Cover image: Inauguration of the Y-TEC battery plant in La Plata, Argentina, in August of 2022. The plant is part of the government-led initiative to build the state lithium company YPF Litio. Picture by Matías Alonso, Universidad Nacional de San Martín.
The debate around lithium in South America has been marked by a broad consensus: Because the mineral is key for the global energy transition, lithium-rich countries, such as Argentina, Bolivia and Chile (“ABC countries”), are facing a critical juncture. Many have read this juncture as a historical development opportunity.
The third panel of the Lithium Crossroads conference unpacked this key debate: How real are the hopes and promises of industrialization in the ABC countries, to produce battery components, batteries and cars; and what are the challenges? Who benefits from the ‘green energy transition’, who pays the cost, and how can these costs and benefits be more equitably distributed?
Such questions refer to broader agendas that are ultimately about justice across multiple scales. The lithium debate is reminiscent of how these issues have been addressed by dependency and development theories. What have we learned from these theories and the manifold ways they have been spread, tried, and criticized around the world?
The panel brought together two academics with four people who have been key decision-makers when lithium is concerned: Veronica Robert is Subsecretary for development strategy and involved in defining lithium’s place within broader government planning in Argentina. As vice-president of YPF litio, Hernán Letcher has been key in establishing Argentina’s recent state lithium company. Juan Carlos Montenegro, in turn, was a key figure in building Bolivia’s state lithium corporation YLB, which he presided over for several years. Finally, as Advisor for lithium and salt flats Gonzalo Gutierrez has been crucial in defining the Chilean government’s new lithium strategy.
Provocations
Marina Weinberg and Martín Obaya, both researchers with extensive knowledge on the matter themselves, opened the panel each with a provocation.
True to the anthropological discipline, Marina launched the debate by questioning its main category: How is lithium represented, in particular in debates about energy transition? What issues, actors, and spaces are included? Which remain invisible? Drawing on her research in the Atacama desert, she argued for lithium’s “off-sites” – factories, ports, roads, dump sites – which are situated beyond the salt flats, to become part of the debate, too.
“I try to bring to the fore how the glorification of a univocal project of a green planetary future is wiping out vital places, silently expanding the precariousness of life and the inequalities in the spaces of extraction.”
Marina Weinberg, Anthropologist at Universidad Católica del Norte, Chile
While Marina’s intervention sought to broaden the debate, Martín’s provocation as an economist was to narrow it down to more tangible matters. What should be the priorities of scientific and industrial policy in relation to lithium in South America? He argued that the “battery fetish” prevailing in academic and policy circles was in fact serving a “hidden agenda”. The obsession with producing batteries from our lithium is hiding the fact that, in Argentina, most activities actually related to lithium extraction are in the hands of the private sector.
“The lithium science and technology agenda in Argentina is fundamentally focused on the question of batteries. Yet, it is informed by a superficial reading of how the production networks, in which lithium is inserted, actually work.”
Martín Obaya, Economist at Universidad Nacional de San Martín, Argentina
Debating lithium policy
Marina’s and Martin’s provocations pushed panelists beyond the prevailing ways the debate around lithium has mostly been framed so far. Between global crisis and industrial revolution they called attention to how and where lithium is actually being produced.
Yet, energy transition and batteries did remain principal points of reference. There was a consensus apparent among all participants, resonating in their choice of words: change was in the making, “a green transition”, “a socio-technical paradigm shift”, “a socio-ecological transformation”. Because it is crucial for these changes, lithium offers both risks and opportunities to countries that have a lot of it.
What to do with South America’s lithium resources? Panelists argued from the different perspectives of the projects and governments they have been involved in.
“Participating in this socio-technical paradigm shift is going to position us differently in the future.”
Veronica Robert, Subsecretary for development strategy, Argentina
“With YPF litio we decided to vertically integrate the lithium chain. This decision has been broadly accepted. In general, in Argentina lithium industrialization has broad consensus.”
