The Bolivian Lithium Bonanza
Evo Morales, much to the consternation of the Americans is determined to assert the rights of the indigenous peoples of Bolivia. His country’s mineral wealth and largely unexploited resources have long been eyed by the international business community with hand-rubbing glee. But they’re not going to get at them so easily, because Mr Morales is (gasp… shock! Horror!) a socialist.
He believes that Bolivia’s resources should benefit Bolivia. Despite the appallingly naïve trash you made have gleaned from the latest James Bond movie, or the opinions of international business, this is no disaster. I was lucky enough to be in Bolivia a few months after he won. It hummed with excitement and hope. And it needs hope. Hope and money. Lots of money. And they might just get it.
It seems that an otherwise useless-seeming stretch of salt-flat is just brimming over with Lithium. ‘So what?’, you might ask.
Well, engineers have recently developed fast-charging, lightweight batteries that might power everything from cars to mobile phones. Tech that means that the energy lost in translation between generation and hydrogen manufacture might not be lost. Technology that ties in well with KTM’s new electric dirtbike. The Tesla roadster. A billion gadgets here there and everywhere are going to require lithium ion batteries.
Bolivia is the poorest country in South America. Evo Morales is willing to let foreign companies come in to utilise the resource, but not in the standard way that global business is expecting. The history of Bolivia, and South America in general for that matter, is little but a lesson in exploitation. To this day the products of the labour (usually subject to horrendous conditions) and resources of much of South America line no pockets but those that exist between Armani suit cloth and white flesh. Not this time. Morales insists that if the companies looking to invest in the exploitation of the Lithium are going to get their hands on it, Bolivia must benefit. If you are going to use it to make batteries, he wants you to make them in Bolivia. If you are going to use it to build cars, Morales wants the cars to be made in Bolivia. For jobs, you see, and investment, and development, and to improve the standard of living of the people, instead of just letting the claws sink into the earth and the people and just tear away.
In other words, he’s doing what we’d do. I applaud him (with a nod towards the ever-present spectre of disappointment that hovers in my peripheral vision whenever I think anything positive about those who desire power).
The French car manufacturer talking to him yesterday told him that Bolivia was the new Saudi Arabia. Maybe., but we should never forget that whereas Bolivia is a democratic republic with a socialist president, Saudi Arabia is a monarchy saturated by religion. I know which one I’d pick to give all our money to this time.