Descripción:

The global socio-ecological crisis has led to a transition process toward sustainability, initially aiming to replace the extensive use of fossil fuels with energy derived from green sources. Lithium and other minerals are increasingly demanded internationally for their functionality in developing devices and infrastructure for energy storage and operation. However, it is paradoxical that despite the desirable phenomenon of a global sustainable transition, the extraction of lithium and other resources and minerals necessary for this transition generates local tensions and negative impacts. In public discourse, a techno-optimistic narrative often emerges, positioning emerging technologies as the solution to these controversies. Our proposal argues that technologies labeled as emerging by themselves and without an evaluation process may not necessarily resolve lithium extraction and processing tensions. On the contrary, a system of indicators for these emerging technologies should be developed, integrating indicators of technological and socio-environmental performance constructed through participatory processes with locally situated communities. In this context, there is robust, predominantly retrospective scientific literature documenting Chile's socio-environmental impacts of lithium extraction and processing. However, even at the international level, there are few efforts to understand, from a situated perspective, the possible impacts of implementing emerging technologies in lithium extraction and processing. Thus, this work proposes an approach from the Social Sciences to address these emerging technologies, drawing on proposals from Engineering, territorial and environmental Sociology, and Management. The project brings together the two most important universities in the Antofagasta Region and the leading public-state university in the country. The team comprises researchers from the Universidad Católica del Norte, Universidad de Antofagasta, and Universidad de Chile. By the requirement of the National Agency for Research and Development of the Chilean Government, which in the contest base requests multidisciplinary approaches, the team contributes disciplinary expertise in economics, Management, sociology, chemical engineering, industrial engineering, and earth sciences. This research proposal aims to transfer a model for implementing a territorial socio-environmental assessment for the potential adoption of emerging technologies for extracting and processing lithium from brines in Chile. The Specific Objectives (S.O.) of the project are the following: i) To systematize the scientific-commercial progress on conventional and emerging lithium extraction and processing technologies from salt flats, considering their different maturity scales and technological performance; ii) To determine a set of social and environmental sustainability indicators considering local participation to evaluate conventional and emerging lithium extraction and processing technologies from salt flats systematized in specific objective 1; iii) To design a model for assessing emerging technologies with low socio-environmental impact on the lithium industry in Chile, incorporating policies and organizational strategies based on the set of territorial indicators defined in specific objective 2. Supported by the theoretical proposal, the research is structurally divided into three stages, each utilizing quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis techniques. These stages are generally interconnected through their products, meaning that each stage generates inputs for the next. The project has an international collaboration network composed of LUT University in Finland, Bauhaus-Weimar, and the University of Augsburg in Germany, with whom collaboration will be conducted in research and advanced human capital training. At the same time, an ecosystem has been built around the project, consisting of non-academic organizations, including "SQM, Technical Table of the Multi-actor Table of the Atacama Salt Flat, Atacameña Association of Irrigators and Farmers of the Vilama River, and Fundación Chile." These organizations will collaborate actively in project dissemination, research, and transfer activities. This project is a scientific contribution to understanding the innovation processes and evaluation of emerging lithium extraction and processing technologies from a Social Sciences perspective. It also contributes to society by providing a system of socio-environmental indicators developed based on social participation, an evaluation and systematization of internationally existing technologies, and a transfer and innovation model focused on the lithium industry. Thus, its results are relevant for current decision-making in Chile.