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SAN PEDRO DE ATACAMA, Chile — Plans to expand lithium mining in Chile, the world’s second-largest producer, faced political hurdles this week, raising new questions about the supply of a metal in high demand as the world moves away from fossil fuels and into new technologies. renewable energy sources.
Lithium is used in batteries, including those powering electric vehicles, and demand is growing globally. It is also at the center of a deep debate among Chileans who disagree over the social and environmental risks of lithium extraction. New York Times last week reported on the results of lithium mining On the ecologically sensitive salt flats of northern Chile and how a new constitution drafted by an elected body could change the mining sector, water rights and the country’s response to climate change.
The government of outgoing President Sebastián Piñera had invited proposals from private companies in October to increase lithium production to 400,000 metric tons per year. However, this plan has come under new scrutiny.
On Tuesday, opposition lawmakers from the left-of-centre Partido por la Democracia, or Democracy Party, appealed to an appeals court in the capital, Santiago, demanding that the proposals be stopped. And on Wednesday, centrist Christian Democrats introduced a bill in Chile’s legislature to prevent incumbent presidents from inviting new mining contract proposals in the last 90 days of a term.
Also Wednesday, advisers to elected president Gabriel Boric, who takes office in March, met with the current government to voice their concerns about the lack of a national policy on lithium’s future. The latest call for proposals will create contracts to mine lithium over a 29-year period.
Mr. Boric’s supporters have in the past urged the outgoing government to suspend the bids.
Diego Pardow, one of Mr Boric’s advisers, said the incoming president’s team supports what he calls “common ground” between the outgoing government and the new administration.
Juan Carlos Jobet, the outgoing government’s minister of energy and mining, said it would investigate “legitimate concerns” by the new government, including whether the request for proposals should be suspended.
How to tackle lithium production may be one of the toughest challenges facing Mr. Boric, a left-wing former student leader campaigning for the promise of expanding the social safety net and taking ambitious climate action. With prices soaring in the global market, lithium mining could raise large sums of money for its government, although it poses as yet unknown risks to the region’s ecology. Not the least, lithium mining is divisive among the Indigenous people of the region.
Mr. Boric has said little about his lithium plans, other than proposing that a national lithium company be formed. Currently, two companies, Albemarle and Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile, or SQM, produce lithium under contracts with the government.
Somini Sengupta contributed to the news from Los Angeles.
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