Bolivia’s dream of a lithium future plays out on high-altitude salt flats

Bolivia’s Uyuni salt flat. The lithium found in the seemingly endless salt desert is a key component of batteries used in electric cars. Photograph: Aizar Raldes/AFP/Getty Images

Bolivia’s salt flats have long been a tourist draw: a great white expanse that, when it floods, becomes an unearthly mirror of the sky. But in recent years visitors may have glimpsed tiny silhouettes of excavators on the horizon – a hint of the industrial future that awaits.

The brine beneath the salt flats contains huge amounts of lithium, the metal essential for the electric batteries and the green energy transition. On Friday, Bolivia announced it would partner with a Chinese consortium to extract it, reviving dreams of a lithium-powered economy.