Beyond the Lithium Triangle: Political, trade, environmental, and social challenges amidst the metal's global dominance by China

Floriano Filho

Lithium Triangle ； South America ； China ； Electric vehicles ； Li-ion batteries ； socio-environmental sustainability ； water usage ； political instability

拉丁美洲經貿季刊

43期（2020 / 12 / 01）

3 - 25

英文

The Lithium Triangle had already become a strategic source for China's global dominance of electric vehicles (EVs) and the lithium supply chain before a 2019 price shock and the pandemic made the situation even worse. Previously, China's demand for global lithium and its chemistries, and buyouts by giant Chinese conglomerates, had transformed the customary oligopolistic lithium mining configuration. As of 2019, China accounted for over 65% of global Li-ion battery production and over half of the world’s total lithium chemical production. South American ABC (Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile) countries' plans to use the lithium supply chain for implementing industrialization policies have found hurdles in political instability or lack of good governance, social unrest, and environmental challenges such as water usage. Those handicaps impose at least a certain prudence about promises of a cleaner electric revolution that could come at impractical costs and raise sustainability interrogations, particularly for the largest global player in the lithium value chain, which is China, followed by some other giants.