It is the 33rd most abundant element on earth. However, as it is highly reactive it is never found in its pure form in nature, and right now, we extract it from mineral rich brine from lakes. This process uses a lot of water, approximately 500,000 gallons of water goes into extracting 1 ton of lithium, enough to make 190,000 smartphones.
I think we’ll wage war over water before we wage one over Lithium.
In the process described above its evaporated. Other processes that are in development pump it back into the underground brine (just a little less salty).
What is relevant here is that this is salty brine water, not drinking water.
And the water usage is very different for what we are talking about here. This is not a brine mine, but a spodumene rock mine. That uses far less water.
I think we’ll wage war over water before we wage one over Lithium.