Spain must recover their mines. Changes in the national strategy, mainly due to environmental requirements, have caused the 4,114 mining operations that existed in Spain in 2008 to be reduced to 2,629 in the last data of 2020. A trend that will change from now on, because Europe demands it.
The European Commission obliges Spain and the rest of the member countries to immediately transfer their reserve plan for the so-called ‘rare earths’ in their territory and exploration plans, according to official sources from the European Union to Vozpópuli. The objective, as they announced in December in their presentation of the Critical Raw Materials Act (Critical Raw Materials Law), is to be able to immediately enter the battle of critical materials with China, building on the strength of the single market.
From the European institutions place the strategic label on 36 ‘rare’ elementss. Among them, lithium, cobalt or magnesium stand out. Some materials that are essential in the development of batteries or wind turbines. And, as the same community sources recall, Spain is one of the member countries that have these materials under their soil.
And Europe asks him for a plan to extract this wealth. Because rare earths for Spain threatens to become a problem similar to the one it has experienced with natural gas. Its large network of combined cycles and regasification plants need third party gas supply because the extraction of hydrocarbons in its territory is non-existent. A model that extends throughout Europe and that has handed over energy control to unreliable partners such as Russia.
In the ‘rare earths’ that Europe needs to be the most decarbonised region in the world by 2030, everything depends on China. “To meet the REPowerEU targets and increase the amount of renewable energy generated, the EU will need to deploy 480 gigawatts of wind capacity by 2030. But all these wind turbines rely on magnets made from materials China largely controls.”, he commented in a meeting with Vozpópuli and other media Kerstin Jorna, Director General of the Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs of the European Commission.
The Asian giant, according to the International Energy Agency, produces 13% of the world’s lithium, compared to 52% in Australia, and 8% of copper. The problem of this Chinese monopoly lies in processing, where it has 40% copper, 35% nickel, 65% cobalt and 58% lithium. For this reason, Europe counts on the United States as a great ally in this race.
His idea is to collect the plans of the member countries of the European Union and centralize the strategy. The execution of the plan will come hand in hand with the European Board for Critical Raw Materials. A body that will chair the Commission, will be made up of representatives of member countries and with members of Parliament as observers.
The goal is, by 2030, that Europe produces internally at least 10% of these necessary strategic materials each year and processes at least 40%. The Board will also be in charge of closing agreements with third countries with this type of raw material to guarantee the arrival to its member countries.
localized rare earths
The problem is that all the advances to explore this type of materials on Spanish soil have found great environmental and social difficulties for the advancement of its mines. Although the European pressure seems to be permeating and from the mining sector they point out to this medium that a large part of the work has already been done, all that is needed is a political and social agreement to integrate into this European plan.
An example is the deposit of Valdeflores in Caceres it contains one of the largest lithium reserves in all of Europe. Only in Extremadura there are 147 mines with research permits in force or in process with a wide variety of explored minerals.
Andalucía, for its part, has several projects at different stages of exploration, such as the zinc project in Aznalcollar (Seville), copper from Las Cruces, in Riotinto with cobalt in the three mines of Tharsis, La Zarza and San Telmo. The tungsten mine also appears Barruecopardo (Salamanca) by the Saloro company should follow the new exploitation of the same mineral in Valtreixal (Zamora)after the closure due to depletion of reserves of the Los Santos mine, together with the La Borobia magnesite mine (Soria).
In Galicia, the company Valoriza controls the concession of the mine of San Finx, in La Coruña, with tin and tungsten. The Xunta has also already given the green light to grant the concession pass to exploit the Penouta mine, located in the municipality of Viana do Bolo (Ourense). It is the only coltan that exists in Europe.
A climate and social problem
“The new mining has the same problems as renewables, but multiplied by 10”, explain sources familiar with mining development in Spain. “First of all, nobody wants a mine to be opened in their town, no matter how much wealth and jobs it generates. On the other hand, and unlike what happens in farms in China, Africa or Latin America, Europe has an environmental legislation that any blur in the project can end up with the mayor, the regional representative or the person in charge of the company with a criminal offense. The projects end up taking time and become impractical, in Spain and in many parts of Europe”, they expand.
An event that happens in the Ciudad Real Matamulas Project for the exploitation of rare earths (monacite) is paralyzed once the Superior Court of Justice of Castilla La Mancha has ruled on the matter, although the company has announced that it will reformulate the project to meet the requirements.
Something similar was experienced with the denial of the permit by the Nuclear Safety Council, as well as the approval of the new Climate Change Law that explicitly prohibits the mining of radioactive minerals, has put an end to the project to open the Retortillo Uranium Mine (Salamanca), from the Berkeley company.
This is an issue that seeks to centralize Europe. The Critical Raw Materials Act is intended to collect company complaints in obtaining permits to build new mines and processing plants. If considered so, the European institutions could name certain projects as strategic that would allow them to obtain the permits within 24 months and the processing facilities would obtain them in a maximum of 12 months. The other issue is the social opposition that these projects have and that the Commission will find itself in great trouble in dealing with it.
