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Chile has the worlds confirmed biggest reserves of Lithium, estimated at 7.5 million tons. It is in brines, below the surface of salt flats. It is not expensive to extract.
The global production of lithium is to triple this decade, from 200,000 tons in the year 2000 to over 600,000 tons in 2020. Mining lithium metal is not expensive, especially at high mountain plateaus, where lithium is collected from brine ponds evaporated by the sun. Brine excavation is probably the only lithium extraction technology widely used today, as actual mining of lithium ores is much more expensive and has been priced out of the market.
Identified lithium resources total 5.5 million tons in the United States and approximately 34 million tons in other countries, so lithium is not, in fact, a rare commodity. Identified lithium resources for Bolivia and Chile are 9 million tons and in excess of 7.5 million tons, respectively. Identified lithium resources for Argentina, China, and Australia are 6.5 million tons, 5.4 million tons, and 1.7 million tons, respectively. Canada, Congo (Kinshasa), Russia, and Serbia have resources of approximately 1 million tons each. Identified lithium resources for Brazil total 180,000 tons.
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