The twentieth century was dominated by oil. Wars, dictatorships, empires, and firms grew in its shadow. The twenty first century already has new contenders. Lithium and hydrogen stand because the keys to the vitality transition that guarantees to save lots of the planet from local weather collapse. The paradox is brutal. What is offered as clear vitality drags alongside the identical outdated tensions of energy, plunder, and inequality.
Climate change calls for pressing emission reductions. The International Energy Agency warns that by 2030 renewable vitality should triple and the manufacturing of vital minerals should enhance sixfold. Every photo voltaic panel, each battery, each electrolyzer depends upon uncooked supplies erratically distributed. While the industrialized North designs decarbonization methods, the Global South as soon as once more delivers its subsoil and its water.
Lithium, concentrated in a handful of nations, and inexperienced hydrogen, which requires territories wealthy in solar and wind, have turn into the brand new frontiers of capital. From the Andean salt flats to African deserts, from Chilean coasts to refineries in Germany and Japan, a map of tasks is being drawn that guarantees billion-dollar investments and likewise irreversible impacts.
The query is inevitable. Will the vitality transition be a chance for world justice, or a brand new chapter of colonialism disguised in inexperienced? The reply will outline not solely the way forward for vitality, however the destiny of humanity within the a long time to come back.
Lithium and the South American Triangle Fever
Credit: depositphotos
The lithium triangle shaped by Chile, Argentina, and Bolivia holds nearly 60% of the planets identified reserves. In these high-altitude salt flats, the place the earth mirrors saline lakes, a silent battle unfolds that may outline electrical mobility and the worldwide vitality transition. What was as soon as forgotten territory is now coveted by firms, governments, and funding funds.
Chile leads regional manufacturing. Its Atacama and Maricunga salt flats are exploited by SQM and Albemarle, which in 2023 exported greater than USD 8.6 billion in lithium carbonate and hydroxide. The nation holds about 36% of worldwide reserves, feeding battery factories in China, Korea, and the United States. The States partial nationalization coverage seeks to steadiness public management with the necessity for overseas funding, however the dilemma is clear: will Chile stay an exporter of uncooked supplies or turn into a participant within the worth chain?
Argentina is shifting ahead with dozens of tasks in Jujuy, Catamarca, and Salta. Companies reminiscent of Livent, Allkem, and Ganfeng Lithium increase operations that already generate greater than USD 1.2 billion in annual exports. The nation, nonetheless scaling up, may turn into the worlds second producer by 2030 if it manages to stabilize its regulatory framework and entice capital.
Bolivia, with the worlds largest theoretical reserves within the Salar de Uyuni, stays trapped in paradox. It has the wealth however lacks expertise and strategic companions. After a long time of guarantees, it has solely begun pilot tasks with Chinese and Russian corporations.
The worldwide worth of lithium rose from lower than USD 10,000 per ton in 2020 to peaks above 70,000 in 2022, stabilizing round 25,000 in 2024. By 2030 demand will quadruple, pushed by electrical autos and vitality storage. The South American triangle is not only a geological map, it’s the new OPEC of the twenty first century.
Africa and Australia, the New Lithium Giants
While South America captures media consideration, Africa and Australia are consolidating manufacturing that competes instantly with the lithium triangle. These territories, wealthy in hard-rock spodumene, have scaled rapidly within the final decade and are actually key items of the worldwide vitality puzzle.
Australia is the undisputed chief. Its Greenbushes mine, within the west, is the biggest on the earth and provides practically 20% of worldwide manufacturing. Along with tasks in Pilbara and Mt. Marion, the nation generated greater than USD 18 billion in lithium exports in 2023, surpassing copper revenues. Companies like Pilbara Minerals and Tianqi Lithium management a lot of this extraction in shut partnership with China, which refines nearly all exported materials.
In Africa, potential is newer however no much less bold. Zimbabwe has the Bikita mine and tasks in Arcadia that might place it among the many prime 5 producers by 2030. The Congo, lengthy identified for cobalt, is starting to discover lithium deposits in Katanga. Namibia is rising as a brand new funding hub, with Australian and Chinese corporations growing tasks. The area presents low extraction prices and proximity to strategic ports however faces the chance of repeating historical past: mineral wealth exported, native poverty entrenched.
The competitors with Latin America is direct. While salt flats rely upon gradual evaporation and intensive water use, hard-rock mines permit sooner and extra managed exploitation. This accelerates provide in a market the place demand retains surging.
Australia and Africa are redrawing the map. It is not a single triangle, however a worldwide pentagon of lithium, the place every nation seeks to safe its slice of the way forward for transport and vitality.
