Trouble in the Atacama

Thought I'd share some relevant reading I've run into.  

Engineering and Technology did some investigative fact checking (source) for a story of the water situation in the Atacama desert and found a few disturbing points in regards to SQM and potentially other brine operations there.

1) 'Government figures issued by the Comité de Minería No Metálica (the Nonmetallic Mining Committee) confirm that the current extractive development in the Basin of the Atacama salt flat provokes hydrological imbalances. With a brine output of 8,842 litres per second, and a recharge capacity of 6,810 litres per second, it was found be more than 2,000 litres per second above a rechargeable threshold.'

This was also confirmed by Eduardo Bitran, who was executive director of CORFO.



With BMW recently signing a 540million euro agreement (source) with Ganfeng utilitising its hardrock offtake agreements, it made some critical statement that guided its decision.  "Sustainability is an important aspect of our corporate strategy and plays a central role in expanding electromobility,"  BMW's Dr Andreas Wendt stated.
"We are fully aware of our responsibilities: lithium and other raw materials must be extracted and processed under ethically responsible conditions." This raises serious questions about SQM's plans to quadruple output when they are degrading the environment at current output levels.  

2) Even more important and relevant to PWN is the finding that SQM's extraction is highly inefficient.  As illustrated in the E&T figure below, an estimated recovery rate of just 14%(!) according to their findings.  Clearly, SQM is a dire need of improvement on this front.