Chile’s salt flats to evaporation swimming pools on the floor.

The method extracts huge quantities of water on this already drought-prone area.

Faviola Gonzalez is a biologist from the native indigenous group working within the Los Flamencos Nationwide Reserve, in the course of the Atacama Desert, dwelling to huge salt flats, marshes and lagoons and a few 185 species of birds. She has monitored how the native setting is altering.

“The lagoons listed here are smaller now,” she says. “We have seen a lower within the replica of flamingos.”

She mentioned lithium mining impacts microorganisms that birds feed on in these waters, so the entire meals chain is affected.

She factors to a spot the place, for the primary time in 14 years, flamingo chicks hatched this 12 months. She attributes the “small reproductive success” to a slight discount in water extraction in 2021, however says, “It is small.”

“Earlier than there have been many. Now, just a few.”

The underground water from the Andes, wealthy in minerals, is “very previous” and replenishes slowly.

“If we’re extracting a variety of water and little is coming into, there may be little to recharge the Salar de Atacama,” she explains.

Injury to flora has additionally been present in some areas. On property within the salt flats, mined by the Chilean firm SQM, nearly one-third of the native “algarrobo” (or carob) bushes had began dying as early as 2013 as a result of impacts of mining, in line with a report printed in 2022 by the US-based Nationwide Sources Protection Council.

However the difficulty extends past Chile too. In a report for the US-based Nationwide Sources Protection Council in 2022, James J. A. Blair, an assistant professor at California State Polytechnic College, wrote that lithium mining is “contributing to situations of ecological exhaustion”, and “might lower freshwater availability for wildlife in addition to people”.

He did, nonetheless, say that it’s troublesome to seek out “definitive” proof on this matter.

Environmental injury is after all inevitable in the case of mining. “It is laborious to think about any form of mining that doesn’t have a unfavourable impression,” says Karen Smith Stegen, a political science professor in Germany, who research the impacts of lithium mining internationally.

The difficulty is that mining corporations can take steps to mitigate that injury. “What [mining companies] ought to have accomplished from the very starting was to contain these communities,” she says.

For instance, earlier than pumping lithium from underground, corporations may perform “social impression assessments” – critiques which take note of the broad impression their work can have on water, wildlife, and communities.

For his or her half, mining corporations now say they’re listening. The Chilean agency SQM is likely one of the predominant gamers.

At one in every of their crops in Antofagasta, Valentín Barrera, Deputy Supervisor of Sustainability at SQM Lithium, says the agency is working intently with communities to “perceive their considerations” and finishing up environmental impression assessments.

He feels strongly that in Chile and globally “we want extra lithium for the power transition.”

He provides that the agency is piloting new applied sciences. If profitable, the thought is to roll these out of their Salar de Atacama crops.

These embody each extracting lithium straight from brine, with out evaporation swimming pools, and applied sciences to seize evaporated water and re-inject it into the land.

“We’re doing a number of pilots to know which one works higher so as to improve manufacturing however cut back not less than 50% of the present brine extraction,” he mentioned.

He says the pilot in Antofagasta has recovered “a couple of million cubic metres” of water. “Beginning in 2031, we’re going to begin this transition.”

However the locals I spoke to are sceptical. “We consider the Salar de Atacama is like an experiment,” Faviola argues.

She says it is unknown how the salt flats may “resist” this new expertise and the reinjection of water and fears they’re getting used as a “pure laboratory.”

Sara Plaza, whose household additionally raised animals in the identical group as Raquel, is anxious in regards to the adjustments she has seen in her lifetime.

She remembers water ranges dropping from as early as 2005 however says “the mining corporations by no means stopped extracting.”

Sara turns into tearful when she speaks in regards to the future.

“The salt flats produce lithium, however at some point it should finish. Mining will finish. And what are the individuals right here going to do? With out water, with out agriculture. What are they going to stay on?”

“Perhaps I will not see it due to my age, however our youngsters, our grandchildren will.”

She believes mining corporations have extracted an excessive amount of water from an ecosystem already struggling from local weather change.

“It’s totally painful,” she provides. “The businesses give the group just a little cash, however I might want no cash.

“I might want to stay off nature and have water to stay.”

Sergio Cubillos is head of the affiliation for the Peine group, the place Sara and Raquel stay.

He says Peine has been pressured to alter “our complete consuming water system, electrical system, water remedy system” due to water shortages.

“There’s the difficulty of local weather change, that it would not rain anymore, however the principle impression has been attributable to extractive mining,” he says.

He says because it began within the Eighties, corporations have extracted hundreds of thousands of cubic metres of water and brine – a whole lot of litres per second.

“Selections are made in Santiago, within the capital, very removed from right here,” he provides.

He believes that if the President desires to battle local weather change, like he mentioned when he ran for workplace, he must contain “the indigenous individuals who have existed for millennia in these landscapes.”

Sergio understands that lithium is essential for transitioning to renewable power however says his group shouldn’t be the “bargaining chip” in these developments.

His group has secured some financial advantages and oversight with corporations however is apprehensive about plans to ramp up manufacturing.

He says whereas searching for applied sciences to scale back the impression on water is welcome that “cannot be accomplished sitting at a desk in Santiago, however somewhat right here within the territory.”

Chile’s authorities stresses there was “ongoing dialogue with indigenous communities” and so they have been consulted over the brand new Codelco-SQM three way partnership’s contracts to deal with considerations round water points, new applied sciences and contributions to the communities.

It says growing manufacturing capability can be primarily based on incorporating new applied sciences to minimise the environmental and social impression and that the excessive “worth” of lithium as a result of its function within the world power transition may present “alternatives” for the nation’s financial improvement.

Sergio although worries about their space being a “pilot undertaking” and says if the impression of recent expertise is unfavourable, “We’ll put all our energy into stopping the exercise that would finish with Peine being forgotten.”

The Salar de Atacama is a case research for a world dilemma. Local weather change is inflicting droughts and climate adjustments. However one of many world’s present options is – in line with locals – exacerbating this.

There’s a frequent argument from individuals who assist lithium mining: that even when it damages the setting, it brings big advantages through jobs and money.

Daniel Jimenez, from lithium consultancy iLiMarkets, in Santiago, takes this argument a step additional.

He claims that environmental injury has been exaggerated by communities who desire a pay-out.

“That is about cash,” he argues. “Corporations have poured some huge cash into enhancing roads, colleges – however the claims of communities actually return to the actual fact they need cash.”

However Prof Stegen is unconvinced. “Mining corporations at all times prefer to say, ‘There are extra jobs, you are going to get more cash’,” she says.

“Nicely, that is not significantly what a variety of indigenous communities need. It truly might be disruptive if it adjustments the construction of their very own conventional financial system [and] it impacts their housing prices.

“The roles are usually not the be all and finish all for what these communities need.”

In Chile, these I spoke to did not discuss wanting more cash. Nor are they against measures to deal with local weather change. Their predominant query is why they’re paying the worth.

“I believe for the cities possibly lithium is nice,” Raquel says. “Nevertheless it additionally harms us. We do not stay the life we used to stay right here.”

Faviola doesn’t suppose electrifying alone is the answer to local weather change.

“All of us should cut back our emissions,” she says. “In developed international locations just like the US and Europe the power expenditure of individuals is far larger than right here in South America, amongst us indigenous individuals.”

“Who’re the electrical vehicles going to be for? Europeans, People, not us. Our carbon footprint is far smaller.”

“Nevertheless it’s our water that is being taken. Our sacred birds which might be disappearing.”

High picture credit score: Getty Photographs. Further reporting: George Wright

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