Iss2/Ch2 Do electric cars generate waste worse than nuclear power plants? The answer may surprise (and poison) you (part 2)

(Continued from Ch2/Part1)

Rare earth mining

Like cobalt, rare earth elements (REEs) are indispensable for a green energy transition. The Harvard International Review explains:

Perhaps these elements [ ] get their name from being rarely discussed, even though everything from the iPhone to the Tesla electric engine to LED lights use REEs. Demand for these elements is projected to spike in coming years as governments, organizations, and individuals increasingly invest in clean energy…With current estimates, demand for REEs could increase six-fold by 2040…Demand for [the REEs] dysprosium and neodymium is estimated to increase seven to twenty-six times over the next 25 years as a result of electric vehicles and wind turbines.

[ ]

REEs describe the 15 lanthanides on the periodic table (La-Lu), plus Scandium (Sc) and Yttrium (Y). Contrary to what the name suggests, REEs are abundant in the earth’s crust. The catch is that they come in low concentrations in minerals, and even when found, they are hard to separate from other elements, which is what makes them “rare.” 

China Water Risk, a Hong Kong-based environmental group, explains that a 2MW wind turbine requires 363kg and 59kg of two rare earths, neodymium and dysprosium, respectively. They extrapolate that 100GW of wind power requires 17,050-18,150 tons of neodymium and 2,950 tons of dysprosium, though this estimate does not include the additional rare earths required for ongoing maintenance.

Rare earth mining is especially destructive because rare earths are widely distributed in earth’s soils. While miners can find cobalt-rich heterogenite rocks, for example, rare earths are only found as individual atoms, dispersed throughout the soil.

As with uranium mining, rare earth mining can occur in two ways: open pit mining and by in situ leach methods. As we learned in Chapter 1, both types of mining have extraordinary environmental costs, though in situ mining is overall less harmful. Both methods use an extraordinary amount of water, chemicals, and electricity.

According to China Water Risk, in order to produce a single ton of rare earths via open pit mining, miners must dig up 300 cubic meters of topsoil, destroying 200 square meters of surface vegetation. Once all vegetation is removed, the soil is dumped into leaching ponds for a series of chemical reactions that separate out the rare earths. Producing one ton of rare earths ultimately produces an astonishing 2,000 cubic meters of tailings.

Alternatively, to produce one ton of rare earths via in situ methods creates up to 60,000 cubic meters of waste gas containing concentrated dust, hydrochloric acid, hydrofluoric acid, and sulfur dioxide, plus 200 cubic meters of acid-bearing toxic wastewater. In situ mining also requires removal of vegetation, but substantially less than open pit methods; nonetheless, the chemicals injected into the ground are toxic for plant life, so even though a smaller amount of vegetation is clear cut with bulldozers and chainsaws compared to open pit mining, a great deal of vegetation nonetheless dies from being poisoned by in situ chemicals. The water pollution of in situ is substantial, even when compared to that of open pit mining. Per China Water Risk:

Water contamination around mine sites can be significant. Data collected from environmental monitoring showed that ammonia nitrogen and total nitrogen levels in surface water at Zudong Mine, the single largest ion-absorption rare earth mine in China, failed to meet China’s Grade III Surface Water Standard, which means the water is not suitable as a drinking water source. Moreover, in the Wojiang River in the Lintang basin, for the same indicators, levels were 295 and 358 times higher, respectively, than the maximum allowed amount for Grade III of the standard. And in the Lianjiang River Guanxi Basin, levels exceeded the Grade III standard by 209 and 244 times respectively.

Such pollution doesn’t simply disappear over time. Downstream from the Zudong Mine, which was using the more advanced “in-situ leaching” process, the average ammonia nitrogen level of surface water was still 50 times over the standard. Even after decades of rainfall and erosion, the level of ammonia nitrogen was 20 times above standard. This means that despite the best mining methods employed, abandoned mine sites are still polluting surface water.

Groundwater pollution is even more complicated. Groundwater quality at mine sites and surrounding areas is far from Grade III (the lowest standard for drinking water sources) of the “Ground Water Quality Standard”. In some parts of the river basin around Zudong Mine, 100% of groundwater samples failed to meet acceptable levels for indicators of the Grade III standard, including lead, cadmium, sulphate, total dissolved solids, nitrite, ammonia and pH. In addition, nitrate, sulphate, iron, zinc and other indicators were also in excess.

