I love how all the 'green' technology is never truly 'green'. Not even close.

Everyone is focused on electric cars, but what about the lithium batteries in disposable vapes? People throw thousands of them away every day, not to mention all the other electronics with batteries too.

To use valuable drinking water in such a arid and scarce area for lithium mining is so absurd. Thank you for sharing this info.

*Creates a new problem while trying to solve an old problem*

They don't care as long as they have a pocket full of money.

Renewable energy doesnt address the problem of consumerism and western throw away culture...without solving that first, Renewable energy means little...

I feel it would be quite easy for these mining companies to ensure water facility for these tiny local communities in the desert!

The farmers very first words were straight to the point and I applaud it.

It’s too bad they couldn’t catch the water as it evaporates to store for locals. Water is so precious especially in regions like this

I’m absolutely fine with internal combustion. Very little emissions these days

This is the main problem when you compare "green" tech vs oil/gas etc. You have to include ALL of the production chain, including the mineral chase around the world. Lithium is just one of the minerals requiered. So much for the green revolution.

And then big brother will come out with a story on how they have to “rescue” them in “exchange” of commodities

Nothing in this video is a surprise. There is no free lunch.

What!?!? Electric vehicles and batteries are made out of limited resources just like gas powered vehicles!?!? No way!!! Thanks for this hugely informative article that definitely told us something we didn't know!

As long as it's not "in my backyard" a blind eye is the only thing to be received from the countries that benefit.

This has been known for YEARS.....thanks for finally catching up to everyone...

The scenary and landscapes captured in this video are remarkably beautiful. I hope that the mining companies, in addition to making sure the communities are cared for, will not destroy the natural beauty there.

Would love to see what’s going on in Africa with Lithium mining…

Thank you for bringing awareness. Hopefully they consider the situation of the indigenous people.

I think this is a great example of the resource curse.

that amount of water could have been used for new farms for local people, reforestation projects, reversal of desertification

Imagine where we will be when table salt is expensive or rare.

This makes you think what we take for granted... Is destroying land and peoples need for water worth all this?

The poor people always suffer when these kinds of things happens 😢, all the big company and government see is the money it’s sad

Economics can be done well or done badly. This isn't primarily a story about lithium or EV's. It's a story about how foreign players will inevitably act economically compared to locals. Partnerships with foreign companies to help with the technology needed can be just fine. Giving rights to the resource and development to foreign entities or control is an old story with inevitably bad outcomes, and there's no reason for players from Russia or China to care in the least. They don't need any relationship with these countries long-term.

Correction: *_2nd_* "largest deposit". After the recent discovery in the McDermitt caldera on the border of Nevada and Oregon, announced last week.

Those communities are the reason why I hope we get alternative fuels for cars or equipment that currently work with internal combustion when its expensive or not viable to use batteries.

Very great full that this video is being shown. I feel very strongly against the electric vehicle and the lie being advertised to the ignorant that the electric car is environmentally correct. There is currently no patented method of recycling Lithium batteries, no method commercially practiced. This should be concerning to people with a brain.

The human rights issues due to cobalt mining in Africa, especially for the Congolese, is atrocious. I wonder if people really knew what it takes to make their electric vehicle…would they still support the industry…probably - and that’s the real sad problem…because people really don’t matter to these big corporations…it’s the “environment” that really matters.

Yikes that’s a terrible predicament. ‘plugs in rechargeable phone lined with lithium to continue to watch video’

The Atacama isn’t one of the driest places on Earth, it is the driest place on Earth. In some parts it has never rained and the only water available is stored in the massive underground ocean underneath…now we’re evaporating that back into the hydrosphere for the first time in decades, and this will have an effect on the climate.

As is industries care about the environment or local people...never happens. They care about profit before everything.

Amazing that ecologists are fine with this?

Thank you for uploading and sharing this very informative video.

The treated sewage likely has chlorine from killing bacteria, and other chemicals that would not be good for irrigation.

"green energy" destroy nature? oh wow!

An even bigger deposit has been found in the US. Along the border of Oregon and Nevada!

it’s cool that some awesome mineral specimens are found at least

Unfortunately wherever & whenever USA - China or Russia gets involved in mining the end result is always catastrophic for the local population ! 😢😢

Anything with "commitment" and "big mining company" summon a feeling of scepticism and comedy nowadays. Sanction works way better.

Are some salt pools in the middle of the desert really a big deal?

Hope these Eco friendly groups watch this. And stop forcing electric cars.

My question...... what happens when these mines start drying up? The cost of batteries worldwide would rocket up as the supply dwindles

Gotta put human need ahead of innovation

How can these lithium companies keep the people WHO LIVE IN THE COUNTRIES in the dark about their processes and agreements and sit by when they are dying of thirst?

