FUTURE ENERGY - LITHIUM:Bolivia's socialist government has a habit of clashing with foreign multinationals in other industrial sectors
STAND IN the middle of Salar de Uyuni, the world's greatest salt desert, and the first word that springs to mind is "nothing". As far as the eye can see, nothing. Not a shrub or tree, not a hill or valley, just an endless expanse of white.
This salt flat in Bolivia, the landlocked heart of South America, is a harsh and eerie landscape, perhaps the closest thing nature has to a void. From the Incas to the present day, humanity has made little impression here.
But that may be about to change. Dig down and you find brine - salty water - which is rich in deposits of lithium, the lightest metal.
As the invention of the pneumatic tyre turned rubber into a precious commodity in the 19th century, the world's tilt towards greener energy is expected to do the same for lithium in the 21st. For years, tiny amounts have been used in laptops, BlackBerrys and other devices, but now its main use is expected to be for batteries in electric cars, which campaigners, manufacturers and governments say will - or should - replace petrol and diesel vehicles.
For Bolivia, this is good news. It is thought to possess 5.4 million tonnes of lithium, half the world's supply. "Lithium is very important for us and the world," Bolivia's mining and metallurgy minister, Luis Alberto Echazu, has said.
"We hope to extract 1,200 tonnes next year, and that's just the beginning. When we're up and running we'll be producing 10, 15 times that." Four wells have been dug in Salar de Uyuni, and a state-run pilot plant is being built near the village of Rio Grande on the fringe of the desert.
But there is a problem. Bolivia's socialist government has a habit of clashing with foreign multinationals in other industrial sectors, and has not clinched a deal - and, according to some, may never seal one - with the investors needed to extract large amounts of lithium.
Foreign companies are afraid to deal with a government that confiscates assets and rips up contracts, says Carlos Alberto Lopez, a former energy minister and consultant with Cambridge Energy Research Associates. "Bolivia's ideological face does not square with business and commercial realities. I doubt lithium's potential will be realised in the short or medium term." Pessimists fear a fiasco: carmakers lacking batteries to power electric vehicles, and Bolivia, one of the continent's poorest countries, losing an opportunity to develop.
President Evo Morales, a former trade union leader, has a different fear: that western multinationals will suck the wealth of Salar de Uyuni like capitalist vampires.
Morales swept to power in 2005 promising to end 500 years of plunder. Lithium is a test case. "The government of Bolivia will never give away control of this natural resource," he said. He acknowledges, however, that a foreign partner is needed. The government is talking to France's Bollore Group, South Korea's LG Group and Japan's Sumitomo and Mitsubishi. Bollore has been asked to join the government's scientific commission on lithium, suggesting it has the edge.
The government said it would choose as a partner the company which will help Bolivian industry, not just mining. The idea is to add value to the lithium after extraction, for instance by making batteries or even fleets of electric cars in the impoverished country.
The $6 million (€4.26 million) state-run pilot plant near Rio Grande is the first step. At the end of a dirt track, dozens of workers are building barracks to house technicians and miners. Over a generator's hum, the site manager, Marcelo Castro (48), exudes patriotic pride. "We are building everything from scratch. This is a historic moment. We are working for ourselves." Rich countries would no longer plunder Bolivia's resources. "There is a new dialectic," he says.
But sceptics say such ideas are mere delirium. Work at the pilot plant has proved slow, talks with multinationals remain inconclusive and there is no production timetable.
The 2006 nationalisation of the oil and gas industry is a troubling precedent. Foreign investment evaporated, production fell and state-owned energy company YPFB became mired in corruption. "The trustworthiness of the Bolivian state has come into question," says Lopez, "and I don't think investors will expose themselves to being hammered on the head."
Time will tell. With a lithium shortage forecast for 2015, Bolivia may have the upper hand. "We have had bad experiences in the past," said Paulino Colque, leader of workers' group, Uyuni. "If there are any investors that want to come, they can come - but as partners, not patrons."
- Guardian service
