Bolivian lithium: why you should not expect any ‘white gold rush’ in the wake of Morales overthrow

The overthrow of Bolivian president Evo Morales shows how the politics of environmentalism and social justice intersect in a silvery-white metal. As Morales flew to exile in Mexico, commentators wondered what will become of Bolivia’s lithium, a strategic resource used in consumer electronics and electric cars.

Lithium batteries are the most energetic ever created, and have inspired hopes that electric vehicles can help reverse climate change, as well as expectations of a boom in “white petroleum” or “white gold,” as boosters refer to lithium. These are loaded analogies in a country defined by the brutal legacy of the Spanish conquest, and this history has guided how the Morales government approached the question of natural resources.

Its goal with lithium was to produce raw materials and battery components as part of a plan to foster domestic industrialisation. Depending on your ideological perspective, the fall of Morales either signals a return to the bad old days or heralds an era of rational resource development.

Will Bolivia get its white gold rush under new management? The short answer is probably not, for reasons that have as much to do with the paradoxes of public policy and the global market for electric cars as with persistent north-south inequity.