The nitrogen pollution of in situ mining is especially concerning: “Ammonia nitrogen in water can be converted to nitrite under certain conditions and when combined with human proteins can turn into highly carcinogenic nitrosamines.”

Both open pit and in situ methods create 1 to 1.4 tons of radioactive residue per ton of rare earths. Astonishingly, rare earth mining produces more radioactive waste than it produces rare earths. This is because rare earths naturally co-occur with radioactive atoms, mostly thorium and uranium, so it is impossible to mine for rare earths without generating a substantial amount of radioactive waste.

The massive amount of radioactive waste continues to be a problem worldwide wherever rare earths have been mined or processed. For example, 15,000 tons of radioactive waste generated from rare earth mining is being stored in densely populated parts of Brazil in facilities designed to be temporary. China Water Risk highlighted the example of the mining corporation Lynas, which was denied a permit to process rare earths in Australia. The Australian government denied the permit based on the radioactive waste it would have produced. Instead, Lynas simply built its processing plant in Malaysia, where environmental regulations are more lax.

Rare earth mining: as bad as cobalt

Today, the vast majority of rare earth mining occurs in Myanmar. In recent years, China produced the vast majority of the world’s rare earths; however, due to the staggering environmental costs of rare earth mining, the Chinese government forced companies to vastly reduce rare earth mining. As a result, as documented by Global Witness, rare earth mining operations simply moved across the border to Myanmar, where labor and environmental regulations remain lax. Labor and environmental abuses are so bad that a rare earth industry expert told Global Witness:

We find ourselves in the position today where there is a horrific situation going on in Myanmar, and people are questioning whether these materials are any better than, say, cobalt out of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Global Witness elaborates:

Almost all heavy rare earths in Myanmar are mined in a mountainous, semi-autonomous territory on the country’s north-eastern border with China. Known as Kachin Special Region 1, this region is run by an ageing local warlord called Zakhung Ting Ying who controls several militias including a Border Guard Force that is part of the Myanmar military’s chain of command – the same military that stands accused of the gravest crimes under international law, including genocide. A few years ago, there were just a handful of rare earth mines in Kachin Special Region 1. In March 2022, Global Witness commissioned a satellite to fly over the region. We found over 2,700 mining collection pools at almost 300 separate locations sprawling across an area the size of Singapore.

All of the mines are operated by militias or formal armed forces, which freely mete out violence against the local population in order to ensure high production. Myanmar’s dismal mining economy follows a familiar pattern we saw in Congo (and occurs around the world): land is violently seized without compensation, leaving the displaced people so poor and desperate that they have no choice but to work as miners. Miners toil without any safety equipment, handle dangerous chemicals without protection, and face frequent, often fatal, landslides. Child labor is widespread.

All waste from the massive pools where in situ leachate is collected and processed with chemicals is simply abandoned once mining is complete, without any remediation whatsoever. Wastewater – which, as discussed above, contains carcinogenic nitrogenous chemicals, as well as normal mining byproducts like toxic and radioactive heavy metals – is simply dumped into the nearest river or stream. Global Witness spoke to people who had not been able to use rivers and streams for four years due to the large amount of toxic wastewater. Locals also reported that most of the fish, birds, and animals around the rivers are now gone. Kachin has dozens of endangered species, including the red panda, all of them threatened by the mining pollution.

Locals told Global Witness that crops cannot grow near the mines and that their livestock had been poisoned from drinking water from what had previously been safe sources. Villagers used to cart produce across the border to China to sell, but now report that customers are afraid to eat food grown near the mines. As once-productive farms fail to support crops or livestock, these farmers, too, have no option but to seek work as a miner.

Locals struggle to find clean drinking water, but the threat of dangerously polluted drinking water is not merely a local concern: the rivers in which miners dump untreated mining waste eventually flow into the Ayeryarwady River. 36 million people rely on the Ayeyarwady River for their drinking water.

