In a cloud of gray dust, an excavator fills a dump truck with blocks of stones containing lithium, an ore used to make batteries for electric cars.

The back and forth of heavy goods vehicles is incessant on the red earth covered with a grayish layer, in the heart of the Jequitinhonha Valley, in the state of Minas Gerais, one of the poorest regions of Brazil.

Long nicknamed the “valley of misery”, this semi-arid region where nearly a million inhabitants live is now seen as a new El Dorado thanks to the abundance of lithium, the “white gold” essential for energetic transition.

Around 85% of the reserves of Brazil, the world’s fifth-largest lithium producer, are located in the region.

To attract foreign investors, local authorities last month launched the concept of “Lithium Valley” (lithium valley) with great fanfare, in New York, at the headquarters of Nasdaq, the new technology exchange.

A Canadian company, Sigma Lithium, has already taken the lead. Founded in 2012, it began mining lithium in the Jequitinhonha Valley in April.

The stated objective: to supply enough ore for the batteries of more than 600,000 electric vehicles in the first year, and three times more when production has reached cruising speed.

The exploration of lithium is not without consequences for the environment, the processing of this ore requiring enormous quantities of water, while the reserves are mainly in regions hit by drought.

But the company advertises itself as a producer of “green lithium”: in the ore processing plant, 90% of the water is subsequently reused and no chemicals are used, Ana Cabral told AFP. -Gardner, Brazilian CEO of Sigma.

“Our entire operation has been designed to solve the equation between mining activity and sustainable development,” she explains.

For her, the turning point took place in 2015, when an iron ore tailings dam burst in Mariana, an unprecedented environmental disaster in Brazil, in the same state of Minas Gerais, about 400 km north. south of the Jequitinhonha Valley. The following year, his investment fund became Sigma’s largest shareholder.

Ana Cabral-Gardner explains that the mine at the Grota do Cirilo site is split in two, to preserve a small stream that crosses it, even if this represents a significant shortfall.

But the idea of ??transforming the region into a “lithium valley” is not unanimous.

“Here, it’s the Jequitinhonha valley, we can’t put a mineral in front of our identity,” says Aline Gomes Vilas, 45, a member of the Movement of People Affected by Mining Dams (MAB), who believes that the local populations were not sufficiently consulted.

She lives in Araçuai, one of the neighboring towns of the Sigma mine. “It was a quiet, rural region, and now the din is permanent. We can already see houses with cracked walls because of the explosions” in the rock, whose rubble is picked up by diggers to be loaded into trucks and be processed in the factory.

“With each explosion, the walls shake,” said Luiz Gonzaga, 71, who lives right next to the mine.

“At the moment they are still digging quite far from my house, but the dust is already bothering me. Imagine when it will happen near here”.

“This region has already experienced a rush for gold, diamonds, but that has never led to development (…). The energy transition is necessary, but it must be done in a fair way”, estimates Ilan Zugman , director of the NGO 350.org for Latin America.

Elaine Santos, a researcher at the University of Sao Paulo (USP), also criticizes the fact that the lithium extracted in Brazil is almost exclusively intended for export, “while Europe and the United States are developing strategies on the whole chain, from mining to the production of electric cars”.

“Brazil risks deepening its dependence, remaining a country that mainly exports raw materials, with low added value,” she laments.

Lithium mining in the country dates back to the 1920s, but that changed after a decree issued in July 2022, the last year in office of far-right ex-President Jair Bolsonaro. This decree made this market more attractive for foreign investors, in particular by lifting restrictions on the export of this mineral.

And a government envoy from his leftist successor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, was in New York actively supporting the launch of the Lithium Valley advocacy campaign.

In Chile, the world’s second largest producer of lithium, his counterpart Gabriel Boric, also on the left, on the contrary recently announced measures to strengthen state control over its extraction.

06/17/2023 20:22:02 –         Araçuaí (Brésil) (AFP) –         © 2023 AFP