Fighting for Bolivia’s Lithium, Vital to Electric Cars


“The amount of lithium we need for any of our climate goals is unbelievable,” said US Assistant Secretary of State Anna Shpitsberg. “Everyone is trying to build their own supply chain and think about how to be strategic.”

But Washington has little influence in Bolivia, whose leaders have long opposed America’s drug policy and approach to Venezuela. This may explain why some energy executives don’t think Bolivia is worth the risk.

“You’ve had 30 years of projects in Bolivia showing almost nothing,” said Robert Mintak, CEO of Standard Lithium, a publicly traded mining company headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia. 1990. “You have a landlocked country with no infrastructure, no workforce, no political risk, no intellectual property protection. So as a developer, I would choose another location that is safer.”

Mr. Egan sees the possibilities differently.

It’s a miracle Mr. Egan went this far. He discovered Bolivian lithium by accident while crossing South America as a tourist with a friend in 2018.

Upon arrival at the salt flats, a guide announced that they were standing on top of the world’s largest lithium reserve. “I thought, ‘I don’t know how to do this but I need to get involved’,” Mr Egan said.

He had tried his luck as a sports and music agent and was running a small investment fund at the time. He invested in Tesla at $9 per share in 2013; It is currently trading around $975. (He hasn’t disclosed how many shares he’s bought and how many he still owns.)

But he felt that he had not accomplished much. Before Mr. Egan traveled to South America, his father, Michael, founder of Alamo Rent A Car, advised him to make two lists of his five biggest passions and the five industries he thought would grow the fastest in the coming decades. Renewable energy was featured on both lists.



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