Rare earths in China

While Myanmar is currently the world’s leading producer of rare earths, China previously held this title. Neither China nor Myanmar has an unusually rich deposit of rare earths; the only reason China had become the world’s leading producer was that the government had been extremely permissive of environmental harm. Congruently, the only reason China stopped being the world’s leading producer is that the government stopped being so permissive of environmental harm. Yale’s environmental magazine summarizes the effort by all levels of government to impose stricter environmental regulations, but as we saw above, miners simply went across the border to Myanmar, where they could continue to mine without obeying any environmental protections. Rare earth mining, it seems, is not profitable unless the government turns a blind eye to its harms.

In situ has been the preferred method of mining since the mid-1990s. While this cut down dramatically on tailings produced by Chinese rare earth mines, in situ still produces a large amount of waste, including radioactive waste, that must be stored forever. What’s more, much of the mining occurred earlier via open pit mining, so there is the legacy of massive tailings dams that must be maintained forever – in a part of the world notoriously prone to earthquakes.

Environmental Impact in China

China Water Risk cites an investigation identifying in the city of Ganzhou alone: 302 abandoned rare earth mines, 191 million tons of tailings that are not properly impounded, and 97 square kilometers of destroyed land. China Water Risk points out that the cleanup for Ganzhou’s rare earth mines is estimated to cost $6 billion. For perspective, this is a quarter of the total market capitalization of each one of China’s formal rare earth corporations, combined. What’s more, Ganzhou is just one city within Jiangxi Province, and Jiangxi only represents 8-9% of China’s rare earth production. The total cleanup cost is staggering. China Water Risk summarizes: “Clearly, the ‘commercial viability’ of all these mining companies would be questionable if environmental costs were to be factored in.”

What’s more, Ganzhou’s abandoned mines and improperly impounded tailings are very near a tributary of the Yangtze River, which supplies the drinking water for several massive cities, including Hong Kong. In other words, if all the tailings are not properly secured, toxic waste will contaminate the source of drinking water for tens of millions of people.

The Baiyan Obo mine in Inner Mongolia Province has the largest tailings pond in the entire world. It holds 135 million tons of tailings, including 70,000 tons of radioactive thorium. Shockingly, the impoundment was never covered, so when it rains heavily, tailings are carried away. The Yellow River is only 10km away. Major contamination of the Yellow River – which supplies the drinking water of 150 million people – would be a catastrophe. Yet the possibility for disaster is very real: Baiyan Obo is on an active fault zone. As we saw in the last chapter, no tailings dam is safe, but Baiyan Obo is an especially outrageous example.

Baiyan Obo is not the only Chinese rare earths tailings dam to leak in heavy rains. The Maoniuping rare earth mine in Sichuan Province lost 100,000 tons of mineral waste plus tens of thousands of tons of tailings during a single storm in 2013.

Once-productive farmland has been contaminated beyond remediation, even where less harmful in situ techniques were used:

According to China Environmental News, in 2012, the drinking water of more than 30,000 people from Huangsha and Dongjian towns was affected due to contamination from mining sites located upstream. Additionally, 41,365 acres of farmland in the two towns either failed to produce crops or suffered from reduced yields…

In Huangsha and Guanxi some villagers, still today, live around and inside mine sites. It’s difficult to find a villager between the age of 30 to 60 with a full set of teeth. Villagers say many of them lose their teeth before they are 50 years old. Villagers suspect this is related to rare earth mining. Rare earth mining does cause nitrogen and fluorine pollution. Although the correlation cannot be confirmed, the villagers’ concerns are not groundless.

Harvard International Review notes that, “The Chinese government has also acknowledged the existence of so-called ‘cancer villages’ where a disproportionately large number of people have fallen ill with cancer due to mining-based pollution.” Citing Chinese media, China Water Risk explains:

Dalahe village, a Mongoi minority village located two kilometres in the West of the Baotou tailing dam in Inner Mongolia is well-known as a “cancer village”. The cancer story of this village starts in 1988 when goats and horses started to develop odd growths, only then to die suddenly. Sometime later, men and women of the village started to experience issues with their jaws. This was followed by many falling severely ill and ultimately being diagnosed with cancer.

