World News for Students of English

15-07-2024 07:00

In northern Argentina, there is a new project to help green energy.

In Salta, black tubes fill a big tank with salty water from deep underground. This water has lithium, which is important for making electric car batteries. The French company Aramet is using a new way called Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) to get lithium faster and with less water. This new method doesn’t use big pools to evaporate the water. Jean-Baptiste Ort is the head of Aramet’s lithium business, and he says DLE will get 90% of the lithium, while the old way gets only 40-50%. Other companies are watching to see if it works. Aramet plans to make its first ton of lithium carbonate in November and wants to reach 24,000 metric tons a year by 2025. This could help Argentina compete with Chile, which makes the most lithium in Latin America.

Even though there is too much lithium in the market and prices are low, Aramet’s CEO thinks they will still make money.

Difficult words: method (a way of doing something), evaporate (to turn liquid into gas).

You can watch the original video in the Level 3 section.