Lithium Triangle

The Lithium Triangle within the Arid Diagonal of South America

The Lithium Triangle (Spanish: Triángulo del Litio) is a region of the Andes that is rich in lithium reserves, encompassed by the borders of Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile.[1] The lithium in the triangle is concentrated in various salt pans that exist along the Atacama Desert and neighboring arid areas. The largest areas three main salt pans that define its vertices are the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia, Salar de Atacama in Chile, and Salar del Hombre Muerto in Argentina. Of these, the Salar de Atacama in Chile has the highest concentration of lithium (0.15% by weight) among all world's brine sources. The shape of the area of interest for lithium resources in salt pans is however not a triangle but more of a crescent starting with Salar de Surire (19° S) in the north and ending with Salar de Maricunga (27° S) in the south.[2] Because of this it has been proposed to rename the area Lithium Crescent.[2]

As of 2017 the area was thought to hold around 54% of the world's lithium reserves,[3] however, these reserves, which are the largest in size and the highest in quality in the world, are not expected to make the surrounding countries wealthy, as oil has done for the Gulf countries. For example, the total amount of lithium minerals in Chile is worth "less than Saudi Arabia's three years' worth of oil exports."[4]

Annual production in the early 2020’s was as follows: 140,000 tons per year in Chile,[5] 33,000 tons per year in Argentina,[6] and 600 tons per year in Bolivia.[7]

  1. ^ Anlauf, Axel (2016). "Greening the imperial mode of living? Socio- ecological (in)justice, electromobility, and lithium mining in Argentina". In Pichler, Melanie; Staritz, Cornelia; Küblböck, Karin; Plank, Christina; Raza, Werner; Ruiz Peyré, Fernando (eds.). Fairness and Justice in Natural Resource Politics.
  2. ^ a b López Steinmetz, Romina Lucrecia; Salvi, Stefano (2021). "Brine grades in Andean salars: When basin size matters A review of the Lithium Triangle". Earth-Science Reviews. 217. Bibcode:2021ESRv..21703615L. doi:10.1016/j.earscirev.2021.103615. S2CID 233846211.
  3. ^ Ellsworth Dickson (2017). "South America's prospective - The Lithium Triangle". Resource World. Retrieved 7 December 2019.
  4. ^ Lithium: The Global Race for Battery Dominance and the New Energy Revolution. 2021. L. Bednarski. ISBN 1787386732. p. 97.
  5. ^ (Dube 2022)"Chile has expanded output at its existing operations by 80% since 2016 to about 140,000 tons annually”
  6. ^ (Quinn 2024)"En 2022, Argentina produjo 33.000 toneladas de LCE, el segundo país de la región y el cuarto del mundo"
  7. ^ (Quinn 2024)"la producción solo alcanzó 600 toneladas de LCE el año pasado"