And:

By the 1990s, crops in nearby villages were failing, causing farmers to accept that crops would no longer grow and animals could not survive in the area…Whole villages between the city of Baotou and the Yellow River in Inner Mongolia have been evacuated and resettled to apartment towers elsewhere after reports of high cancer rates and other health problems associated with the numerous rare earth refineries there.

Firsthand accounts of the effects of this pollution are jarring:

The foul waters of the tailings pond contain all sorts of toxic chemicals, but also radioactive elements such as thorium which, if ingested, cause cancers of the pancreas and lungs, and leukaemia. “Before the factories were built, there were just fields here as far as the eye can see. In the place of this radioactive sludge, there were watermelons, aubergines and tomatoes,” says Li Guirong with a sigh.

It was in 1958 – when he was 10 – that a state-owned concern, the Baotou Iron and Steel company (Baogang), started producing rare-earth minerals. The lake appeared at that time. “To begin with we didn’t notice the pollution it was causing. How could we have known?” As secretary general of the local branch of the Communist party, he is one of the few residents who dares to speak out.

Towards the end of the 1980s, Li explains, crops in nearby villages started to fail: “Plants grew badly. They would flower all right, but sometimes there was no fruit or they were small or smelt awful.” Ten years later the villagers had to accept that vegetables simply would not grow any longer. In the village of Xinguang Sancun – much as in all those near the Baotou factories – farmers let some fields run wild and stopped planting anything but wheat and corn.

A study by the municipal environmental protection agency showed that rare-earth minerals were the source of their problems. The minerals themselves caused pollution, but also the dozens of new factories that had sprung up around the processing facilities and a fossil-fuel power station feeding Baotou’s new industrial fabric. Residents of what was now known as the “rare-earth capital of the world” were inhaling solvent vapour, particularly sulphuric acid, as well as coal dust, clearly visible in the air between houses.

Now the soil and groundwater are saturated with toxic substances. Five years ago Li had to get rid of his sick pigs, the last survivors of a collection of cows, horses, chickens and goats, killed off by the toxins.

Conclusion: Rare Earth Mining

Again, for every ton of rare earth produced, a ton of radioactive waste is produced. As discussed in this issue’s introduction, some environmentalists believe that the radioactive waste of nuclear power plants is so dangerous that nuclear power should never be used, even if doing so increases the use of fossil fuels. By that logic, anything that requires large amounts of rare earths – electric cars, wind power, utility batteries, cellphones, and computers – should not be made.

Rare earths cannot be recycled. Rare earths have been described as analogous to salt in cooking. A single teaspoon of salt seasons an entire pot of food: a tiny amount of salt is distributed throughout the entire batch. In electronics, rare earths are used in tiny amounts and dispersed throughout. Recovering rare earths from worn-out devices is thus like trying to remove a teaspoon of salt from a pot of chili. The extreme difficulty of recovering rare earths makes recycling totally impractical: currently, less than 1% of rare earths are recycled, and it’s difficult to see how this can be improved. The exceptions are neodymium and dysprosium in wind turbines and electric cars, which are used in a solid block. But for the most part, rare earths cannot be part of a “circular economy” because they usually can’t be recycled. The harms from rare earth mining – from deforestation to radioactive waste – won’t ever stop.

Nickel mining

Nickel is an essential component of electric car and utility batteries, nuclear reactors, geothermal plants, and the steel required by wind and solar. Indonesia is the world’s largest producer of nickel, with reserves located mostly in three areas. As with cobalt mining, “reputable” companies like Tesla try to make it seem that they are not associated with the major abuses of the mining industry by using a web of subsidiaries. Nonetheless, we know that electric carmakers are voracious for nickel, and it is certain that most (if not all) automakers use Indonesian nickel simply because Indonesia produces such a high share of the global nickel supply. Climate Rights International (CRI) researchers were able to confirm from press releases that Tesla, Volkswagen, and Ford all have agreements with companies that have been linked to Indonesian nickel mining.

Much of the information in this section comes from the CRI investigations of nickel mining and smelting on the central portion of Halmahera Island (follow-up), Obi Island, and the central and south portions of Sulawesi Island (nickel mining also occurs on other parts of Halmahera and Sulawesi). The environmental and human impact has been devastating.

