The 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry honored American John Goodenough, British Stanley Whittingham and Japanese Akira Yoshino for creating a sick person who is the soul of smartphones and electric cars around the world. “In the current context of the climate emergency, this invention has brought great benefits to humanity,” the jury said. “Our daily life depends on the lithium-ion battery, whether it’s mobile phone, computer, hybrid car or electric.”

Indian intellectual and activist Vijay Prashad has published in the journal of the left Counterpunch the analysis “After Evo, the issue of lithium has a long shadow in Bolivia”, relating the new metal that is worth gold to the coup of fascism. According to Prashad, in recent years Bolivia has sought to attract investments to exploit its lithium reserves so that the benefits of these reserves are withheld. Morales’ vice president, Álvaro García Linera, said lithium will be “the fuel that moves the world.” In other words, Bolivia possessed three-quarters of the well-known lithium reserves of the entire planet with sufficient wealth to lift its country out of poverty if it placed strict conditions on its exploitation.

Lehendakari Morales pointed out that foreigners who wanted to participate in the lithium business should do so with the Bolivian mining company Comibol and with Bolivian Lithium Deposits (YLB). Morales’ government suspended contracts with most major mining corporations such as Glencore, Jindal Steel & Power, Anglo-Argentine Pan American Energy and Trimetals Mining. Due to these nationalization policies, but also to the technical problems of exploiting lithium reserves in Bolivia, they were forced to abandon the French Eramet, the American FMC and the South Korean Posco, who went to Argentina for lithium. Exceptionally, in the last year of Morales' mandate, the agreement was signed with the German ACI System to exploit lithium in the Salar region of Uyumi, but a week before Morales resigned, the indignation of the citizens and the hostilities made him desist.

The Bolivians agreed with Chinese companies on business conditions that Western companies could not agree on and could not agree with. In Prashad’s analysis, “With this Morales risked putting his nose into the new Cold War carried by the West and China. The coup against Morales cannot be understood without taking into account that clash.” China Machinery Engineering signed new deals with YLB. Tianqi Lithium Group, already working in Argentina, was also going to start working with YLB. “The major mining multinationals – Vijay Prashad- concluded – could not accept a new social pact for the lithium procurement business. Both Tesla EE.UU. as Pure Energy Minerals (Canada) were keen to intervene in Bolivian lithium. After the coup, Tesla’s actions rose at full speed.”

The desert had a treasure

The left-wing digital journal Marca Abya Yala has analyzed the geopolitical knots in this confluent region of Chile, Argentina, Peru and Bolivia, known so far as the lithium triangle, in the detailed analysis of the “Geopolitics of the coup in Bolivia: lithium, gas, water and the ocean corridor”. In essence, in these triangular deserts, there are 85 percent of all the world's lithium reserves. Chile is today the country that exports the most, but the biggest reserve is Bolivia, which has almost 70% of the world on the dry lake Salar de Uyuni, 21 million toneladas.Dado that the world's largest battery producers and its main car consumers are the ones looking for, the ton of lithium carbonate in China has come to pay 13,000 dollars. Some experts say that the battery market will triple until 2025.

A precious metal has recently been found in Peru and the square of lithium has begun to be cited more than the triangle. Although throughout history they have disguised themselves as nationalism, these countries have had more than one war basically for natural resources. These tensions for the future could grow again, according to Brand Abya Yala analysis. The confrontation fronts in Libya are still open today. For example, Chile and Bolivia have led the International Court of Justice to discuss the waters of the Silala River in the North Atlantic. Bolivia continues to demand Chile ' s access to the Pacific in a dispute that lasts more than a hundred years. But the United States controls everyone's movements very closely and from above.

If the Yankees already had military bases in Paraguay, Chile and Peru, Mauricio Macri approved in 2018 the construction of four new armies in Argentina, one of them in the city of Neuquén, near the area of Vaca Muertos, where lithium is being exploited. As the Financial Times, one of the most beloved newspapers of neoliberals, put in the title of May 2018, “The geopolitics of electric cars will be a scandal.” According to Henry Sanderson, “oil has been of great importance in the geopolitics of the last 100 years, leading the Western powers to an unfortunate dependence on the Middle East. But it is wrong to believe that in a future dominated by renewable energies, geopolitical tensions are going to disappear as a miracle. Like windmills, lithium ion batteries need a lot of raw material that comes from countries that are blessed or cursed for their content.” Yes, having too many natural resources is a curse. Find out how many wars and millions of deaths, injuries and fugitives Congo suffers from having on its soil half of the cobalt that the world has. In Chile or Bolivia, they have known well the calamities that can cause wealth in charges… but it is not said that if soon everything becomes electric, half of the copper produced by the planet since 1900 will have to leave somewhere.

“As for lithium,” the Financial Times said, “the arrival of the electric car will exacerbate the tension with China. Beijing has made a huge commitment to clean energy. But don't think they'll let China buy the metals that are essential for electric cars for free. The U.S. administration has just released the list of 35 minerals it considers critical for its economy and national security, including lithium and cobalt.” This is renewable oppression.