The Atacama Desert is a major source of lithium for EV batteries. As global demand ramps up, the local Lickanantay people are racing to protect already scarce water supplies and their way of life.

Lithium-rich brine in an evaporation pond in the Atacama desert, Chile John Moore/Getty Images The mining of lithium for batteries – the key to the electric vehicle revolution and levelling out the power supplied by renewables – is environmentally damaging. But an experimental sun-powered method that produces fresh water as well as lithium could make it more sustainable. Today, most lithium is obtained from underground brine reservoirs…