Julio Villarroel, Department of Petroleum Engineering, UT-Austin

"Extracting Lithium: Brine lakes in the high desert, flamingos, and the future of electric vehicles"

Abstract: The world is moving towards a future in which we use much less oil and gas. This means that cars and trucks will run on electricity, and given current technology that means lithiumion batteries. The demand for lithium is exponentially increasing. By 2030, the demand for lithium carbonate is expected to increase by 3.5 times, from 600 K metric tons/year today to over 2.1 M metric tons/year. Most of this resource comes from the Salars (a term coined in this industry for Salt pans in high altitude basins), of the Andes of Western South America. It comes from what is popularly known as the Lithium ABC Triangle: Argentina, Bolivia and Chile. A 2022 USGS report describes Bolivia as the Saudi Arabia of Lithium with the highest reserves of lithium in the world. I will describe the vast desert lakes from which we obtain lithium, the research questions this implies, and the threats developing to ecosystems, including populations of flamingos living at high altitudes.