The fresh water necessary to extract lithium decreases in the “Lithium Triangle” in the world, which is a mineral rich area in the Andes plateau that extends across parts of Argentina, Bolivia and Chile and contains more than Half of all global lithium reserves.
in The study was published last week In Communications Earth and Environment, the researchers found that the amount of fresh water available locally to extract lithium is about 10 times less than previous estimates. World Lithium demand, which is It is expected to grow By 40 times by 2040, the limited annual rain that supplies fresh water to the arid lithium triangle can outperform.
The authors of the paper urged the lithium industry to reduce the use of fresh water and avoid disrupting mining operations, which depend heavily on the availability of fresh water, and consume up to up to 500,000 gallons of water To extract one ton of lithium. In the lithium triangle, fresh water also supports agriculture for small societies of indigenous population and maintains wetlands that are home to the short -cinema, wild colors and pink flamingo species that have not been found anywhere else in the world.
“Water is the most important supplier in these systems, and it is part of the most sensitive system for change,” said David Pot, author of the newspaper and professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Massachusetts-Ammest. “I am optimistic that through research and development, companies can be more efficient in water, especially when driving the market.”
While water drives life and industry in the triangle, lithium is crucial to the global organizational impulsion of electricity and the growth of clean technology industries. The metal is an essential component of batteries that operate electric cars and store the energy resulting from renewable sources such as solar panels and air mills.
The need for lithium batteries is expected to require quadruple by 2030, according to International Energy Agency. Some industry experts are concerned that companies will not be able to meet the increasing demand, as lithium mines face delay and long measures to make mines at the top of issues related to resources availability.
“We need more lithium sources to access the Internet to meet the demand that we will see by 2030,” said Michael McKiben, a professor of geology at the University of California, Riferside. “Metal extraction is a slow and boring process. For this reason, the prices are very volatile – the demand rises, but the supply cannot respond immediately.”
In the lithium triangle, fresh water plays a decisive role in determining the supply of lithium for mining. Lithium rain and other minerals are washed from rock formations to deep ponds carved in the flat end of the Andes. This process, which occurs over millions of years, creates lakes filled with water -rich water.
Mining companies extract lithium liquid from lakes and focus minerals with evaporation methods – which use the abundant fresh water derived from nearby groundwater layers. The levels of water in this groundwater layer depend on the annual rain, which can bring at least 20 millimeters of rainfall (0.8 inches) in some parts of the lithium triangle.
Bot says that the limited meteorology data is a lack of weather stations in the remote Andes plateau, which made it difficult to capture the fresh water that actually flows into these lakes rich in lithium and the surrounding areas. He added that the widespread global hydrological models that depend on these sporadic data may exaggerate greatly in estimating fresh water supplies in the region.
The model developed by Boutt and his team looked at fresh water in 28 different water gatherings through the Lithium Triangle, drawing from field notes as well as national meteorological data and mining industry reports. Boutt says it provides a more complete picture of fresh water flow in the lehium -rich area.
Research on water and resources for lithium mining processes have a long way. In the United States, mining operations were in the country’s only lithium mine in Silver Beck, Nevada, The subject of criticism To pump important and long fresh water into the area that is often attached to dryness.
There must be more research on hydrology in lehium -rich regions around the world.
She said: “In addition to the amount of lithium water mines, we also need to check the entire supply chain for lehium and think about ingredients such as chemotherapy and transportation.” “Understanding the Lithium triangle will help us understand other systems worldwide.”
This article was originally published on NBCNEWS.com
