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| Tue, 9th Nov 2021 10:00:00 |
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How the rise of copper reveals clean energy’s dark side |
Corky Stewart, a retired geologist, and his wife live in a rural subdivision in New Mexico’s Grant county, about a mile north of the sprawling Tyrone copper mine.
“We’ve been here three years and we’ve heard four blasts,” Stewart said of the mine, one of four on an expanse of land partitioned into dozens of four-acre lots. From his perspective, the blasts don’t seem unreasonable, given that a mining company owns the property and has the right to do what it wants.
But he didn’t know when he bought the property that the company would propose a new pit called the Emma B just a half-mile from the wells he and his wife depend on for drinking water. “If they were to somehow tap into our aquifer and drain our water supply, then our houses become valueless,” he said.
“We’re not making any effort to prevent the pit from being built,” he said. “All we’re really asking is for them to give us some commitment that they will fix whatever they do to our water supply.” But the mine, owned by the company Freeport-McMoRan, refuses to give them this assurance, he said. Freeport-McMoRan did not respond to multiple requests for comment by New Mexico In Depth and the Guardian.
The company’s effort to expand comes as the US expects to invest in energy sources that are cleaner than fossil fuels, and the global demand for copper rises. Copper conducts electricity, bends easily, and is recyclable – which makes it a critical material for most forms of renewable energy, from wind and solar to electric vehicles.
But when “clean energy” relies on the extraction of metals like copper, it can also pollute the surrounding environment.
While Freeport-McMoRan touts sustainability practices and other measures taken to reduce the company’s own greenhouse gas emissions, there’s little doubt that copper mining poses significant risks to communities on the ground, threatening everything from water access to air quality to Indigenous cultural sites.
Companies dig huge holes into the ground, going deeper than the water table. Heavy machinery kicks up dust, polluting the air. Chemicals are used to leach the mineral out of ore, and exposed water is forever contaminated. Some operations, like Freeport’s Tyrone mine, will have to pump water in perpetuity, even after there is no longer copper to be found, so that contaminated water from the mine site doesn’t flow back into the wider water table.
Chris Berry, an independent analyst focused on energy metals, said the push for clean energy is a big reason for increased demand for copper, which is estimated to grow by 350% by 2050 if the world moves towards clean energy. Its price nearly doubled from 2019 to 2020 in the US.
That’s partly because copper’s role in the transition to clean energy cannot be overstated. “We’re really going to have to re-engineer the electricity grid to make it cleaner and greener and more efficient. And that’s going to take a lot more copper, and copper mining.”
This reality puts environmentalists like Allyson Siwik, executive director of the Gila Resources Information Project, a local environmental advocacy organization in Grant county, in a tricky spot.
“We are trying to transition to a clean energy economy, right?” said Siwik. “So we obviously are very supportive of that.” However, she adds, “the increase in global demand for these metals is very disconcerting to me. You know, it’s frontline communities like us here in Grant county that bear the cost of the increased exploration, expansion of mining.”
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