As global competition hots up to secure lithium supplies for batteries, China is boosting its investments in Argentina while the US courts President Javier Milei
In the remote reaches of the Argentine Andes, amid the rugged expanse of the high-altitude Puna region, where bone-chilling winds and freezing temperatures reign, the town of Mina La Casualidad once thrived.
Despite its isolation, a nearby sulfur mine gave purpose to the town in the northwest province of Salta. For decades, mine employees and their families made this inhospitable place their home.
Today, La Casualidad is a ghost town. The mine’s closure in 1979 sealed the settlement’s fate. Rubble and empty streets now stand among snowy mountain peaks and the silence of the salt flats.
But a new surge in mining activity has gripped the area, this time focused on the white-hot rush for lithium. The lightweight metal is critical for manufacturing rechargeable batteries for energy storage and electric cars – technologies at the cornerstone of building clean economies.
Left virtually untouched for millions of years, the salt flats of the sparsely populated Puna plateaus are being transformed into a bustling lithium production centre, bringing both new economic opportunities and concerns of environmental degradation.
Salta’s mining secretary Romina Sassarini points to the potential benefits for local people. “We believe that mining can bring true development to these historically marginalised communities, which lack water, sewage systems and electricity,” she told Climate Home News in an interview.
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