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From Venezuela's extra heavy crude oil to Trump's focus on Greenland's rare earths to Germany's F60 steel giants and illegal gold mines in Indonesia: How raw materials impact landscapes, people, and politics.
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00:06what's a chewing gum toothbrushes makeup running shoes and cell phones have in common crude oil
00:15we usually associate crude with gasoline diesel and other fuels but actually it's also been lots
00:21of everyday products and despite the expansion of renewable energy sources oil is still key to
00:28keeping the global economy running almost 100 million barrels of oil are consumed across the
00:36world every day we're gonna drill baby drill for donald trump oil is both the driver of economic
00:44growth and a geopolitical weapon take cuba and accessing huge oil reserves was one reason for
00:50the u.s. attack on venezuela also coming up this week rare earths why trump's greenland plan is failing
01:03f-60 bridges abandoned monuments to lignite mining and illegal exploitation the gold boom threatening
01:11indonesia's forests this piece of land in venezuela holds one of the largest known deposits of oil in
01:27the world there's more than five times as much oil here as the entire united states but when trump
01:33invaded the country in january and offered all that oil on a silver platter to some of the biggest oil
01:39companies in the world they were not really enthusiastic to say the least and one reason for
01:45this is hiding in this graph it turns out venezuela's oil is by pretty much all measures just the absolute
01:53worst to understand why we need to know that there's no such thing as an ordinary barrel of oil everything
02:00from the chemical composition to what it can be used for to how much it's worth changes dramatically
02:05based on where the oil comes from even when the barrels come from the same country like for example
02:11venezuela the first large quantities of oil were discovered there at the start of the 20th century in
02:18the western part of the country big oil companies like golf shell and standard oil flocked into the
02:24country quickly turning into one of the biggest oil producers and exporters in the world then in the 80s
02:30another region with vast reserves of high value oil was discovered in the east but those reserves
02:35were soon overshadowed by a much larger discovery in the middle of the country the orinoco belt an
02:41estimated 1.2 trillion barrels of oil is the largest accumulation of hydrocarbons that there is
02:49that's luis pacheco he worked at venezuela's national oil company pereveza for 17 years
02:55but there's a catch with that 1.2 trillion number in reality only around 250 billion of that can ever
03:03come out of the ground most of the oil it will be left underground okay at least under present technology
03:14okay but but why so much because of physics is a bit okay physics is a bit let's go back
03:24to all
03:24those different types of oil the first way to distinguish them is how light or heavy they are
03:29lighter oils are more liquid making them easier to extract when they're underground the process
03:34is often simple you drill a hole into the ground and thanks to the geologic pressure underneath out
03:39flows the oil that's the process for some of the biggest and most productive oil reservoirs in the
03:46world including many in the united states and saudi arabia but the oil in venezuela's largest deposit
03:52isn't just heavier it's way over here on the extra heavy side of the spectrum that's eric muller a
03:59chemical engineering professor he grew up and worked in venezuela for over 10 years these crudes are
04:06extremely heavy to the point where if you have them if you if you if you get some in in
04:11a beaker or
04:11something and you flip the beaker around nothing happens it looks like a tar but when these extremely
04:18heavy crudes are far underground getting them out is a lot more complicated one method is to inject
04:25steam next to the reservoir increasing the temperature to liquefy the crude oil enough for
04:29it to be pumped out another method the one that's used in orinoco is to inject lighter substances like
04:35naphtha directly into the reservoir to make it less sticky now of course all these secondary
04:42processes are expensive and that's just getting it out of the ground the next step is doing something with
04:47it and for that you need to refine it refining lighter oils is relatively simple you can put them in
04:53a
04:53distillery and separate out the useful parts without too much hassle extremely heavy oils like those in
04:59venezuela require a lot more work first they need to be upgraded which means processing them into oils
05:05that can actually flow through the pipelines in heavy oil refineries and then there's another important
05:10difference that's deborah gordon she's been researching the emissions that come from different
05:14types of oil and gas for over a decade you know a saudi barrel or a west texas intermediate barrel
05:21will make more say gasoline or petrol and jet fuel which are right now the big demand parts of where
05:29this economy goes on oil and that means they can fetch a higher price for each barrel and these extra
05:35heavy barrels in venezuela canada they make more asphalt roofing products heavy fuel oil bunker fuel for
