Andalusia’s mining industry has a history going back millennia – but largely came to an end in the early 2000s. The e-mobility boom and European hopes of greater materials self-sufficiency, however, has put the spotlight back on the mines.
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00:00Leaving scars in the landscape and with a history of ecological disasters and economic decline,
00:07Andalusia's mines could now be a crucial boost to Europe's self-sufficiency.
00:12But at what price?
00:15This dumper truck can transport 90 tonnes of rubble from the depths of the Rio Tinto mine
00:21from a single trip and an around-the-clock operation.
00:25The Romans were among the first to mine metals here,
00:28followed centuries later by British companies, as seen in some of the local architecture.
00:34For years the mine was out of operation due to copper prices being too low.
00:39Market sensitivity is a general problem with mines, as the local mayor knows all too well.
00:46We were always dependent on whether the mine was closed or open again,
00:50so we've had golden times, but difficult ones too.
00:57The copper constitutes just 0.38% of the rock here,
01:01but the enormous effort involved in extracting the metal is now worthwhile,
01:05thanks to market prices having recovered.
01:08A blessing for the local community.
01:13Young people can now stay here, unlike the times when they would move elsewhere, or even emigrate.
01:21In addition to economic uncertainty, another worry is the mine's toxic legacy.
01:27The rock residue across the vast site lies in water contaminated with heavy metals.
01:32For environmentalists, a growing danger.
01:38The retention basin you can see here, with these dams,
01:41would already be banned in South American countries like Chile and Brazil.
01:49Harvesting 53,000 tons of copper concentrate means grinding down 80 million tons of rock, year for year.
01:57The main buyer is China, while the mine's biggest shareholder is a global commodities group based in Singapore.
02:04The commitment to European self-sufficiency evidently has limits,
02:08while Andalusia's mines are being expected to help precisely that cause.
02:14The riches in our soil are a treasure for Andalusia and the European energy transition.
02:20New legislation in the EU aims to ensure that 10% of its strategic raw materials is sourced from member countries.
02:27In resource-rich Andalusia, a new metal rush is underway.
02:33There are a lot of projects here that would be relevant for the EU law,
02:37also because Andalusia has 17 of the 30 critical minerals.
02:42Which is why there will be new mines, albeit no longer tearing huge craters in the Andalusian landscape.
02:49A copper mine located just 20 km away from Seville reflects the changes in the sector.
02:55Here, everything is in place for future mining operations, underground, where there are still enough deposits of copper.
03:02An underground mine is obviously less visible.
03:07We're of the opinion that this is the most sensible, profitable and sustainable option.
03:14And the mine also serves as an example for further potential.
03:18Until a year ago, the company was still producing pure copper here, despite mining having ceased three years earlier.
03:25We'd put the extracted rock in dry storage.
03:30In the previous three years, we processed it again, which enabled us to produce 20,000 tons of copper.
03:38And once the mine starts producing underground again, it won't just be for copper.
03:44The operator has developed a chemical process that extracts further materials from the rock, zinc, lead and silver.
03:51The company has also started a pilot project to extract a material of vital importance for electromobility and other industries, cobalt.
04:00It works with the help of bacteria.
04:03The material we work with is waste material from previous processing.
04:11Right now, we're using residues from copper ore containing those metals.
04:20And that waste material is available in almost unlimited quantities in the region,
04:25including from the Rio Tinto mine's dump sites and its sizable wastewater ponds.
04:33Valuable as the metals may be for modern society, however, environmentalists have grave concerns.
04:42It's like sticking our hands into the ground to mine minerals.
04:46It's harmful to the environment.
04:49Whether it's necessary for economic reasons is open to debate.
04:56And those concerns are understandable.
04:58In 1998, a dam burst not far from Seville, of which only these ruins remain.
05:04Its waters contaminated large expanses of land and nature preserves.
05:09To date, the company responsible has still not been brought to justice.
05:1526 years on, the other mining companies in Andalusia are making efforts to take environmental protection seriously.
05:22And the dump sites by the mine outside Seville are now being cleared away,
05:26before the unsightly crater is filled in again.