That's crazy, these companies have share some of their profit to local. They I guess someone on top is corrupt for sure.

Industry don't care about people, just stock holders.

The green energy future will leave behind dry desiccated landscapes and the graves of the people who lived there.

This is happening at the Salton Sea here in California. They are building a factory here soon.

People screwed over by big companies.

I just wonder why don't they use closed confined shed kind of structure to trap the vapours which then can again be used in the process. Definitely this will add to the cost but would be far most cost effective than desalination.

I'm so glad this has come out. Fresh water though it's renewable. This amount of freshwater will go into the saltwater portion of the cycle

The amount of power it would take too run all electric vehicles is mind bending. People are being denied permits all over commercially for power stations as reports show some of these use more power than the whole town…

The government in US needs to watch this

water shortage in the country but the government rather let those big company having all those water used for their mining and do nothing about it for their people. should they not restrict the use of fresh water?

Half of global lithium comes from Australia where wages are fair & environmental considerations are substantial. Things aren't perfect here but likely a less troubling scenario than Bolivian lithium, or oil drilling for that matter.

If people still drove their old gas powered vehicles every day for the rest of their lives, they would put out less pollution than companies that manufacture lithium 🔋

Government should stop company using fresh water to industrial purposes

yeah I bet that American Lithium companies do it very differently in Nevada, isn't that right Business Insider/Axel Springer SE? I bet they have much to learn from them, let's see it, I'd love to see a complete report of Lithium extraction, the American way, done by Business Insider and their boss, Axel Springer SE. Wouldn't that be interesting too, Dr. Mathias Döpfner?

Looking at how poor in water reserves are these countries and still mining lithium. In Serbia a company was planning to mine lithium but my people protested and it didn't go thru even tho we have lots of water.

Thanks for this information.

I mean it sounds like we just need to pressure them/hold them to switching to sea water. We also need to insure these countries actually benefit to the fullest off these plants.

If companies are building plants planning for next 5 or 6 decades, they have already done their homework. What they need to do is build water pipelines to nearby habitable areas and provide that free of charge. In fact that must be in their government contracts.

"So Bolivia will become an energy superpower like Saudi Arabia?" "Err no"

The worse thing they can do,, they hurt so much of the environment. Here in Canada too. It kills wildlife and destroys the land. 😢. Oil is not this damaging. 😢

Big Oil has enough money to throw around

So in Chile we pump underground potable water into these evaporation pools to create brine, while in Saudi Arabia they don't know what to do with too much brine from desalination plants and pump brine back into the ocean?! I also recently learned that where I live, the sewage treatment system treats and purifies a volume that represents about half of what our biggest irrigation dam uses. But all the treated water from the plant is just dumped into the ocean instead of being reused for irrigation. Oh this humanity!!!

The only way to stop it is to reduce or eliminate the demand for lithium. If the demand is there, its profitable, and it will be done.

Do y'all think it'll be best to pull water out of the atmosphere than to pull it out of the ground cuz some of the water from the ground is in certain structure bases architecture it's got to be there to have certain flows and certain areas or you could take out years of sit development or if you take it in the wrong place certain areas wouldn't get their minerals

The government has just announced their intention to build a massive lithium battery factory, at Bridgewater in Somerset. Meanwhile, all we hear is terrible stories of negativity about EV vehicles, and what a catastrophy awaits us.

This is nothing in comparison to the scale of environmental damage from oil and gas extractions. Water can be drawn from desalination plants powered by renewables.

Why technology alone will not save us: The Jevons paradox. Simple as that.