05:42ships much less valuable uses but one of the biggest problems comes right at the start and
05:49that's from methane methane is over 80 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than co2 is so you don't
05:56want either of them in the atmosphere but you would much less prefer having methane in the atmosphere
06:02right now an easy way to deal with this gas is to burn it in a process called flaring which
06:07turns it
06:07into co2 but those methane flares need to be maintained and right now venezuela's oil industry is not in a
06:15good state so while there's no such thing as good oil when you tally up all the emissions produced from
06:21venezuela's different types of oil it's clear that it's the highest emitting barrel for the lowest price
06:29on the market so it's easy to see why these guys weren't exactly excited to start extracting all
06:35this oil and that's the country's long and complicated relationship with foreign oil companies
06:41they've already been kicked out of the country twice once in 1976 when venezuela nationalized its oil
06:48industry taking over the assets and operations of almost all companies there and again by hugo chavez the
06:54charismatic socialist leader elected in 1998 he then took it a step further and cleared the country's
07:00oil industry of any foreign workers or influence that left venezuela without the expertise needed to
07:05keep everything going and the country's production and infrastructure quickly began to deteriorate
07:11it also left foreign oil companies feeling that any investment could very easily go to waste
07:17that's where the reluctance comes in if i go in on in this marriage
07:22will i be happy in 10 years time or not
07:30when our smartphone vibrates our led tv glows or music comes out of the speakers it's all down to rare
07:38earths china is by far the leading processor of these essential minerals that dominance has led other
07:45countries to look to secure supplies from elsewhere like greenland where melting ice is making enormous
07:52previously untapped mineral resources accessible another reason donald trump is so keen to get his
07:58hands on the island greenland is not just a big beautiful piece of ice it is in fact full of
08:07resources
08:08those getting the most attention right now are rare earth elements they are hardly noticed by consumers
08:13like you and me but they are all around us making electric vehicles move wind turbines spin data
08:20centers run and the device you are watching this on but they're also buried deep inside things you
08:25rarely see up close satellites guided missiles and fighter jets in a world increasingly shaped by war and
08:32geopolitical conflict rare earths now sit at the intersection of energy technology and security
08:38the u.s and many other countries are worried because china overwhelmingly dominates global supply
08:45diago rosa works for a geological survey of denmark and greenland every year he goes into the field to
08:50their samples to map to analyze the geological potential women's potential is mostly related with
08:57undiscovered resources so we know the geology is favorable so it's fair to admit or predict that there
09:04should be also significant uh resources but they are undiscovered we know how much there are we just
09:11don't know exactly where they are and that matters a lot to the miners according to the geological
09:17survey of denmark and greenland the island holds 36 million metric tons of railroad elements but this is
09:24only the total amount of existing resources the proven and economically viable mineable reserves are much
09:33smaller it's just one and a half million metric tons greenland's reserves are almost 30 times
09:41smaller than china's but they are still significant however the real bottleneck is not accessing the
09:49minerals it is in processing them today china mines 70 percent of railroad elements and refines about 90
09:59percent of the global supply most of the railroad elements mind in the u.s actually go to china for
10:05refining and separation when it comes to mining in greenland there are other uncertainties beyond those
10:13numbers it often takes 15 to 20 years to go from early exploration to an operating mine that's the global
10:21average and it's based on places far less remote than greenland that long time matters to investors
10:28because technology and the materials needed for it change fast and by the time mine finally opens
10:34demand for what's being mined may already have shifted this is what makes mining a high-risk business
10:42according to the prospectors and developers association of canada only one in 10 000 exploration
10:49projects ever become a mine and in greenland that risk is amplified there is no road connecting to
10:55settlements no infrastructure no grid to power the mines and not even enough workers every step is
11:03harder and more costly and greenlanders know this too well the nalunak gold mine operated from 2004 to
11:122013 before shutting down due to high costs it was later bought and restarted but so far it hasn't
11:20produced significant amounts of gold that shows clearly having minerals is one thing but commercially
11:26mining them is something else entirely but that's not all there's another factor that could become a
11:32deal breaker professor anamerald has spent years studying how mining decisions affect communities and
11:39the environment in greenland rare earth elements often come in in complex geological formations they are
