Peru wants to produce lithium batteries domestically, a government official said on Wednesday, joining other Latin American nations with lofty ambitions to industrialize their resources of the ultralight metal needed to power electric vehicles. “We are already starting to act to see if we can develop a battery industry,” said Jaime Chavez, Peru’s vice minister of mines, at the Perumin mining industry conference. Peru is the world’s No. 2 copper producer and an attractive destination for global miners. It has some lithium deposits in the southern region of Puno which are currently being explored by American Lithium ... (full story)