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 means 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.

But it surely 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 smooth, silvery-white metallic that’s a vital part of the batteries that energy electrical automobiles, 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 response to the Worldwide Power Company (IEA).

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

A lot of the improve will probably 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 means of partly nationalising the trade and inspiring personal funding.

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

This yr, 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 at the very least 2.5 million metric tonnes of lithium metallic equal per yr and increase manufacturing till 2060.

Chile’s authorities has framed the plans as a part of the worldwide combat in opposition to local weather change and a supply of state earnings.

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 neighborhood working within the Los Flamencos Nationwide Reserve, in the midst of the Atacama Desert, residence to huge salt flats, marshes and lagoons and a few 185 species of birds. She has monitored how the native atmosphere is altering.

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

She stated 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 yr. 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, only some.”

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

“If we’re extracting lots of water and little is getting into, there’s 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) timber had began dying as early as 2013 as a result of impacts of mining, in response to a report revealed in 2022 by the US-based Nationwide Assets Protection Council.

However the challenge extends past Chile too. In a report for the US-based Nationwide Assets 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 “could lower freshwater availability for natural world in addition to people”.

He did, nevertheless, say that it’s troublesome to search out “definitive” proof on this subject.

Environmental harm is after all inevitable on the subject of mining. “It is arduous to think about any sort of mining that doesn’t have a detrimental impression,” says Karen Smith Stegen, a political science professor in Germany, who research the impacts of lithium mining the world over.

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

For instance, earlier than pumping lithium from underground, corporations might perform “social impression assessments” – opinions which bear in mind the broad impression their work may have on water, wildlife, and communities.

For his or her half, mining corporations now say they’re listening. The Chilean agency SQM is without doubt one of the essential gamers.

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

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

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

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 grasp which one works higher in an effort to improve manufacturing however cut back at the very least 50% of the present brine extraction,” he stated.

He says the pilot in Antofagasta has recovered “multiple 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 might “resist” this new know-how 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 neighborhood as Raquel, is anxious concerning 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 concerning the future.

“The salt flats produce lithium, however at some point it would 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 reside on?”

“Possibly 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 neighborhood somewhat cash, however I would want no cash.

“I would want to reside off nature and have water to reside.”

Sergio Cubillos is head of the affiliation for the Peine neighborhood, the place Sara and Raquel reside.

He says Peine has been pressured to vary “our whole ingesting water system, electrical system, water therapy system” due to water shortages.

“There may be the problem of local weather change, that it would not rain anymore, however the primary impression has been attributable to extractive mining,” he says.

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

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

He believes that if the President desires to combat local weather change, like he stated 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 neighborhood shouldn’t be the “bargaining chip” in these developments.

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

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

Chile’s authorities stresses there was “ongoing dialogue with indigenous communities” they usually 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 will probably be primarily based on incorporating new applied sciences to minimise the environmental and social impression and that the excessive “worth” of lithium resulting from its function within the international power transition might present “alternatives” for the nation’s financial growth.

Sergio although worries about their space being a “pilot undertaking” and says if the impression of recent know-how is detrimental, “We are going to put all our power into stopping the exercise that might 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 response to locals – exacerbating this.

There’s a frequent argument from individuals who help lithium mining: that even when it damages the atmosphere, it brings big advantages by way of jobs and money.

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

He claims that environmental harm has been exaggerated by communities who need a pay-out.

“That is about cash,” he argues. “Corporations have poured some huge cash into bettering 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 wish to say, ‘There are extra jobs, you are going to get extra money’,” she says.

“Nicely, that is not notably what lots of indigenous communities need. It really may be disruptive if it adjustments the construction of their very own conventional economic system [and] it impacts their housing prices.

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

In Chile, these I spoke to did not discuss wanting extra money. Nor are they against measures to deal with local weather change. Their essential query is why they’re paying the value.

“I believe for the cities possibly lithium is nice,” Raquel says. “But it surely additionally harms us. We do not reside the life we used to reside 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 nations just like the US and Europe the power expenditure of individuals is way larger than right here in South America, amongst us indigenous individuals.”

“Who’re the electrical automobiles going to be for? Europeans, Individuals, not us. Our carbon footprint is way smaller.”

“But it surely’s our water that is being taken. Our sacred birds which can be disappearing.”

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

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