Mexico city. The British mining company Bacanora Lithium has started construction on its facility in northern Mexico. According to its own statement, it now has the necessary capital to finance the lithium mining project in Sonora. According to a report published for investors, the company, together with its Chinese partner Ganfeng – the world’s largest lithium producer – plans to start commercial open-pit production in 2023.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs stated that the country has not yet produced a single gram of this metal. Lithium is used in electromobility, but also in electronic devices such as cell phones. In January 2020, the business newspaper El Economista wrote that the Bacanora project in Sonora had the world’s largest lithium deposit with an estimated 243.8 million tons.
A current one Message of non-governmental organizations critically examines the Bacanora project and the other lithium concessions in the country. The study, titled “Lithium: The New Trade Dispute Fueled by the False Green Market”, by GeoComunes, the network of those affected by mining (Rema) and Mining Watch Canada, shows that there are a total of 36 lithium There are mining projects that are controlled by ten companies. They hold concessions for 97,000 hectares of land and want to get 537,000 more hectares under their control. These lithium projects are located in the states of Sonora, Baja California, Zacatecas, Coahuila, Chihuahua, San Luis Potosí, Jalisco and Puebla.
The study warns that the so-called “energy turnaround” does not represent a significant change in course for the communities threatened by mining projects. “You have to sacrifice yourself to save the world from climate change,” said mining companies’ discourse to communities, criticized Kirsten Francescone from Mining Watch Canada. In addition, the NGOs emphasize the effects of the largely speculative market with the mining concessions for the rapidly increasing value of light metal. This involved “junior mining companies” that take land and create unrealistic expectations, conflict, violence, and displacement in communities just to make their profits on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
So-called white gold is also currently being discussed in the Senate. Senator Alejandro Armenta Mier, President of the Commission for Finance and Public Loans, submitted an initiative to nationalize lithium deposits at the end of 2020, as the metal is “a strategic energy source of the future” and thus the country’s energy sovereignty in the transition from fossil fuels to clean fuels can be ensured. The initiative of the politician of the Morena party, which has a majority in both chambers of parliament, is currently being discussed in commissions.
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