Green Hydrogen, the New Energy Frontier
Green hydrogen has turn into the brand new vitality promise of the twenty first century. Produced by water electrolysis powered by renewable vitality, it’s offered because the gas that may decarbonize heavy trade, transport, and aviation. The narrative is evident: the place lithium powers batteries, hydrogen will drive generators and factories.
The numbers are putting. Between 2023 and 2025, greater than USD 240 billion in inexperienced hydrogen tasks had been introduced worldwide. Europe is the primary purchaser, dedicated to importing massive volumes from 2030 to cut back fossil gasoline dependence. Germany leads with long-term buy agreements and financing for crops throughout continents.
In the Global South, sun- and wind-rich territories are rising as protagonists. Chile tasks producing the worlds most cost-effective hydrogen by 2030 because of Atacamas photo voltaic radiation and Magallanes winds. The authorities estimates potential exports of greater than USD 30 billion yearly by 2040. Morocco strikes forward with EU-backed tasks, leveraging its geographic closeness. Saudi Arabia, as soon as constructed on oil, is investing over USD 5 billion in Neom, a megaproject to make sure its energy within the inexperienced period.
In Asia, Japan is pioneering demand, betting on ships transporting liquid hydrogen from Australia and the Middle East. For Tokyo, this gas is a path to bolster vitality safety and reduce emissions.
Green hydrogen guarantees an vitality revolution, but in addition reveals a tough fact: whoever controls manufacturing and export corridors will maintain not only a billion-dollar enterprise, however the important thing to the worldwide hydrogen trade.
The Power Map: China, the United States, Europe
The vitality transition just isn’t solely a technological race, it’s a fierce battle for management of worth chains. Three gamers dominate the board: China, the United States, and Europe. Each deploys methods to make sure lithium, hydrogen, and renewables serve their very own pursuits first.
China has a decade-long lead. It controls over 70% of lithium refining, 80% of photo voltaic panel manufacturing, and dominates battery manufacturing with giants like CATL and BYD. Its mannequin combines state funding, non-public capital, and useful resource safety in Africa and Latin America. Beijing not solely extracts, it processes. That is why it units costs and defines world provide.
The United States, conscious of its dependence, launched the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in 2022, with subsidies exceeding USD 370 billion for clear vitality. Its purpose is to draw battery crops, increase hydrogen, and safe provide chains away from China. Tesla, General Motors, and Ford are already competing for direct contracts with lithium producers in South America and Australia. Washington additionally pressures Chile, Argentina, and Bolivia to prioritize offers with U.S. firms.
Europe, with no main mineral reserves, bets on regulation and financing. The Green Deal directs billions towards inexperienced hydrogen, renewables, and storage tasks. Germany secures import contracts from Chile, Morocco, and Namibia, realizing it can not rely upon Russia or China.
Brussels speaks of sustainability, however its technological dependence is clear. The energy map is evident. China produces and processes, the U.S. subsidizes and secures, Europe regulates and buys. The vitality transition is offered as a worldwide alliance, however in actuality, it’s a geopolitical contest over who defines the longer term.
Environmental and Social Challenges
The vitality transition is offered as an answer to local weather change, however its darkish aspect already weighs on territories and communities. Lithium and inexperienced hydrogen, pillars of the longer term, carry environmental and social conflicts that danger repeating the story of extractivism.
In the South American triangle, lithium extraction requires evaporating tens of millions of liters of brine. In Chiles Atacama, firms pump greater than 2,000 liters per second, disrupting a fragile ecosystem the place flamingos, indigenous communities, and vegetation rely upon that water steadiness.
In Argentina, Kolla and Atacama communities denounce tasks shifting ahead with out prior session, whereas the federal government celebrates exports. The paradox is brutal: clear mobility in Europe or Asia is promised at the price of drying the highlands.
Green hydrogen isn’t any exception. It requires renewable electrical energy and huge quantities of contemporary water. In Chile, tasks in Magallanes and Atacama demand huge wind and photo voltaic farms, with impacts on fauna and landscapes. In Morocco, rural communities concern shedding water entry in already arid zones. Even in rich international locations like Germany or Japan, reliance on imports raises justice questions: emissions are decreased within the North, whereas prices are transferred to the South.
Social conflicts are inevitable if the transition doesn’t embrace native participation and environmental respect. The danger is repeating the fossil gas mannequin: concentrated wealth, widespread poverty, and sacrificed territories. The true transition is not only technological, it’s also political and social.
