Lithium refining and battery-assembling facilities could help kickstart economies. But so far, public and private initiatives in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil and Chile have failed to deliver even a single lithium cell factory. And none are set to be built through 2025. South America controls about 70 percent of the world’s reserves of lithium, the metal used in rechargeable batteries for mobile phones and electric vehicles, but none of the infrastructure needed to put it to work. Lithium refining and battery-assembling…