Metal deposits may be key to green car revolution but government in La Paz yet to agree dealStand in the middle of Salar de Uyuni, the world's greatest salt desert, and the first word that springs to mind is nothing. As far as the eye can see, nothing. Not a shrub or tree, not a hill or valley, just an endless expanse of white.This salt flat in Bolivia, the landlocked heart of South America, is a harsh and eerie landscape, perhaps the closest thing nature has to a void. From the Incas to the present day, humanity has made little impression here.But that may be about to change. Dig down and you find brine - water saturated with salt - rich in deposits of lithium, the lightest metal.
Stand in the middle of Salar de Uyuni, the world's greatest salt desert, and the first word that springs to mind is nothing. As far as the eye can see, nothing. Not a shrub or tree, not a hill or valley, just an endless expanse of white.
This salt flat in Bolivia, the landlocked heart of South America, is a harsh and eerie landscape, perhaps the closest thing nature has to a void. From the Incas to the present day, humanity has made little impression here.
But that may be about to change. Dig down and you find brine - water saturated with salt - rich in deposits of lithium, the lightest metal.
Foreign companies are afraid to deal with a government that confiscates assets and rips up contracts, said Carlos Alberto López, a former energy minister and consultant with Cambridge Energy Research Associates. "Bolivia's ideological face does not square with business and commercial realities. I doubt lithium's potential will be realised in the short or medium term." Pessimists fear a fiasco: carmakers lacking batteries to power electric vehicles and Bolivia, one of the continent's poorest countries, losing an opportunity to develop. President Evo Morales, a former llama herder and trade union leader, has a different fear: that western multinationals will suck the wealth of Salar de Uyuni like capitalist vampires. Morales swept to power in 2005 promising to end 500 years of plunder. Lithium is a test case. "The government of Bolivia will never give away control of this natural resource," he said. He acknowledges, however, that a foreign partner is needed.The government is talking to France's Bollore Group, South Korea's LG Group and Japan's Sumitomo and Mitsubishi. Bollore has been asked to join the government's scientific commission on lithium, suggesting it has the edge.The government said it would choose as a partner the company which will help Bolivian industry and not just mining. The idea is to process and add value to the lithium after it is extracted, for instance by making batteries or even fleets of electric cars in the impoverished country. The $6m (£3.6m) state-run pilot plant near Rio Grande is the first step. At the end of a dirt track dozens of workers are building barracks to house technicians and miners. Over a generator's hum Marcelo Castro, 48, the site manager, exuded patriotic pride. "We are building everything from scratch. This is a historic moment. We are working for ourselves." Rich countries would no longer plunder Bolivia's resources. "There is a new dialectic."
Foreign companies are afraid to deal with a government that confiscates assets and rips up contracts, said Carlos Alberto López, a former energy minister and consultant with Cambridge Energy Research Associates. "Bolivia's ideological face does not square with business and commercial realities. I doubt lithium's potential will be realised in the short or medium term." Pessimists fear a fiasco: carmakers lacking batteries to power electric vehicles and Bolivia, one of the continent's poorest countries, losing an opportunity to develop. President Evo Morales, a former llama herder and trade union leader, has a different fear: that western multinationals will suck the wealth of Salar de Uyuni like capitalist vampires. Morales swept to power in 2005 promising to end 500 years of plunder. Lithium is a test case. "The government of Bolivia will never give away control of this natural resource," he said. He acknowledges, however, that a foreign partner is needed.
The government is talking to France's Bollore Group, South Korea's LG Group and Japan's Sumitomo and Mitsubishi. Bollore has been asked to join the government's scientific commission on lithium, suggesting it has the edge.
The government said it would choose as a partner the company which will help Bolivian industry and not just mining. The idea is to process and add value to the lithium after it is extracted, for instance by making batteries or even fleets of electric cars in the impoverished country. The $6m (£3.6m) state-run pilot plant near Rio Grande is the first step. At the end of a dirt track dozens of workers are building barracks to house technicians and miners. Over a generator's hum Marcelo Castro, 48, the site manager, exuded patriotic pride. "We are building everything from scratch. This is a historic moment. We are working for ourselves." Rich countries would no longer plunder Bolivia's resources. "There is a new dialectic."
Their new Constitution is very strong and their mass support is also strong. Bolivia is happy to get let multinationals agree to their terms or fuck off. I like it.
The foreign multinationals venting about Bolivia not putting out easy remind me of predatory frat boys grousing about that a girl who doesn't want to get drunk at their frat house must be a lesbian. Meanwhile Fox News is running with this jaw dropper of a study from the Open Source Center (OSC) of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence: There are only 1,000 Muslims in Bolivia, a country of 9.7 million people, but the connection between some of the community's religious leaders and Iran -- as well as with fundamentalist factions in the Palestinian territories -- has U.S. officials and terror experts keeping a watchful eye on them. The report revealed a number of Muslim organizations in Bolivia whose leaders have publicly denounced U.S. foreign policy and have direct associations with extremists in the Middle East. If you go through the article, the criteria for a Bolivian muslim being "linked to extremists" is pretty hilariously thin. One "suspect" has "voiced support for the Palestinian cause", another charitable organization is affiliated with a branch that was "raided by the FBI in the aftermath of 9/11". All the canards of guilt by association are on full display in this one. Its pretty hilarious that the American right is so alarmed by little Evo Morales and his tiny country that they're trying to drag them into the international war against Islam. We have always been at war with Oceana I guess.
The foreign multinationals venting about Bolivia not putting out easy remind me of predatory frat boys grousing about that a girl who doesn't want to get drunk at their frat house must be a lesbian.
Meanwhile Fox News is running with this jaw dropper of a study from the Open Source Center (OSC) of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence:
There are only 1,000 Muslims in Bolivia, a country of 9.7 million people, but the connection between some of the community's religious leaders and Iran -- as well as with fundamentalist factions in the Palestinian territories -- has U.S. officials and terror experts keeping a watchful eye on them. The report revealed a number of Muslim organizations in Bolivia whose leaders have publicly denounced U.S. foreign policy and have direct associations with extremists in the Middle East.
There are only 1,000 Muslims in Bolivia, a country of 9.7 million people, but the connection between some of the community's religious leaders and Iran -- as well as with fundamentalist factions in the Palestinian territories -- has U.S. officials and terror experts keeping a watchful eye on them.
The report revealed a number of Muslim organizations in Bolivia whose leaders have publicly denounced U.S. foreign policy and have direct associations with extremists in the Middle East.
If you go through the article, the criteria for a Bolivian muslim being "linked to extremists" is pretty hilariously thin. One "suspect" has "voiced support for the Palestinian cause", another charitable organization is affiliated with a branch that was "raided by the FBI in the aftermath of 9/11". All the canards of guilt by association are on full display in this one.
Its pretty hilarious that the American right is so alarmed by little Evo Morales and his tiny country that they're trying to drag them into the international war against Islam. We have always been at war with Oceana I guess.
