Industrial Mines: When the System Digs Its Own Grave
“The radicality of industrial mining is due to the fact that it does not coexist with living things. Neither with Human Worlds, nor with Non-Human Living Beings[1].”
The mine is the beating heart of the industrial system. It is the basis of all the infrastructures and objects that surround us, from roads to buildings, cars and railways.
“Industrial capitalism is based on the exploitation of the subsoil, whether it be deposits of coal, gas or oil (“rock oil”), sand or metals. All the objects that surround us come from the mine, from the mineral acids and from the titanium dioxide that were used to bleach the paper piled up on my desk to the lightbulbs that light me, from the screen I am looking at to the plastic bag that I am about to open[2].”
Everything that will be described here is therefore necessary in the daily life of industrialized countries.
This series of articles is based on the book” The Mining Rush in the 21st Century: An Investigation into Metals in the Transition Era ” by Célia Izoard and on the first part of the report by the SysText association” Mining Controversies: To Put an End to Some Untruths About Mining and Mineral Industries ”. These books are mandatory for those who claim to be an ecologist today: no strategic debate should take place without taking into account their investigations. They pose an inescapable observation on the disastrous material implications of industrial society.
Mining activities did not come about with industrialization. The story remembers, for example, the gaping wounds opened by European colonists throughout Latin America, to satisfy their thirst for gold from the 15th century.
But starting with the industrial revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries, mining became” The heart of the economy[3]” industrialized countries. Indeed, technical innovations such as railways and the development of manufacturing industries rely on the supply of mineral resources. Mining then took a radical turn, and entered into a “Era of mechanized mass production, exploiting low-grade and deep deposits, and containing complex minerals[4]. ” This turning point is made possible by the implementation of new extraction techniques such as the development of mechanical power (or even the hydraulic extraction of placers, which consists in using water under pressure to erode rocks or stir up sediments in alluvial deposits [5]).
Since then, the machines used have become bigger and more efficient, making it possible to further increase the volumes extracted and to exploit ever larger areas. Thus, in the Rio Tinto copper mine studied by Célia Izoard, around 900,000 tons of ores per year were extracted in 1880, compared to 7 million tons in 1997 and 15 million tons in 2023 [6].
The human and ecological disaster caused by these mines is equal to their gigantism. This article will cover this topic in four parts:
Part 1 : Mines, an environmental disaster
Part 2 : Mining, a social disaster
Part 3 : The Return of Mines to Europe: Ecology at the Bottom of the Hole
Part 4 : The Impossibility of Mineral Decay
Part 1: Mines, an environmental disaster
” TO By digging ever bigger holes and filling entire valleys, extractive companies have become the most active geomorphic agents on Earth, surpassing the natural regimes that have hitherto shaped the Earth's surface. Geologists have thus found that each year, mineral extraction moves three times more material to the Earth's surface than all the rivers in the world carry to the oceans.[7]. ”
Mining gigantism is explained first of all by an unchangeable geological data: almost all metals are rare substances, present in a few grams or even milligrams per ton of rock [8].
An insane and extremely energy-consuming movement of materials must therefore be carried out in order to obtain a few grams of metals to be recovered. The Rio Tinto Mine illustrates this absurdity well: the deposit contains only 0.4% chalcopyrite (the ore from which copper is produced). Yes, that means that 99.6% of the extracted rocks are waste (left behind)! Called “sterile,” these rock clusters form hills that release toxic substances into the air and water.
“The problem is that the quantity of waste produced by mines today is disproportionate to that of the past. Not only have the volumes extracted increased considerably, but the deposits are becoming poorer and poorer. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Rio Tinto Company mined copper at a content of 2%; Atalaya Mining now mines it at 0.4%. The current production of the site is fifteen times greater than then. In just over a century, the quantity of waste has therefore increased by 75 times.[9] ! ”
The second unchangeable geological fact is that the ore sought is not alone in the rock. Extraction also releases other metals, often.” Very toxic for human health or for any form of life, such as: arsenic (As), antimony (Sb), lead (Pb), mercury (Hg)[10] ”. For example, in Guyana and Bolivia, gold mining also releases mercury from the soil, causing contamination of the local population [11].
Once the ore is extracted, it must be concentrated via mineral processing (separating it from the other minerals present in the rock). In the case of copper from the Rio Tinto mine, the ore is ground into powder.” The Size of Flour Grains[12] ” (which requires a lot of energy), then subjected to a” Succession of chemical baths that will allow the minerals containing copper to rise to the surface. For this purpose, a mixture of hydrocarbons (xanthates, ditiophosphate and thionocarbanate) is used.[13]. ” The “residues” of this phase, i.e. a mixture of products and metal powder constituting a chemical sludge, are then stored in huge tanks retained by waste rock.
” At the four corners of these basins, pipes continuously discharge residues from the flotation plant, at a rate of ten million tons per year. Until the beginning of the 1970s there was a valley here; it is now an open chemical dump, as is found in all mines. The residues accumulate at a depth of 100 meters and cover nearly 600 hectares.[14]. ”
These huge toxic lakes can contain metals such as lead or arsenic, but also hydrocarbons and acids. Called “tailings farms”, they are the most polluting and dangerous infrastructures in mines. In fact, leaks to groundwater are common, and the risk of breakage of dykes and huge waves of toxic sludge, sometimes crossing entire countries, is real. So,” In 2019 in Brazil, the Brumadinho Iron Mine Dam Failed, a 12 million cubic meter mudslide killed 270 people, annihilated a bridge, a village and all the wild fauna and flora over tens of square kilometers[15]. ”
Unfortunately, these accidents are frequent and are due to Gasoline Even of these basins: their construction from mining waste, which optimizes costs but does not make it possible to withstand the pressure of the tailings or the weather. However, in the face of the intensification of extreme climate events with climate change, these infrastructures are particularly vulnerable.
“(...) Combined with mining gigantism, extreme events linked to climate change could have cascading effects. Since the beginning of the 21st century, when climate change has only just begun, more than fifty tailings dam failures have already been identified. How to ensure the safety of these huge waste dams in the face of torrential rains or cyclones? How will entire regions be able to cope with drought if groundwater or surface water has been contaminated by toxic residues[16] ? ”
Let's leave these huge toxic lakes aside to return to the copper concentrate, obtained at the end of the mineralogical process. Shipped to China, it is heated in large furnaces in foundries, to obtain” Metal Blocks That Contain About 98% Copper[17]”. These smelters release sulfur dioxide, a gas that is toxic if inhaled and causes acid rain.
Finally, copper is refined by electrolysis (again immersed in a bath of copper sulfate and sulfuric acid where an electric current separates the copper ions from the other elements). The copper concentrated to 99.99% at the end of this process and can be used for plates, coils, cables. But for the needs of electronics (computers, phones), copper must be even more concentrated (99.9999%).
The description of the copper extraction process clearly shows the fundamental unsustainability of industrial mines. They destroy everything in their path, pump all the water out of the groundwater and contaminate what is left, destroy the habitat of numerous species and disseminate metals capable of annihilating all forms of life. Is this a “green” transition?
Their consequences are not only local but global. They contribute to around 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions and are the main producers of solid, liquid and gaseous waste. The huge lakes of toxic sludge they produce are among the largest artificial structures on Earth, and can ravage entire countries if a dike breaks [18].
Regulating or collectivizing industrial mines will not change anything: they are intrinsically harmful and do not coexist with humans, animals and plants. If you have to choose between mines and life on Earth, then ATR chooses life.
No mines or industries, not here or anywhere else.
