The world needs lithium. Can Bolivia’s new president deliver it?

TAKING THE LI OUT OF BOLIVIA Maddie Stone, Grist: Last year, when former Bolivian president Evo Morales was forced to resign, it was unclear whether the socialist leader’s dream of transforming his country into a powerhouse lithium producer would survive. Last month, the world got its answer when Bolivians overwhelmingly voted to elect Luis Arce, the candidate representing the…

Bolivia’s lithium bonanza

BBC reports, listen by clicking the photo: The Salar de Uyuni is a stunning pristine salt flat high in the Andes – it is also the world’s biggest lithium deposit, worth many billions of dollars. Ed Butler asks whether this as yet untapped resource will prove a blessing or a curse for the people of…

The lithium race – La carrera del litio

Humberto Vacaflor writes in El Diario: The lithium race The government of the coca grower Morales took ten years in the Uyuni lithium exploitation project and allocated 800 million dollars to carry it out, but Bolivia has not even entered the competition, where Chile and Argentina are first. The country with the largest salt flat…

Exclusive: Bolivia’s new lithium tsar says country should go it alone

Adam Jourdan reports for Reuters: LA PAZ (Reuters) – The new chief of Bolivia’s state-owned lithium company YLB plans strict limits on foreign investment in extraction and processing of the white metal key to electric vehicle batteries, he told Reuters in his first interview with international media since taking the reins this month. Juan Carlos…