Lithium Triangle: Difference between revisions

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[[File:Triangulo del lito.png|thumb|Map of the Lithium Triangle within the [[Arid Diagonal]] of South America.|250px]]

The '''Lithium Triangle''' ({{lang-es|Triángulo del Litio}}) is a region of the [[Andes]] that is rich in [[lithium]] reserves, encompassed by the borders of [[Argentina]], [[Bolivia]], and [[Chile]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Anlauf |first1=Axel |editor-last1=Pichler |editor-first1=Melanie|editor-last2=Staritz |editor-first2=Cornelia |editor-last3=Küblböck |editor-first3=Karin |editor-last4=Plank |editor-first4=Christina |editor-last5=Raza |editor-first5=Werner |editor-last6=Ruiz Peyré |editor-first6=Fernando |date=2016 |chapter=Greening the imperial mode of living? Socio- ecological (in)justice, electromobility, and lithium mining in Argentina |title=Fairness and Justice in Natural Resource Politics }}</ref> The lithium in the triangle is concentrated in various [[salt pan (geology)|salt pans]] that exist along the [[Atacama Desert]] and [[Arid Diagonal|neighboring arid areas]], the largest areas includingthree main salt pants that define its vertex< [[Salar de Uyuni]] in Bolivia, [[Salar de Atacama]] in Chile, and [[Salar del Hombre Muerto]] in Argentina. Of those, [[Salar de Atacama]] in [[Chile]] has the highest concentration 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.<ref name=Sizematters>{{Cite journal|title=Brine grades in Andean salars: When basin size matters A review of the Lithium Triangle|journal=[[Earth-Science Reviews]]|url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001282522100115X|last=López Steinmetz|first=Romina Lucrecia|year=2021|doi=10.1016/j.earscirev.2021.103615|last2=Salvi|first2=Stefano|volume=217}}</ref> Because of this it has been proposed to rename the area '''Lithium Crescent'''.<ref name=Sizematters/>

As of 2017 the area was thought to hold around 54% of the world's lithium reserves,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://resourceworld.com/lithium-triangle/|title=South America's prospective - The Lithium Triangle|author=Ellsworth Dickson|work=Resource World|access-date=7 December 2019|year=2017}}</ref> 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|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."<ref>[https://oceanofpdf.com/authors/lukasz-bednarski/pdf-epub-lithium-the-global-race-for-battery-dominance-and-the-new-energy-revolution-download/?id=000715884250 Lithium: The Global Race for Battery Dominance and the New Energy Revolution.] 2021. L. Bednarski. {{ISBN|1787386732}}. p. 97.</ref>