Chile’s Atacama Desert is hailed as one of the Earth’s most extraordinary places. It’s the driest nonpolar desert on Earth, which stretches across around 600 miles (1,000 kilometers, or km) in a piece of land between the coastal Cordillera de la Costa Mountain range and the Andes Mountains.
The entire area is an oasis of geologic formations and has provided scientists with seemingly never-ending research opportunities.
As with so many areas in our wonderous planet, it also has a history of being raped for its minerals. Prior to the 1930s, it was for nitrate minerals that were used in fertilizers and explosives. But more recently other minerals such as lithium, copper and iodine are also being mined.
Unfortunately, lithium mining is hugely toxic and poses a significant danger to the environment, particularly in South America.
Despite the mining industry’s exploration of technological advancements aimed at reducing the industry’s ecological footprint, the question remains … Should we continue to rape the earth for lithium in the race to electrify?
Do electric vehicles (EVs) do more good than harm? Are the supply chains for the resources needed to electrify our world sufficiently transparent for us to evaluate them properly? Can we really call the move away from fossil fuels toward hyper-electrification another green revolution?
None of us are in a position to fully answer these questions as the data required are just not available. But what we do know suggests we should be concerned — very concerned.
Hellbound and Down 