[Lithium Mining] Harsh desert climate in Chile is one place that literally helps to power the world – by Neil Vorano (Driving.ca – January 11, 2017)

http://driving.ca/

You can see the road we’re going down with electric cars; though they still only make up a very small percentage of all the vehicles in North America, their sales are growing. And you only need to look at the hype surrounding the upcoming Chevrolet Bolt and, a little later, the Tesla Model 3, to see how people are getting behind this technology.

And while much of the work from automakers and other tech companies is on alleviating “range anxiety”, or making the lithium ion batteries better, few people tend to think about where the batteries come from in the first place. Ashlee Vance of Bloomberg goes right to the source in the Atacama Desert in Chile, where they mine the main ingredient of EV batteries: lithium.

Watch this fascinating short documentary and find out exactly how this mineral goes from the ground to your car – or smartphone, or tablet, or anything else that comes with a lithium ion battery, for that matter.

For the original source of this article, click here: http://driving.ca/auto-news/news/ever-wonder-how-lithium-is-mined-for-batteries