In a pattern we saw with cobalt, lithium, and rare earth mining, nickel mining corporations took the land they wanted with little to no compensation for the people living there, often using law enforcement or the military to force residents to accept unfair terms. An example from Halmahera:

Maklon Lobe, a 42-year-old Sawai man from Gemaf, owned farmland within the current boundaries of IWIP [nickel mining/smelting concession], where he grew cocoa, sago, and nutmeg. Maklon told Climate Rights International that, without his permission, in 2018 representatives of IWIP cut down his trees, blocked the road to cut off access to his land, and began excavating his land. Maklon says he met with IWIP representatives multiple times between 2018 and August 2022 to discuss compensation. During this period, police officers visited his home “countless times,” demanding to know why he refused to sell his land to IWIP. Eventually, Maklon gave in. Despite holding a land certificate confirming his legal ownership of 38 hectares of land, IWIP only agreed to pay for eight hectares, taking the rest without compensating him…

People living near IWIP have had their land taken, deforested, or excavated by nickel companies and developers without their consent. Some community members who refused to sell their land or contested the set land price offered experienced intimidation, received threats, and faced retaliation from company representatives, police officers, and members of the military.

In Sulawesi, different mining companies have been even more ruthless in land grabs, using greater force and refusing even token compensation.

The major sources of income for islanders had been fishing and farming. Mining has destroyed both of these occupations, leading to the poverty and desperation that forces people to take jobs mining or smelting. Rather than the promised economic boom, villages near nickel mining and smelting operations went from being totally self-sufficient before the mines to having such extreme poverty that children have died of malnutrition.

The destruction of fishing and farming is the result of tailings runoff. Like Congo’s cobalt and lithium in Serbia and Nevada, Indonesia’s nickel can only be accessed via open pit mining, which generates an extraordinary amount of tailings. Water on Halmahera, Sulawesi, and Obi used to be so clean that islanders drank directly from rivers and creeks, and the waters around the islands teemed with fish. On Halmahera, fish were so close to the shore that fishermen didn’t even bother with motorboats as they could catch more than enough fish to support their family by rowing a short distance from home. With the arrival of mining, tailings runoff became so severe that rivers and the surrounding ocean is hopelessly polluted. Once clear waters are now visibly polluted with toxic mining runoff:

So much toxic tailings flow off the islands that the surrounding ocean turns deep red throughout the rainy season. Many fishermen have given up on fishing, no longer able to make a living. For the fishermen in Halmahera, continuing to fish means taking rudimentary canoes further and further out on the open ocean to find dwindling numbers of fish, in increasingly long and dangerous trips. On Sulawesi, fishermen who own motorboats have found that the fish are so diminished in number and so far from shore that the fuel costs outweigh the value of the fish they can catch.

Though data are limited, the collapse of fish stocks has been confirmed by scientists. In 2024, 100% of fish sampled by scientists in Weda Bay, Halmahera tested positive for mercury and arsenic. And:

Seawater samples by Professor Muhammad Aris at Khairun University in Ternate, North Maluku, and Kompas in September 2023 found that seawater in Weda Bay [Halmahera] contained [1.8 to four times the government limit for] chromium, nickel, and copper. Fish caught in the bay by the researchers had damaged cells and tissues, likely due to heavy metal pollution.

For the vast majority of rivers and creeks near mining areas, there is no publicly available information on toxins. However, an Indonesian government agency found that water in six of Halmahera’s rivers was unsafe to drink due to high levels of chromium and other toxins. A year later, three different rivers were found to have nine times the government limit for nickel. Residents are forced to buy bottled water: once free, clean water now eats up a sizable portion of household income and has become a major contributor to poverty.

The other main source of livelihood – agriculture – has also been destroyed by mining. Toxic tailings runoff has left once fertile fields unable to grow anything. Farmers grew everything from rice to cashews, coconuts, and nutmeg before the mines hopelessly contaminated their fields.

