Chile

Third of the world's supply of lithium is in a salt-flats aquifer there

Although lithium is plentiful, the problem is ensuring there is enough capacity to process it.

We cross the Straits of Magellan, visit a 30-year-old shipwreck, and drive to the southernmost city in the world.

We explore Chile's Torres del Paine national park in our merry band of Subarus, and take in a day of truly epic fishing.

In this video clip from our Patagonia adventure, we drive a Subaru Forester to the Perito Moreno Glacier in Argentina.

For the right kind of person, this sounds like an awesome adventure with a Jeep Wrangler. For everyone else, it probably sounds like hell.

Motocross base jump in Chile – Click above to watch the video after the break

According to The Mainichi Daily News, customs agents in Chile have detected low levels of radiation on vehicles shipped from Japan. Of the 2,500 vehicles shipped from the port of Yokohama, radioactivity was detected on 21 once they reached Iquique. The levels of radiation were determined to be too low to be of any harm to humans by the Chilean Nuclear Commission, though that didn't stop

Despite the best efforts of racing organizations the world over to clean up their image, it's pretty tough to consider any kind of motorsport squeaky clean. Apparently, that's especially true of the recent Dakar rally in South America. Besides the expected burning of fossil fuels and the emissions associated with it, the National Monuments Council (NMC) of Chile reports that the off-road race caused roughly $570,000 (300 million pesos) of damage to 56 of the country's 111 heritage sites.

The potential to make biofuels from camelina and mustard is well known, and they might be two good choices for additional oil sources to make biodiesel besides jathropa. The University of Concepción, in Chile, along with nearby agricultural conglomerates, have funded research to discover the potential of camelina and mustard as sources of oil to produce biodiesel. Camelina p

Endesa, a Spanish-based (Italian-owned) utility company will be soon distributing to its customers in Santiago Chile an EV car. The model, the Reva EV (which we tried in Barcelona last year) hasn't been much of a big seller in most of Europe (40 units in Spain) so the distribution via the own utility company in Latin America seems quite a good deal. The Reva is currently going through homologation procedures througho

The head of Chilean Tourism, Oscar Santelices, has offered up his homeland as a possible venue for the recently cancelled Dakar Rally. The grueling event, which was recently cancelled due to terrorist threats, might be rescheduled in a different location sometime in February and Chile is now in the running with Australia, China and Russia.

Click image for photo gallery

It's been a fun ride (even from the comfort of an Internet connection, but the cross-continental biodiesel drive from Alaska to the southern tip of South America is just about over. Here are the last few diary entries from the Panamericana 2006 team (previous updates are here). There should be one more coming.