Two months ago I posted on the lithium-ion battery boom and how it may blow up in our faces, as the essential ingredients are found in less-than-friendly (to the USA) places. Lithium, long a key component of anti-depressant drugs, is critical to electric cars and other devices on the drawing boards designed to make us more energy-efficient and less dependent upon hydrocarbons found in hostile places.
Now comes Simon Romero's New York Times story about the huge (almost half the world's supply) lithium reserves in Bolivia, and the country's militant resolve not to let Western corporations or others run amok in their desire to lock up all the lithium.
The Bolivians are aware of what they have, and want to control its development. Their nationalistic ardor could spell problems for us down the road.
Sometimes I think we need an Unintended Consequences Office (good acronym: UCO), where very smart people would work, trying to see pitfalls in new policies/technologies (think ethanol) before we travel too far down the road.
I can dream, can't I?
"The law of unintended consequences pushes us ceaselessly through the years, permitting no pause for perspective." -- Richard Schickel
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