With their main means of livelihood destroyed, islanders have no choice but to work in the mines or smelters. Workers at one smelter work 15 days in a row. Workplace accidents kill due to a lack of safety practices, and suicides out of despair claim more lives. Corporations pay below the Indonesian legal minimum wage and provide erratic income. When the mines or smelters shut down due to weather or the end of a contract, workers are simply laid off without knowing when – or if – they will be rehired. As mentioned above, villages went from being totally self-sufficient before the mines to facing such extreme poverty that children have died of malnutrition.

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Of course, the human effects of mining go well beyond household finance. 47% and 42%, respectively, of residents in Halmahera living near smelters were found to have toxic levels of mercury and arsenic in their blood. Similar to cobalt mining areas in the Congo, dust is everywhere: “every day begins with wiping red powder from tables and sweeping it out of corners, knowing it will return by evening…every surface cleaned is dirty again within hours.” One resident reported, “Even our food gets mixed with dust.” Unsurprisingly, residents reported dramatic increases in respiratory infections, and although no public health study has been done to confirm this, there is no other explanation for the dramatic increase in hospitalizations of children for respiratory distress – conditions that miraculously improve when families visit relatives far from the mining and smelting operations. As we’ve discussed throughout, the dangers of particulate pollution, including heart attacks and other sources of premature death, are well established, and dustborne mining byproducts like uranium, arsenic, and lead interfere with the function of all living cells and are thus poisonous to every part of the body.

Even though there has been no change in climate or rainfall, islanders face biblical floods that never occurred prior to mining. The worsening of flooding is a direct result of the deforestation of open pit mining. Deforestation contributes to flooding because tree roots help the soil to absorb and hold water. Without roots, the water rushes over the soil, leading to devastating floods. In Sulawesi, floods swept away entire villages as residents swam for their lives, escaping through windows. For a single flood on Halmahera, homes and surrounding agricultural fields were underwater for nearly three months. Flooding on this scale never occurred prior to mining because the forests were capable of mitigating even large amounts of rainfall.

As discussed throughout this double issue, open-pit mining requires removal of all vegetation and overturning all soil in search of ore. No ecosystem can survive open pit mining. The environmental damage of nickel mining is incalculable and, in some cases, beyond remediation. This is especially true for habitat loss on Halmahera because 27 bird species, seven reptile species, and two mammal species are found nowhere else in the world. As in cobalt mining regions of the Congo, once-thick tropical rainforests, ruled by massive trees and impressive beasts, are now lifeless.

Conclusion to nickel mining & Chapter 2

It would be easy to conclude this chapter by recapping the significant human and environmental impacts of green energy mining. However, the examples covered here bring up more fundamental and disturbing questions.

This issue began by discussing the green energy deal with the devil: in order to save the planet from climate change, it is necessary to sacrifice parts of the planet. There is no way to obtain the minerals needed for the green energy transition except by mining. We suggested in the introduction that this is a lie, for three key reasons.

First, this Faustian bargain is a lie due to the immense carbon emissions of mining. Currently, mining is estimated to contribute a whopping 10% of humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions. From deforestation to the energy that goes into creating the chemicals necessary to dissolve rock; from the diesel fuel burned by heavy machinery to the high-temperature, fossil-fuel-powered smelters used to melt rock; every step of the process of mining is a massive source of greenhouse gas emissions.

Crucially, much of the carbon emissions from mining are unavoidable. As should be obvious from each section of this chapter, deforestation cannot be eliminated from the mining process. In situ methods can reduce but not eliminate deforestation, but in situ is only possible for certain minerals and under special geological conditions. As tons and tons of dead vegetation decays or is burned, tons and tons of greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere. Akin to our discussion of desertification in Issue 1, the greenhouse gases from deforestation are no different from the greenhouse gases from a coal power plant: once in the atmosphere, greenhouse gases contribute to climate change no matter their origin.

Unlike in Congo, China, and Myanmar, where data do not exist to estimate the contribution of deforestation to climate change, UC-Berkeley researchers were able to obtain geospatial data for 31 of 66 nickel mining concessions on the central Halmahera in 2023 (nickel mining also occurs in eastern Halmahera, Obi, and Sulawesi). For the 31 mining concessions – fewer than half of the concessions on just part of a single nickel-producing island – 5,331 hectares (20.6 square miles) of tropical rainforest were clear cut to make way for mining operations. This deforestation alone produced 2.04 million metric tons of greenhouse gases, as much as 450,000 gasoline-powered cars emit in an entire year. Again, that represents only 5,331 hectares (3.7%) of the total 142,964 hectares in central Halmahera alone slated to be mined, nor does it include the 5,000 hectares of forest destroyed to make room for the smelting operations.

