The world faces a crucial challenge,
how to generate and use clean and renewable energies?
How do we efficiently harvest solar, wind and sea waves energies?
To power the electricity grid and cars
it’s necessary to replace the use of the polluting fossil fuels,
responsible for global warming;
we’ll be running out of them over time.
In Argentina, we are in a good position.
That we have great natural resources,
you heard of it in school to death already,
that we have the most fertile soils, oil, gas and coal, as well.
But, we also have great potential
for the development of renewable energies.
We have powerful winds and sea waves in Patagonia
and at the other end, in the Puna, near where I live
solar radiation is one of the highest on Earth.
However, renewable energies
have the peculiarity of being intermittent;
the sun doesn’t shine at night,
the wind only blows when it feels like it
and the sea is often quiet.
Does this mean that it’s not possible to live exclusively
on renewable energies?
That during the day or when there is wind and there are waves is all right,
but the rest of the time it’s necessary to burn oil?
That is an option.
Another option is that the excess of energy that we capture,
for example, when the sun is at the top,
we store it to use it at night or when there is no wind or no waves.
How do we store energy?
Energy can be accumulated in batteries that are much larger
than cellphone batteries,
but essentially work with the same technology.
To harvest renewable energies without the ability to store them,
condemn us unfailingly to be used only to cover
a marginal part of a country’s power demand.
And if we don’t have good batteries
we won’t have efficient electric vehicles either.
I live and work in Jujuy,
because there I’m very close to one
of the great resources of our country.
Together with our neighbors in Chile and Bolivia
we take part of the Lithium Triangle.
In this region you will find
80 percent of the world’s deposits of lithium in brine
which are the richest deposits and the easier to exploit.
And it turns out that lithium is one of the fundamental raw material
for manufacturing rechargeable batteries.
Last year, the industry of batteries consumed 38 percent
of the total lithium produced in the world
and estimates show that
the demand will increase 10 percent annually.
How do I get to lithium?
I was born and grew up in the Buenos Aires
and I lived there until I was 29.
And I can proudly say
that I am the outcome of public, secular and free education —
(Applause)
where I studied from kindergarten until my PhD.
Then I worked in France, in Australia, in Belgium
for more than seven years.
In the year 2013, Dr. Ernesto Calvo who was director of my doctoral thesis
calls me and tells me that in Argentina we have a lot of lithium,
and that there was little development regarding that subject.
And he tells me “we have to create the Balseiro of lithium in Jujuy,”
like the prestigious Balseiro Institute in Bariloche,
one of the best in the world in research in physics,
a place to develop state-of-the-art science and technology on lithium.
Someone was needed with enough audacity
to settle in Jujuy and start to shape this idea.
And I let myself be convinced.
I think what weighed the most in this decision
was the possibility of doing science, which I’m passionate about,
but that the results are not only visible
by publishing scientific papers in specialized journals —
those read by about 200 people, at best —
yet by having more reach within society.
So I came back, not to Buenos Aires, but to Jujuy.
Back to lithium, we come to the issue of mining.
It would be a very serious contradiction that while we are extracting lithium
to make batteries for cars and renewable energies
we are polluting the environment in the neighboring areas of the deposits.
Lithium is found dissolved
in something like deep underground lakes
of terribly salty water.
There are about 30 of these deposits in the lithium triangle
and they always lay below salt marshes.
This water is 10 times saltier than sea water
and that’s why we call it brine, like the pickles’ brine.
Lithium mining consists of essentially pumping the brine
from its underground location
and dump it in large pools out in the open.
The brine gets slowly concentrated
by the action of the wind and the sun.
That is, the water evaporates and the salts remain.
Lithium mining has been questioned
for an intensive use of water.
To produce a ton of lithium carbonate
it’s necessary to evaporate
approximately half a million of liters of brine.
And here a yet unsolved question comes up,
because the brine as is renders useless,
we can’t drink it or use it for irrigation because of its very high salinity.
So, is there any harmful side effect
for gradually emptying these deposits?
In addition, current technology only extracts lithium,
all the other components of the brine are discarded as waste
which, while not toxic, occupies lots of space.
Our goal is to develop new ways of extracting lithium
that will reduce to the minimum the environmental impact.