A few facts to clarify concerns. 1. The salts plates of Northen Chile constains a concentration of lithium 100 times higher than the ones in Bolivia and 6 times higher than the ones in Argentina. That is the main reason why the lithium extraction in Bolivia never took off despite the enormity of the Uyuni Salar. What Bolivia has is other types of salts, much less valuable. 2. The only countries interested in investing in Bolivia are Rusia and China for political and geostrategic reason. The capitalist countries do not want to get into Bolivia because they have a retrograd socialist regime. Even McDonalds do not exist in Bolivia. 3. The North part of Chile always have been a very dry desert with very few small towns close to the Andes mountains where some water comes down from snow melting. On the coast there are quite big cities. They get water mainly from the Pacific Ocean. The many desalination plants in Northern Chile are operated with electricity mainly from solar plants wich are huge and numerous in that part of the world because they get plenty sun all year long. 4. So the water never runs out in North Chile. The more is needed the more is taken from the sea desalinated and used. Many more desalination plants are being buit and more are proyected. 5. Except from hidroponic farms, a few green valleys and small fewer oasis, there is no agriculture in Northen Chile. And the people who work in them are in no risk of not having enough water. Most of the people in Northen Chile works in mines, companies asociated with mines, ports and airports, electricity production, water production, comerce, public service or other services, including turism. 5.The Chilean man and his daugther shown in this video pretending to work in a dry garden are not representative of the people who live there. Because the people who live in northen Chile in the 99% of the cases lives in cities and earn a living from the jobs described above. He was put in the video to portrait a situation that does not even represent the 1%. 6. We live in the 21st century. We have two choices, the first is to use science and inteligence to protect the planet from further contamination and deterioration and still live a better life, or to go back to living conditions similar to three centuries ago, before the steam engines and the internal combustion engines. I think Chile has taken the first choice. Already 60% of the energy suply of Chile comes from clean sources, and every development has to pass stringent environmental impact evaluations to be allowed. 7. The situation in Bolivia is different to the situation in Chile. Because in Bolivia the culture still moves as in 1950s, and the leftist goverments uses ideology to manipulate the minds of people to reject foreign intervention in the shape of investments which is portrayed as abusive devils. To maintain control over the mases the leftist use the maxim "divide to conquer", so they have partitioned Bolivia in diverse indigenous communities and have empowered unions of workers to defend Marxist ideologies. The indigenous communities defend their lands, the unions defend the right to control everything that is done on it and the goverment is interested in heavily taxing any income. Therefore there is no room or utility margin for any company wishing to invest in Bolivia. That stop progress and maintain poverty. What is left is corruption at all levels. And wherever are natural resources and corrupt goverments, then China will have the perfect invitation to get in business.

Well, this report is not bad. Although I would scare the lithium industry a little bit. I would have included the new findings in battery scientific research that proposed alternatives to lithium. Sodium-ion batteries also swerve sharply from lithium-ion chemistries common today. These batteries have a design similar to that of lithium-ion batteries, including a liquid electrolyte, but instead of relying on lithium, they use sodium as the main chemical ingredient. That means all that brine would have to be filtered, or get its water evaporated and still bring a little income to those South American countries. However, much less than lithium. But may not need sweet water in the process.

Sodium ion batteries are on the horizon and slated to launch late this year. Assuming it does do what it promises to do then the need for Lithium should lower.

7:35 I can see it's tough but my word isn't it beautiful view. He seems like great father too.

WOW…. Politicians dying to force electric cars on people need to watch this.

I mean; It’s good to appreciate criminal negligence. It’s another to appreciate being a participant of it. Anybody with a device able to watch this video is a contributer as well. Same goes for, “Insider News”

You can make a dramatic story with just about anything farmed at an industry level. Just as there is a massive amount of stories about oil and the harm it has done, of course led to the need for more lithium. There is no getting away from the need for the things that power our world. Could we care more and capitalize less, sure, but good luck making that happen.

like the US is not doing this 😂😂😂 climate change might be real but its politics to them they dont care

I always thought the worst started with 1 Mining Magnates 2 Judges 3 Lawyers

When you are driving your "green" fancy electric car, remember that little girl without the water.

Can't wait for the breakdown of the true cost of natural gas extraction, coal mining and oil fields

I don't see Greta or Just Stop Oil protesters rallying against this, how come?

Free energy will always be the answer.

What is the cost to the planet in the long term from all of this mining activity

Lithium does not degrade by being used in batteries, it can literally be recycled forever. But as always, as long as there are cheaper sources of newly mined Lithium, the market doesn't feel the need to do so on a wide scale.

The _"true cost of oil drilling"_ on local environments is orders of magnitude worse. The whole resource extraction industry has a long history of abusing the environment (and the local people). However, this video felt more like an *oil shill hit piece than news.* The real solution is to push for rules to ensure resource extraction is done responsibly everywhere. All mining companies should have to play by the same rules and invest heavily in technology and techniques to minimize their impact to the environment.

Boycott EV's save these places and these people. These people can't eat or drink lithium. The industry is exploiting people at every level.

All the metals are being mined. And very few mines are properly managed.

Getting your cobalt as fast as we can Greta.

Now contrast it with the environmental and human impact of oil.

Electricity won't replace fossil power in vehicles.

Thanks so much for sharing

The country consumes about 4,900 gallons of potable water per second based on a 2017 water served in Chile. The fresh water consumption for processing accounts for 0.8% of total fresh water usage in the country annually. Compared to the US consumption of 3.8 million gallons per second. It’s easy to make numbers sound scary without context. If the mining industry does consume almost 50% of the country’s water supply, then measures should be investigated there. Not at the 0.8%

Amazing that humanity will not let go of their cars and modernity, even when it means mass extinction, even of themselves.

Ooooh the irony! These tree huggers riding around in their Teslas couldn’t care less.

Great reporting!!!

using oil powered machinery to mine material for electric 🤔

Heartbreaking to see the plight of that little girl... local communities that have been poor since generations could be given Govt jobs elsewhere & assisted out of the poverty that they currently live within...