11:45usually not identified alone there's often radioactive materials such as uranium and thorium connected to
11:51the minerals so you can't take them out without also taking out the radioactive materials the idea
11:57of materials with the radioactive content being there for thousands in years of years in a time of
12:04climate change and the and natural potential natural disasters it didn't people didn't feel secure
12:12the way that the cold works and how cold it is it's an extreme environment creates a situation where
12:18both a plant life and animal life restored very very slowly compared to the rest of the world
12:25for many greenlanders the environment underpins both culture and livelihoods fishing and tourism are
12:32the backbone of the economy both depend on clean water which rare earth mining could affect through
12:40waste water tailings and radioactive waste because recreational fisheries and hunting actually fills up
12:47the freezer for the winter for many greenlandic people in 2021 greenlanders drew a line making
12:53parties opposed to uranium mining in the general election the new parliament later passed a ban so even
13:00as global demand for railroad grows greenland's resources come with limits
13:06the island is often talked about like a shortcut a shortcut to clean energy a shortcut away from china
13:13but when you zoom in it stops looking like that it would take years if not decades before mining could
13:20begin here processing the material hasn't been done at scale before and the environmental risks
13:31and now to another mind commodity lignite or brown coal dried impressed it's turned into briquettes once
13:39used in heating and even to power some steam trains but those days are over now in germany lignite mining
13:48is
13:48being phased out as part of climate protection efforts burning coal produces large quantities of
13:53greenhouse gas emissions but what happens to the disused plants where the coal was extracted like in the
13:59lausitz region south of berlin
14:04the f60 conveyor bridge is the world's largest movable machine only five of these exist worldwide
14:12for decades the bridge has transformed entire landscapes in germany to expose coal seams
14:19but the era of these steel giants is over
14:31bernhard köche has been working in open pit mining for 33 years
14:36in his native east germany coal was the most important energy source but times have changed
14:42today there are only three open pit mines left and they too will soon close the coal seam here lies
14:50at
14:50a depth of 90 meters gigantic machines are in operation to remove the overlying earth
15:01the largest of them is the f60 conveyor bridge this one was the first of five ever built a dinosaur
15:09that's been in operation for over 50 years
15:18technicians are still lubricating the tracks before it can start
15:27now they're starting the belts
15:3043 shovels are beginning to move
15:35so now you can see how the shovels engage and pull dirt from the bottom to the top into the
15:41channel
15:41into the excavator it falls over a chute onto the next conveyor belt and finally it's dropped over there
15:51every second a truckload worth of earth is being moved removing earth loading it onto conveyor belts
15:59and dumping it on the other side of the pit that's what the giant conveyor bridge is for
16:05it's 24 000 tons of steel inch forward on rails at a pace of five kilometers per hour
16:12like a giant shovel the f-60 reshapes entire landscapes
16:19half an hour from the active pit rests another of these giant machines this one out of service for many
16:27years
16:27already where a coal mine used to be there's now a lake and the bridge has become a museum
16:35andreas brettin was an electrician here today he guides visitors around his former workplace
16:41across the bridge a walk of 500 meters climbing up almost 80 meters high
16:51you shouldn't have vertical up here we are reviving the old technology to give guests an even closer
16:57look at what it was like back then that's a lot of fun the control room was the brains of
17:06the system
17:14that's how it would start
17:17today it might be a museum piece but at the time of the fall of the berlin wall it was
17:23the finest thing
17:24the former gdr had to offer the design of these steel giants is still considered a masterpiece of
17:35engineering
17:36it was a challenge to build such a mobile structure of this size of this sheer power
17:42they reached the physical limits of steel construction more faster higher would be impossible
17:48even if coal mining had continued there wouldn't have been a larger structure
17:54but the era of coal is now over germany is focusing on renewable energy for climate protection
18:00the first of these five giants was recently demolished
18:04the conveyor bridge where bernhard köchel worked will likely meet the same fate in a few years
18:25it brings a touch of melancholy to the miner
18:33it took two and a half years to build this conveyor bridge
18:37it contains vast amounts of steel and other technical equipment
18:43generations of miners earned their living there and supported their families
18:53the lunar landscapes created by the f-60 will also disappear over time
18:58the plan to re-naturalize them as best as possible
19:08gold is another sought-after commodity the precious metal is used mainly in jewelry
19:13and also increasingly as a crisis-proof store of value
