Drought, not lithium mining, is drying out Chile’s largest salt flat

Lithium mining has been blamed for the drying out of a area within the Andes the place the steel is of course discovered – however drought stands out as the wrongdoer as a substitute

By James Dinneen

Lithium manufacturing is usually blamed for drying up freshwater in South America’s “Lithium Triangle” – a area of the Andes mountains in Chile, Argentina and Bolivia that accommodates a lot of the world’s lithium reserves. However a protracted drought might be behind a lot of the drying.

As a key element in batteries, lithium is important to transitioning away from fossil fuels. Demand for the tender, white steel is projected to extend by as a lot …