It was an honor to welcome Cassady Walters from The Rockefeller Foundation Institute to the Atacama last month as part of the ClimateWorks Foundation visit. As commented by Sebastian Galarza, the dilemma in moving towards cleaner energy and more circular mobility is how we balance this with ecosystems and local communities needs. Lithium is essential for the global push toward decarbonization and electrification. In Chile, SQM operates the largest lithium refinery in the world, and is one of the most sustainable producers globally, playing a pivotal role in advancing electromobility. At SQM, we are proud to have one of the lowest carbon and water footprints in the industry, as demonstrated by both LCA and independent studies. Our commitment to further reduce our footprints remains at the heart of our efforts. Water stewardship is at the heart of our operations: over the past five years, we have consistently used 50% less water than our permitted levels, while increasing lithium production. By the end of 2024, we had reduced brine extraction to 37% below the volume authorised in our environmental permit: https://lnkd.in/eK7yETzt Transparency is essential to insure ability to all our stakeholders. Our activities are closely monitored by both our team of scientists and Chilean regulatory bodies. With around 300 monitoring points throughout the Salar de Atacama basin, our comprehensive environmental monitoring system ensures we can take proactive steps to safeguard the environment. This is publicly available at: https://lnkd.in/d3RDhAh As part of our lithium innovation roap, we have analysed more than 140 DLE technologies and completed 12 industrial pilots in Chile and abroad. For more insights on this, you can check a recent interview to our colleague Gabriel Meruane Naranjo: https://lnkd.in/ej8zCtuJ We are committed to ongoing innovation that meets growing demand, while fostering our relationship with neighbouring communities.
Last week, I had the privilege of visiting the SQM lithium mine in the #Atacama desert on the sidelines of the ClimateWorks Foundation 2nd Strategic Convening on #Minerals for the Energy Transition. The Atecama holds some of the world's richest lithium reserves and flying to Calama to visit the mine, I was struck by the sheer scale of the mine site. Flying high above, I could clearly make out pools of green and blue on the land below where lithium is in the process of extraction. The SQM site is estimated to cover roughly 72 square kilometers - or about the size of Providence, Rhode Island! Based on SQM's estimated annual production, annual lithium production from the Atacama site is enough to make over 2 million car batteries or over 18,000 battery energy storage system "megapacks" with a capacity of 3.9 MWh per unit. As we at The Rockefeller Foundation consider how to resilient minerals supply chains to power our energy future, I was struck by a few things: ✅ The SQM Atacama site operates on the national grid, largely powered by renewables. When we talk about developing critical mineral supply chains in Africa, we must also talk about improving grid reliability and extending the grid. ✅ The manager we met with reported that climate change has resulted in a faster rate of evaporation over the past 5 years, meaning that SQM is able to process production faster. That may be good news, but higher temperatures also have an impact on water levels and workers. The conditions are harsh to say the least! ✅ The lithium brine extraction process is *relatively* low-tech and requires fewer workers than hard rock mining. This underscores why countries must consider critical minerals value chains within broader industrialization pathways that will drive job growth. ✅ SQM's Atacama operation underwent an independent IRMA Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance audit to evaluate its performance across social and environmental responsibility, business integrity, and planning for positive legacies. As Aimee Boulanger will remind us, legal standards are always more effective than voluntary standards - but voluntary standards are key to moving the goal post forward and helping countries and companies understand the "how" of responsible mining. ✅ #DLE or direct lithium extraction has a long way to go. A single pilot at the SQM site was processing a tiny fraction of lithium. In the world of renewable energy, we don't talk about the material sources powering our energy future nearly enough - how they are produced, the impact on our environment and communities, or the role of governments in developing and regulating extraction and value addition. I'm so grateful to ClimateWorks Foundation and Centro Movilidad Sostenible for putting together a great visit. Lina Fedirko Grace Zhang Sebastian Galarza Monica Araya Ignacio Rivas Suzanty Sitorus Swithin Lui Thomas Willson Ermi M. Ana Alvarado Nicolás Llano Linares Erika Ortiz Fajrin Hanggoro