Beyond Halmahera, Nusantara Atlas estimates that nickel mining has already led to the deforestation of 56,000 hectares throughout Indonesia.

In addition to deforestation, Indonesian nickel mining has destroyed mangroves. Mangroves are forests growing in saltwater on the shoreline capable of storing three to five times as much carbon as terrestrial forests. As with terrestrial forests, when mangroves are destroyed, all the carbon decays and is released into the atmosphere as greenhouse gases. Though researchers were not able to independently confirm, residents reported that 110 hectares of mangroves were wiped out to build a port for the smelting operations, adding to the mounting tally of greenhouse gas emissions of nickel mining in Indonesia.

Further adding to the staggering greenhouse gas emissions, a massive nickel smelting plant was built in central Halmahera. This plant is powered by eleven coal power plants; three more are under construction. At full operation, the smelting plant alone will use more coal than about half of the world’s countries and emit as much greenhouse gases as 6.6 million gasoline-powered cars would in a year. Though Halmahera’s plant is the largest, there are fifty-nine additional smelting plants in Indonesia, all running on coal power.

Even under the best of circumstances, not all of this fossil fuel use can be eliminated. First – as we’ve discussed throughout this issue – we do not have a way to generate high industrial temperatures without fossil fuels, and smelting cannot occur without high temperatures. Likewise, much mining equipment cannot be converted to green energy: electric replacements lack the power of fossil fuel-powered machinery. But even if green energy could replace fossil fuels in mining, where would all the inputs needed to build out green energy capacity, like nickel, come from?

This very clearly exposes our green energy deal with the devil as a lie. The Faustian bargain professed that certain parts of the world had to be sacrificed in order to save us from climate change. But these sacrifices won’t even work; not when the necessary mining and smelting generate as much greenhouse gas emissions as tens of millions of cars. Remember, mining already accounts for 10% of all of humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions, and a full green energy transition would require a large expansion in mining.

The picture is yet grimmer when we consider that Indonesian nickel is very low quality. CRI points out that the US, Canada, and Russia have significant deposits of higher-quality nickel ore that requires substantially less energy to process. This, again, proves that our green energy Faustian bargain was a lie. We don’t need to sacrifice specific areas of the world for green energy: we’re choosing to sacrifice parts of the world where poor people live. It would make more sense to mine higher-quality American, Canadian, or Russian nickel, but no one tolerates a mine if they have any say. As discussed at the beginning of this chapter, the international legal standard for opening a new mine is that all affected communities have given “free, prior, and informed consent.” But no one would ever give informed consent to opening a mine near their home. No one would agree to hand over their home, livelihood, and health in exchange for dangerous, low-paying work that disappears once the mine is exhausted. But if no one will consent to a new mine, mining corporations go to very remote places in rich countries, or poor countries, where authorities will turn a blind eye to (or actively aid in) the opening of a mine without proper consent. By and large, only the world’s poorest will face the direct negative consequences of green energy mining because the rest of us usually have the clout to stop mines before they open.

Rare earths also illustrate this fact well. Remember, rare earths are distributed more or less evenly around the world, but mining had been concentrated first in China, then Myanmar. China had a rare earth mining boom because the government accepted the social and ecological consequences, but as soon as the government stopped doing so, rare earth miners simply moved across the border to Myanmar, where a lack of government control means locals are powerless to stop it. Our Faustian bargain was a lie: we’re not regrettably sacrificing parts of the world that happen to have deposits of critical minerals; we are sacrificing parts of the world where people are unable to stand up to mining corporations.

Fortunately, this is not the entire story. There is a third way that the green energy Faustian bargain is a lie, and once we expose this lie in the next chapter, a way forward will become clear: a plan to successfully phase out fossil fuels, improve our quality of life, and minimize the need for mining.