Projections 20302050
The way forward for vitality is not measured in barrels of oil. Lithium and inexperienced hydrogen are the vectors that may outline the subsequent three a long time. According to the International Energy Agency, world lithium demand will quadruple by 2030 and enhance sixfold by 2050, pushed by transport electrification and renewable vitality storage. Electric vehicles alone may require over 3,500 GWh in batteries by 2030, implying tens of millions of tons of processed lithium yearly.
Green hydrogen will observe the same curve. Today it accounts for barely 0.1% of worldwide vitality use, however BloombergNEF tasks that by 2050 it may cowl as much as 20% of the worldwide matrix, making a market exceeding USD 2.5 trillion yearly. Europe will lead demand, with Germany importing as much as 70% of its projected wants. Japan and South Korea might be key patrons, whereas Chile, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Australia will compete to turn into strategic suppliers.
Oil and gasoline is not going to disappear instantly. OPEC estimates they’ll nonetheless characterize over 40% of the matrix in 2040, although their share will fall. The transition might be uneven: the economic North will increase renewables, whereas the Global South will nonetheless depend on fossil fuels to maintain development.
Geopolitical focus is clear. China will dominate lithium and battery chains, the U.S. will intention to steer hydrogen, and Europe will consolidate as regulator and importer. The danger is that the vitality transition repeats historical past: just a few powers determine, whereas the remaining provide uncooked supplies. The problem is to interrupt this logic earlier than 2050 arrives too late.
Lithium and Green Hydrogen in Comparative Figures
The way forward for vitality rests on two complementary however distinct vectors. Lithium powers the battery revolution, which depends upon renewable or fossil electrical energy. Green hydrogen, in contrast, is offered as a direct gas, a clear gasoline able to powering ships, planes, and industries with out plugs or grids.
- Lithium (batteries) | Demand 6 by 2050 | Price 2024: USD 25,000/ton | Market 2030: 700,000 tons LCE
- Green hydrogen (clear gas) | Today 0.1% of vitality | Projection 2050: 20% | Market 2050: USD 2.5 trillion
Lithium is the spine of cellular electrification. Each EV requires 4080 kg of lithium in its batteries. Its logic is storage and recharge, relying on out there electrical energy. Green hydrogen works in another way: it behaves like a direct gas, usable in generators, gas cells, and trade, changing oil and gasoline. A lithium battery wants recharging. A hydrogen tank fills like gasoline, however with out carbon.
The funding hole reveals the distinction. Lithium is measured in tens of millions of tons and tens of billions of export {dollars}. Green hydrogen tasks are measured in tens of millions of tons of unpolluted gas and trillions in revenues. One is a strategic mineral. The different is a worldwide vitality vector.
What is at stake just isn’t which expertise wins, however how they combine. Batteries and fuels aren’t enemies; they’re items of the identical board. If lithium powers electrical mobility and inexperienced hydrogen drives trade and heavy transport, collectively they may reshape the worldwide vitality map. The dilemma is whether or not that promise will belong to allor solely to those that management the minerals and export routes.
Oil formed the twentieth century with wars, dictatorships, and dependence.
Today lithium and inexperienced hydrogen seem because the promise of a distinct century, however the shadow of repeating the identical errors looms massive. The actuality is clear. Investments develop, costs spike, firms advance over salt flats and deserts, and powers draft agreements that determine the longer term with out consulting those that stay within the territories. Lithium dries lagoons within the highlands and hydrogen consumes water in arid zones. What is offered as clear vitality drags social and environmental prices already hitting communities and ecosystems.
Yet the fantastic thing about what it might be stays potential. Lithium may turn into the muse of a simply, sustainable mobility. Green hydrogen may displace oil with out leaving peoples behind. The vitality transition could be the best world pact if constructed with cooperation, shared sovereignty, and respect for nature. Otherwise, it will likely be one other map of plunder wearing inexperienced, the place just a few win and plenty of lose.
We is not going to see the total end result. But our kids and their kids will inherit a planet that should determine whether or not vitality was the spark of recent wars or the possibility for local weather peace.
May the twenty first century be remembered not for greed in salt flats nor disputes over hydrogen, however for selecting the trail of simply, clear, common vitality.
Bibliography and References
- International Energy Agency (IEA, 2023). World Energy Outlook.
- BloombergNEF (2023). Energy Transition Investment Trends.
- World Bank (2022). Minerals for Climate Action: The Mineral Intensity of the Clean Energy Transition.
- ECLAC (2023). Lithium in Latin America: Opportunities and Challenges.
Mauricio Herrera Kahn