We are young and we still don’t have conclusive results
but we are working on many new ideas
and I want to tell you about some of our projects.
On the one hand, we work on ideas that could be considered
patches to current technology,
non-total solutions, yet applicable in the short term.
What you see in these photos is called “simple solar still”.
it’s a device that’s been around for over a hundred years
and purifies water by distilling it by direct action of the sun
in this structure that looks like a glasshouse.
Together with colleagues from Salta and a local mining company
we study if it’s possible to somehow adapt this structure
to cover the evaporation pools
and try to extract by condensation,
the water that currently evaporates.
The second example is a disruptive technology,
which implies a radical change,
potentially applicable to the long run.
It’s a methodology for sequential recovery
of all brine components without evaporating water,
in a way to transform what is today a large volume of waste,
into pure compounds of commercial value;
potassium salts, magnesium salts,
sodium salts, borates and lithium.
The most interesting thing is that if we take from the brine
most of its components, we produce low salinity water
as a by-product of lithium mining.
In all our work there’s common topic:
try to recover the water that currently evaporates
and transform it into fresh water.
If at least a part of the water brine that now evaporates could be recovered,
lands that are currently unproductive
could become growing areas
because local agriculture is possible only through intensive irrigation.
We also study high capacity batteries that could make an electric vehicle
have the same autonomy and the same cost
as a vehicle running on fossil fuel,
something that doesn’t happen today.
And we also do synthesis of lithium compounds
of high added value.
In order to add value to raw materials
and to extract them sustainably, knowledge is required
and also having the physical means to put the ideas into practice.
Like in lots of other aspects,
in science, Argentina is also a terribly centralized country.
However, I believe that it’s possible
to do cutting-edge science and technology in a place like Jujuy
and that the local people are going to have most interest
in taking care that the extraction of the raw materials
is done in a sustainable way,
and that nobody will understand better than them
about developing science and technology that creates local employment.
If scientific activity consists of trying to understand the world
and look for solutions for the advance of human society,
it’s necessary that you can do science in every corner of the country.
(Applause)
Today, with a very big effort of the National University of Jujuy
and the help of colleagues from Córdoba, La Plata and Buenos Aires
we are working on setting up the Balseiro of lithium in Jujuy,
where a large group of local youngsters work on topics related to lithium
in final projects of their engineering careers,
their doctorates and postdoctoral studies.
And for us to do cutting-edge science and technology
and forming young people is really the same task.
Exactly two months ago, our new house was inaugurated:
a building of 3300 square meters.
(Applause)
Who will harvest the economic benefits from its developments?,
this you may wonder.
That takes us directly to the question:
who finances research in science and technology in Argentina?
Like many other labs, we juggle
to live on the State grants we receive
and we aim to patent our developments through CONICET.
However, a patent is only the first step.
To take laboratory processes to the industrial scale
requires more funds, and in order to try and get them
we contacted several companies.
Unfortunately, in Argentina there is very little tradition
of giving economic support to developments that are born in public organizations.
Some companies answered us
that they don’t want to finance risk investments,
they want more advanced results.
And it’s likely that not all projects we are working on
will end up being feasible or profitable,
but to know which of our many ideas
will be the two or three that will bear the best fruit
it’s necessary to invest, to know what works and what doesn’t.
For now, the best results we have got
with SMEs of Argentinian capital, and this is not coincidental.
For example, a family SME with small mining properties
came knocking on our door
to ask if any of our extractive technologies
was ready because a SME doesn’t have the capital
required to invest in an extractive plant with the current technology.
We also have to mention that most of the salt flats rich in lithium
have already been granted, and here we have to say
that there are some small or large contradictions in our work
such as the absence of laws that guarantee the provision
to the Argentinian market of raw materials
that are currently exploited by foreign companies.
Plus, the absence of laws that exhort mining companies
to test extractive technology with potentially less environmental impact.
Despite this messy situation of laws and funds scarcity
we continue to work without losing sight
of our fundamental goals, such as the creation
of a science and technology center in Jujuy
and the consequent training in cutting-edge technologies
to the local youth.
We believe that it’s possible to make cutting-edge developments,
to add value to our raw materials,
and doing this from the outlying areas.
And above all things,
my strongest bet is to do all this work
side by side with bright young people born in the north of our country.
Thank you.
(Applause)
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