From The War Below (Ernest Scheyder, 2024) pp283-5
An Elusive Prize | 283
Deep hues of cyan and aquamarine fluttered across the vast expanse. We drove between two lagoons for several more miles until we came upon another military post where guards fatigues were labeled with YLB patches, a sign of the closeness of the state-run lithium company and the military.
A small rock cliff loomed; tucked underneath it was a gasoline station. And nearby sat a three-story office building with missing windows and sheets flapping in the wind. It was the same building that Evo had christened back in 2013 during his failed first attempt at Bolivian lithium production. There, in its shadow, sat a shipping container plastered with the EnergyX logo. Among the eight companies vying for the Bolivian DLE contract, only EnergyX sent a pilot laboratory to the country itself. The rest had brine shipped from the salar to their labs in China, Russia, or the United States. In early 2022, the shipping container was assembled in Austin, driven to Houston, put on a barge to Cartagena, Colombia, sent through the Panama Canal to Arica, Chiles largest port, shipped to La Paz, and then taken via truck to the salar.
It was a gargantuan journey intended by [Teague] Egan to show the government he cared enough about its lithium plans that he would drag a shipping container across the equator and into the mountains. Inside the container was a makeshift chemical laboratory equipped with face shields, gas masks, an eye station, and other safety equipment. Egan made a point of noting the chlorine gas monitor. “That’s really important,” he quipped as he showed me LiTAS.
LiTAS was, effectively, EnergyX. It is the device powered by the technology that Egan licensed to help filter lithium from the brine using thirty membranes. Egan popped the lid of the contraption, which looked like an oversized guitar amp, and waved his hand in front of his nose. The smell of chlorine wafted through the air-far stronger than an average neighborhood pool.
What LiTAS actually makes is lithium chloride, which can be converted into the two types of lithium used to make EV batteries: lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide. During our tour, Egan explained that EnergyX was working on a technology to cut out the middle step. LiTAS, though, had been chugging along for four months at the time of our visit, consistently filtering lithium without taking a break or needing any of the membranes to be changed, he and Amit said. I had no way of confirming what they said, so I asked for more information on the yield – that is, how much lithium in the brine they’re able to extract. Egan demurred, describing it as a trade secret and saying I could find out when the government made its decision, which at that time was expected in only a few weeks.
I took notes about the chemistry and then remarked on the design of LiTAS, which evokes something Apple’s Steve Jobs would have designed. Interestingly, Egan noted, that was the idea. “The style, the curves, the brushed stainless steel, the lighting. It doesn’t look like what you’d expect,” Egan said. “It has some swag to it, which is important to me.”
What’s also important is trade secrets. Surveillance cameras watched over everything from the four corners of the shipping container. While not here, Egan had a local contracting company staffing the pilot facility. The cameras were designed to keep watch.
Outside, a small plaque is stamped to the hulk of a building where YLB used to process lithium. It commemorates the 2013 ceremony when Evo had christened the building. Bolivia Industrializa con Dignidad y Soberania, it reads. Bolivia industrializes with dignity and sovereignty.
Egan walked over: “We should get going. We have Rio Tinto at five thirty, he told Amit, before realizing he’d said this in front of me. Amit hesitated, then wiped sweat off his forehead.
“That’s today? What slide deck are we using?”
“The combined technologies one,” he replied.
Egan and I switched cars on the ride back so he could take his phone call with Amit. Travelling the 37 miles back to Uyuni, the sun setting in the distance behind us looked resplendent, calming even. It didn’t faze me too much when suddenly the left rear tire exploded on the dirt road, the rubber flaps slapping to the ground. Gregorio, our new driver, got to changing the tire as I made friends with a group of llamas that were resting nearby. The salar’s expanse spread out before us as the sun dropped in the west.
ON THE SECOND Wednesday in June, La Paz quietly announced on the Facebook page of the Energy Ministry that EnergyX and Argentinas Ecopetrol had been disqualified from the DLE race to produce Bolivias vast lithium reserves. No reason was given. Egan and EnergyX declined to comment, and their social media accounts went silent.
It emerged the next day that EnergyX had missed a routine deadline to submit preliminary brine-flow data. The reason seemed suspect, especially because Energy’s pilot facility was literally sitting on a Bolivian military base. If the deadline had indeed been set from the beginning and was missed, couldn’t a soldier have walked over and demanded the data? Cracks started to form in the company’s leadership, who ignored phone calls.
Egan emerged weeks later determined to win back Bolivias business. He held talks with Rio, Allkem, and other mining companies. The next month, a private equity firm said it would invest $450 million in EnergyX, but only after it launched a stock offering, something that was possible only if the company had actual customers. “I absolutely think we still have a chance in Bolivia,” Egan told me. “If they have a change of heart and want to come back to use EnergyX as a service provider or have any type of business structure, we’re open to that.”
Even while Egan’s bravado returned, his rivals moved forward. Back in the United States, at Rhyolite Ridge, the fate of Tiehm’s buckwheat grew more tense.
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