Here’s a happy story. People who live in “a mountain-ringed desert about 25 miles from Argentina’s northwest border with Chile” have been struggling to maintain some of life’s basic services: drinking water, heat for schools, sewer systems. But it turns out these poor communities were sitting on top of a massive reserve of one of the world’s most in-demand elements: The lithium that powers the batteries of whatever device you’re using to read this right now. So they hit it big and lived happily ever after. Needless to say, the real story is a little different. Here’s the report from WaPo: Indigenous people are left poor as tech world takes lithium from under their feet.

+ This is part of an excellent series about where technology begins. See also, Cobalt in the Congo, and Graphite from China.