The Salar de Atacama, a vast desert lake in northern Chile, glitters with a white surface crust of salt under the Earth’s greatest glare of sunlight. Beneath it is lithium, “white gold.” With approximately 7.5 million metric tons of lithium hidden below its flats, it offers an opportunity to fuel an expanding electric age.

Lithium plays a key role in the clean energy future while straining scarce water resources

Desert lakes such as the Salar de Atacama don’t just represent barren salt flats. The brine trapped below the desert surface serves as a reservoir for concentrated lithium. Mining companies pump it from below the surface, evaporate it into ponds, and are left with lithium. Because of its extremely low precipitation and high evaporation, this is an effective and economical way to extract lithium.

However, this extraction comes at a price. Extracting lithium-rich brine requires vast amounts of water in one of the driest places on the planet, putting pressure on local ecosystems and Indigenous communities who depend on those scarce resources. Making the lithium industry sustainable and just remains an urgent challenge for Chile and the world.

Recent studies indicate that Chile’s salt flats contain approximately 28.3 million tons of lithium, with 7.5 million tons located in the Salar de Atacama. This vast resource has the potential to provide a large share of the lithium required for future electric vehicles, power wall batteries, and grid batteries, making the desert lake a key player in the global clean-energy transition.

Why this lithium buried deep in America’s heart matters for the electric era

Lithium is at the heart of battery technology used in electric vehicles, renewable energy storage, and portable electronics. As the world speeds towards decarbonization, global demand for lithium is soaring. Chile’s vast lithium reserves under the Atacama Desert lake place it in an important position in this transition.

Due to the area’s geography and climate, lithium extraction in the Salar de Atacama is relatively inexpensive compared to a lot of other places. The cost advantage has contributed to Chile being one of the main players globally in the lithium market, as this lithium-rich state could power the world for centuries.

Navigating the tensions between nature and human needs

However, this “white gold” isn’t free. Water is limited in the Atacama Desert, and lithium extraction requires a great deal of water. Pumping brine for extraction is competing for the limited groundwater in the area that local people rely on. This is raising significant concerns: wetlands and springs are stressed, and ecosystems, including their wildlife, such as flamingos, are at risk. 

This dispute isn’t only environmental but also social. Indigenous people and small towns in the Atacama are worried that mining will drain the water that they depend on and damage their ancestral lands. Opponents argue that with the rush for lithium to feed the global green market, local communities will pay the price.

How using the sun to produce lithium can save energy, yet requires long-term planning

In addition, the mining companies claim that lithium from these desert lakes is comparatively ‘green’ to produce due to the fact that it relies on solar evaporation (thanks to the Atacama’s intense sun), which takes advantage of low energy demand as compared to more industrial mining efforts. Delivering on reduced environmental risks will require considered long-lead-time response planning.

Salar de Atacama, a desert lake, contains 7.5 million tons of lithium, a critical resource for the electric age. However, the extraction of lithium threatens water, ecosystems, and local communities. With multiple pressures to extract, produce, and implement clean energy, the lake should serve as a reminder that while we advance in technology, we need justice and to preserve delicate desert environments. just like the discovery of this massive lithium reserve capable of powering humanity.