Breaking America's dependence on foreign energy supplies and suppliers who often don't like the U.S. is a driving force behind the country's search for vehicles that run on alternative fuels.

That includes electric vehicles, which Detroit has finally realized it must produce.

But there's a problem: Most of the lithium used to make the batteries for those cars is found in Bolivia, whose leftist president (pictured) is no friend of Uncle Sam.

An article appearing in Time notes that with 73 million metric tons of lithium carbonate - more than half the world's supply - Bolivia is the Saudi Arabia of lithium.

The small, impoverished country is also home to Evo Morales, Bolivia's first indigenous head of state, who prides himself on state control of his country's natural resources.

As the article notes, electric-car makers - as well as companies hoping to supply them with lithium-ion batteries - should look to the Andes with sober eyes.

To quote Bolivian Mining Minister Luis Alberto Echazu: "The days of U.S. car companies buying cheap raw materials to sell expensive cars are over."

Indeed, Bolivia's lithium abundance could put car manufacturers in the position of replacing one energy-rich Latin American U.S. critic - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez - with another.

Aware of this, automakers including Mitsubishi and Toyota have approached the Morales government to get in on the ground floor of Bolivia's lithium development - and have been routinely turned away.

"All they wanted to do was carry away the raw lithium carbonate," said Echazu, "and that's not what we're after."

What Bolivia is after is a largely, if not purely, state-run lithium industry that might even include actual manufacturing of the coveted lithium-ion batteries.

Chile is currently the leading lithium metal producer in the world, with Argentina next. Both countries recover the lithium from brine pools. In the United States lithium is similarly recovered from brine pools in Nevada.[19]
China may emerge as a significant producer of brine-based lithium carbonate around 2010. Potential capacity of up to 55,000 tonnes per year could come on-stream if projects in Qinghai province and Tibet proceed.[17]
The total amount of lithium recoverable from global reserves has been estimated at 35 million tonnes, which includes 15 million tonnes of the known global lithium reserve base.[20]
In 1976 a National Research Council Panel estimated lithium resources at 10.6 million tonnes for the Western World.[21] With the inclusion of Russian and Chinese resources as well as new discoveries in Australia, Serbia, Argentina and the United States, the total has nearly tripled by 2008.