Hernán Letcher, Vice-president YPF litio, Argentina
“The green transition requires more mining. Lithium alone is not enough. Advancing in the chain implies extracting other minerals. This is the road that we must irremediably travel if we want to advance in industrialization.”
Juan Carlos Montenegro, former YLB president, Bolivia
“We want to go beyond rents. Lithium is a State affair. It can be a key that allows us to access technological developments for which we have capabilities and inputs. So we want to try.”
Gonzalo Gutierrez, Advisor for lithium and salt flats, Chile
While the debate gave rise to tensions between specific arguments and positions, it was also marked by a broad consensus. Through becoming part of battery value chains, discussants seemed to agree, lithium constitutes a valuable development opportunity for Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile.
Panelists highlighted that value in the case of lithium has to be conceived more broadly than usual. Lithium is a sort of stepping stone towards goals that reach far beyond its extraction. Moving up the value chain, actually building industrial-scale lithium and battery industries in South America is complex. Developing domestic industries requires developing technical expertise and technology transfers from buying countries. These resources will be available for developing other sectors when the lithium is long gone, or no longer in demand.
According to the panelists, countries with large lithium resources are standing at a crossroads: Are they going to be protagonists in the energy transition, or merely relegated to the side-lines of a global paradigm shift? How to become such protagonists? Three main strategies emerged from the debate: regional cooperation across national borders, strengthening capacities of the States as principal protagonists, investing in science and technology.
Points of inflection
Listening attentively, the audience could also hear voices challenging this consensus. Marina’s interventions in particular indicated that the arguments taking up most of the space on this stage were radically questioned on others. Are these projects and strategies realistic? Is lithium extraction in the ABC countries really inevitable, or even desirable?
“Does any of our countries have the technological, economic, and political capacity to develop the entire chain, so it would be worth taking the social, economic, political, commercial, and geopolitical risks involved? Is it viable to undertake a project of this scale?”
Marina Weinberg, Anthropologist at Universidad Católica del Norte, Chile
Martín took up the promises and pitfalls exposed in Marina’s intervention. Yet, he approached the issue from a slightly different direction.
“Let us put this in terms of the challenges that this path would imply in relation to the resources that we can afford to commit. If we had scarce resources to develop something in lithium, where would we start?”
Martín Obaya, Economist at Universidad Nacional de San Martín, Argentina
Two hours of debate was too short to actually provide any satisfying answers. And thus the questions raised by critical observers of the panel remained, as reminders that this was a particular debate among particularly positioned panelists.
What purpose should development serve beyond economic growth? Whose needs do batteries satisfy, whose interests are served? Who has the power and knowledge to decide on the fate of lithium in South America? Is lithium actually about the climate crisis or rather about the accumulation of profits? Thinking seriously about these questions, should lithium extraction go ahead, and if so, under what conditions?
Reflections
In the end, these questions were all asking in the same direction, namely justice. What are the implications of the emerging battery industries for local, national, and global justice agendas? Broadly speaking, it was the energy transition that was defining the debate by positioning lithium within a global context. While remaining elusive in most of the statements this context provided a fertile terrain for discussion, a horizon to raise questions that go beyond the now familiar issues surrounding raw materials extraction, such as impacts or local conflicts.
These debates are not new in themselves but are rather reminiscent of a range of critical theories emerging in the wake of the global decolonization process after World War II. Dependency and world systems theories put issues of global justice and injustices in raw materials extraction, transformation and trade on top of political agendas. Rather than questioning the consequences of resource extraction they focused on the distribution of opportunities or value transfers in the international division of labor.
What have we learned from these theories and the manifold ways they have been spread, tried, and criticized around the world? It is worth considering this question seriously in debates about lithium, and other raw materials that will be crucial in the energy transition. One main point is that larger frames of reference – whether they are called decolonization, development, or energy transition – imply both opportunities and risks. They are necessary to make broader claims for structural change, yet the voices and interests of particular people or places run the risk to be brushed aside in the name of the larger whole.
Anthropologist, PhD student, fascinated by lithium and its connections around the world. What happens once we venture into the different places and issues it can take us?