Comments on: Hybrid Car Future Hinges on Bolivia's Lithium

By: altonalvin

altonalvin — Sun, 01 Jul 2012 00:25:45 +0000

Hybrids, in my opinion, are a United States thing since I think they are the no.1 consumer in automobiles so it’s like a marketing plo to get people aware of our environment. Hybrid cars is one small solution as I heard they are trying to event cars without gas. At any rate, there are still people out there who simply don’t care about the environment regardless of Nancy Pelosi’s statement or whoever….I’m rambling. liberté

By: entatiki

entatiki — Tue, 03 May 2011 16:46:38 +0000

Why do you consider Morales a dictator?
Morales was first elected President of Bolivia on December 18, 2005, with 53.7% of the popular vote.Two and a half years later he substantially increased this majority. In a recall referendum on August 14, 2008, more than two thirds of voters voted to keep him in office.Morales won presidential elections again in December 2009 by 63% and continued to his second term of presidency.
Just because a foreign country opposses US corporate involvement doesnt make it a dictatorship.
Look at the Arab world, Iraq and Libya are dictatorships with oil but unfreindly to the US, so what does the US do? Cries dirty dictators and invades imposing democratic reform. Saudi Arabia and Bahrain are both dictatorships with unrest and oil but friendly to the US, so what does the US do? Nothing.No mention of dictators, no mention of suppression of its civilians, no sanctions, just business a usual.

The USA most stop playing bully around the world. No one is seeking or exploiting US natural resourses. What the US exports is done on US terms. The same should apply the other way around with the common people's interests always in mind, not the blood sucking corporations interests only. Im not saying they shouldnt make money, they should, but if the resources dont belong to you you must pay a price for it.

By: fubleduck

fubleduck — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 04:07:54 +0000

Electricity is NOT an energy SOURCE, but an energy PRODUCT. It takes energy to produce it. I don't see it as very likely that you can ever charge up an electric car as quick & conveniently as you can fuel up a conventional vehicle. The charger would have to be countless times more powerful than the vehicle being charged. Also, I don't see any way the vehicle can have the same range.
A hybrid vehicle is no doubt compramised by the fact that it loses power charging the battery-even w/ retrobraking. An ideal sized engine w/out a bunch of batteries should yield more efficiency.

Fuel cells seem to be the most potentially promising for vehicular energy, as it's self contained & energy goes directly into elecrtricity that would otherwise have to power a generator b/4 electricity even exists. One of the FC's drawbacks seems to be that it lacks the power to size ratio of a full blown combustion engine. It would either be underpowered, or the powerplant would have to comprise a much larger component of the vehicle's size. FC's have been greatly refined since the early space program, but they had oodles of room 4 improvement. The FC's weighed roughly 100# for every unit of horsepower produced, & they contained their own oxygen. If Engines are an indication, airbreathers are a lot heavier. That's why rockets are a lot smaller than airbreathing jets.
Full blown combustion is a much more concentrated power source than the virtual artificial metabolism a fuel cell seems to replicate

By: Gabriel

Gabriel — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 14:12:16 +0000

Sorry to many here, but Bolivia (as well as many central and south-american countries) has good reasons NOT to trust the United States of America. The deals to mine Lithium AND manufacture batteries and other value-added goods (not just exporting the raw mineral) will be most probably made with european (probably french) and asian (seems like korean companies are doing well) partners.
Since Bolivia is an independent and sovereign country, and its government is a democratically elected one (not run by an “arrogant, ignoramus dictator”, like some ignorant stated above), even backed by a nation-wide poll two years AFTER its election (does any other country dare to do this?), they have all the right to negotiate with whom they like most. And they have the right not to negotiate with the US, if they have reasons to distrust the US.
Typical US arrogance that make people state “Bolivia needs the United States” or “There is not a country in the world that doesn’t NEED the United States if they want to improve their current standard of living” is replicated in US foreign policies since DECADES ago, and now that attitude “helps” the US reap what the US has sown. The US mentality that so lightly makes ppl write comments like “Patrick- “The lithium belongs to Bolivia and not to the US” that could change in about 24 hours if the US wanted to invade Bolivia. Don’t forget that in the negotiation” adds very little (so to speak) to USA’s charm. Thinking that the US has the right to invade a country (or put a puppet dictatorship) if said country does not give their raw minerals (or other goods) to the US at el-cheapo-prices, while typical american attitude, is far from being positive for the US. A change in attitude (and many years to prove it’s sincere) is what will give the US some credibility again in some places. And that will, in time, mean a reward if the US want a share in business WITH said places. Otherwise, those countries will seek some other partners (and there are a-plenty) in business. Europeans and especially asians are very well positioned to do so. There’s not a bit of anger towards asians in Central and South America. Asians have never helped to overthrow a democratically elected gov’t there nor helped put a puppet murderer dictatorship there either.

By: Brewster2010

Brewster2010 — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 20:19:59 +0000

Most posters here have accepted the liberal media description of Bolivia. I lived there in the past and have closely watched the politics since leaving.

When a past free enterprise conservative president privatized the government owned mines the bloated government payrolls were reduced. Some miners who lost their mining jobs were resettled in the Cochabamba region and taught to be farmers. They found this work too hard and promptly switched to growing coca, which in this region was ONLY suitable for sale to drug cartels to make cocaine. The representative of the "coca-for-cocaine" farmers cooperative was Evo Morales. That was his entry to politics. I believe he was the representative of the drug cartels in presidential elections. I believe Morales is financially supported by the drug cartels and his deal is: You can do what you want in politics as long as there is non interference with the drug business.

Bolivia is corrupt and so is Evo Morales. His demands for his lithium are that batteries and electric vehicles must be made in Bolivia. The favorite political weapon of Indian activists is nationwide road blockades that shut down truck transportation, the major method in Bolivia, with no coast to coast railway and no seaport. Multinational companies cannot afford to have production halted due to political strife. This has kept foreign investors out of Bolivia in the past and will again in the case of lithium.

Let the Bolivians leave the lithium in the ground for a wiser generation.

By: goya

goya — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 14:02:38 +0000

leave bolivia alone. If you don’t want to pay a fair price get the Lithium from somewhere else. Since you are developed countries I bet you can afford it if you stop sending troops to Afganistan.

By: goya

goya — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 13:59:13 +0000

No surprise, that with such stupids ideas and fake power muslins hate america

By: The Kingpin2010

The Kingpin2010 — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 05:38:50 +0000

Pay Euros or pounds better because there will be no technology for the us if we dont like the benefits and money!

By: bradley reshenko

bradley reshenko — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 01:27:21 +0000

Let eh Bolivians stick it up their you know whats, and USA buy from Argentina and Chile. The hell with socialists, all of them, see what happened in Russia.. Enough said..

By: brandon

brandon — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 05:24:01 +0000

its not a matter of wanting more money for the lithium, (I assume) they just want to process the resource materials domestically to increase their value exponentialy, which produces drastically more profit for Bolivia, without necessarily rising the price of lithium batteries. I imagine labor is cheap(er) in Bolivia opposed to the markets of these batteries (N. america, Europe, ext), so technically the batteries should drop in price, unless greed maintains strict price controls on the batteries.