19:19some central banks like those of china india russia and turkey are also rapidly building up gold reserves in
19:27order to break away from the dependency on the us dollar and protect against uncertain times
19:32mining gold even illegally is becoming increasingly attractive
19:40just beneath the soil lies gold in merangin jambi province illegal mining operates in broad daylight hidden among palm oil
19:48plantations
19:49with gold prices rising activity here is intensifying for safety reasons we cannot show their faces
19:59there's no farming here the land isn't fertile there are no factory jobs either so we don't really have a
20:05choice
20:06i know this work is illegal but if we can't earn a living we can't eat rather than turning to
20:11crime we do this we're not harming anyone
20:17illegal gold mining is not limited to jambi it stretches across the country
20:24the indonesia mining institute estimates illegal mines produce around 120 tons of gold a year
20:31nearly matching the country's official output
20:33other they say the trade was worth up to 59 billion us dollars between 2023 and 2025
20:42small illegal mining sites can yield up to 10 grams of gold a day while miners earn just 12 us
20:50dollars
20:50risking rates and fatal accidents we know this work is dangerous and we're afraid
21:01but we do it to support our families we're asking for understanding and solutions so we can work without fear
21:14in jambi the practice has gone on for decades with the number of mining sites continuing to grow
21:21local residents say some operations are backed by people linked to the government
21:27while others are protected by communities who depend on mining for income
21:33illegal gold mining is extremely difficult to eradicate it involves the livelihoods of many
21:37people and has been going on for years police action alone is not enough that's why we need
21:43support from local communities so people understand that illegal mining is dangerous
21:47the damage is severe while he an environmental ngo says illegal gold mining has destroyed 44 000
21:58hectares of forest increasing the risk of floods and landslides while mercury has polluted rivers
22:05yet the government admits shutting the mines down completely could harm local livelihoods
22:14in jambi certain areas have already been designated as community mining zones
22:21however regulations prohibit the use of heavy machinery
22:26the goal is to ensure people can still make a living
22:29but in ways that do not damage the environment or put their own safety at risk
22:36the government's plan reflects what many miners are hoping for and is set to take effect in april
22:43but environmental activists warned it could backfire legitimizing illegal mining and worsening
22:50environmental damage if oversight remains weak
22:58something that's definitely not illegal and is in fact desirable is for women to found their own startup
23:06that's pretty rare though in 2025 just 19 of startup founders in germany were women
23:12although the figure across all companies was roughly double that
23:16we meet a former cleaner turned entrepreneur who employs people with disabilities
23:22my name is einur bolders östemir i've been an entrepreneur for 26 years running an inclusive company
23:29her cleaning company employs 400 people in germany and turkey many of whom have disabilities
23:35it was a conscious decision by the founder as she wants to give opportunities to those who are often
23:41marginalized and unable to find work she's a particularly close relationship with gabriele bernd
23:48i've been here for 22 years now and it's almost like family we've known each other for that long
23:56you can't do without a company like this
24:01einur bolders östemir is truly a self-made woman born in turkey she worked as a cleaner in a hospital
24:07after coming to germany there she was mentored by her boss and quickly rose through the ranks to work in
24:13administration
24:13she now applies the positive experiences she gained back then as a manager
24:21it takes a while for employees to be ready we support them during their onboarding they need a bit more
24:27time
24:27a very long time until they find their place
24:30until they have confidence in us in the environment
24:36they feel valued needed that takes a long time and when that confidence is there it's invaluable
24:46having worked her way up to the top without formal training the entrepreneur is used to overcoming obstacles
24:53it was risky you really have to have a bit of everything employees good people around you trust
25:00orders finances have to be sound which wasn't always easy the whole mix has to be right
25:07to date she has received numerous awards for her social commitment and business management promoting
25:13women is particularly important to her a single mother herself she knows what it means to work 16 hours
25:19a day my employees trust me almost all of them were women from the beginning and we've been through thick
25:27and
25:28thin we haven't let go of each other even when there were difficult times time and time again
25:35we're both women yes both women we'll manage this together gabi we'll manage
25:44this time on made we looked at raw materials in a changing world asking why it's hard to produce
25:49oil in venezuela and extract rare earths in greenland the future of former coal mining bridges
25:56and how the gold boom is endangering forests bye for now take care
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