{"id":1151457,"date":"2019-11-24T14:40:11","date_gmt":"2019-11-24T20:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/?p=1007561"},"modified":"2019-11-24T14:40:11","modified_gmt":"2019-11-24T20:40:11","slug":"lithium-miner-finances-solar-farm-in-argentina","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=1151457","title":{"rendered":"Lithium miner finances solar farm in Argentina"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>FMC \u2013 Minera del Altiplano, which operates Livent\u2019s (NYSE: LTHM) Fenix project at the Salar del Hombre Muerto (Deadman\u2019s Salt Flat) in Argentina\u2019s Catamarca province, is the financial force behind a soon-to-be-open, 600.3-kilowatt solar farm in the town of Antofagasta de la Sierra.<\/p>\n<div class='d-flex justify-content-center'>\n<div id='div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0'><script>googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0');});<\/script><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The facility, run by provincial energy provider EC SAPEM, is a hybrid photovoltaic solar farm with 1740 fixed panels and diesel-generating equipment, in case weather conditions interrupt solar energy supply. It has the capacity to power 1,000 homes at reduced prices.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote alignright\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>The solar farm should help FMC \u2013 Minera del Altiplano gain some social traction, as the Fenix project\u2019s water consumption,<a href=\"https:\/\/ejatlas.org\/conflict\/salar-del-hombre-muerto-litio-argentina\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" estimated at about 7.2 million litres per day (opens in a new tab)\"> estimated at about 7.2 million litres per day<\/a>, has generated some community opposition<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Known as the Antofagasta Solar Park, the $800,000-facility occupies five hectares of provincial land that, according to local news site <a href=\"\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"El Ancasti (opens in a new tab)\">El Ancasti<\/a>, was leased to EC SAPEM for 30 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Funding to build the facility was provided by the Salar del Hombre Muerto mining trust, which was created in 2015 following a deal between the provincial government and FMC \u2013 Minera del Altiplano. The <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"agreement (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=xPkcUqgZWLQ\" >agreement<\/a> entails that 1.2% of the mining company\u2019s profit should be deposited in the trust which, in turn, can only be used to improve Antofagasta de la Sierra\u2019s infrastructure. Between 2015 and 2017, the trust was only fed with proceeds from FMC\u2019s water tax.<\/p>\n<p>FMC \u2013 Minera del Altiplano\u2019s Fenix project is the source of one of the world\u2019s purest lithium brines. In 2017, it <a href=\"https:\/\/ejatlas.org\/conflict\/salar-del-hombre-muerto-litio-argentina\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"produced 15,153 tonnes of lithium carbonate (opens in a new tab)\">produced 15,153 tonnes of lithium carbonate<\/a> with a purity of 99.1%. The company has said that its goal is to reach 19,000 tonnes per year and, later on, double its extractive capacity.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The miner uses an extractive method that involves drilling the surface of the salt flat until reaching the brine, pumping the resulting liquid and sending it through pipes to large pools dug in the salt flats, where solar energy is used to accelerate water evaporation. The resulting sediment is mixed with chemicals through a leaching process to separate the lithium from the rest of the minerals. This <g class=\"gr_ gr_124 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Grammar multiReplace\" id=\"124\" data-gr-id=\"124\">process<\/g> boosts the Li concentration of up to 99.1%, which allows for the production of commercial lithium carbonate.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Salar del Hombre Muerto is part of the so-called \u201cLithium Triangle,\u201d comprised by Bolivia\u2019s Salar de Uyuni and Chile\u2019s Salar de Atacama. Together, these salt flats contain most of the world\u2019s lithium reserves, with somewhere between 50%\u201370% of the global lithium supply originating from the Salar de Atacama and the Salar del Hombre Muerto.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Livent&rsquo;s subsidiary FMC &#8211; Minera del Altiplano pitched into a trust fund that allowed for the building of a 600.3-kilowatt solar farm in the Andes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1016,369],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1151457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-battery-metals","category-miningcom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1151457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1151457"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1151457\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1151458,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1151457\/revisions\/1151458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1151457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1151457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1151457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}