A copper mine could advance green energy but scar sacred land
SUPERIOR, Ariz. — As Wendsler Nosie finished his evening prayers sitting before a mesquite fire, a ceremonial yucca staff festooned with eagle feathers by his side, he gazed sternly toward a distant mesa where mining companies hope to extract more than 1 billion tons of copper.
That mine could help address climate change by helping the United States replace fossil fuels and combustion engines with renewable energy and electric cars. But to Nosie, a former chairman of the San Carlos Apache Tribe, it’s the latest insult in a bitter history. The tribe considers the rolling hills and hidden canyons under which the copper lies — an area of Arizona called Oak Flat — to be a corridor to God inhabited by holy spirits. The tribe’s reservation is roughly 35 miles away.
“We’re confronting that big dominant way, this corporate way of life,” he said. “It’s two ways of thinking clashing. There is no room for both. One will be destroyed.”
The two mining giants behind the project, Rio Tinto and BHP, have plenty of experience with conflicts over the environment. But in this case, executives for the companies have argued that their project, known as Resolution, will benefit the environment by helping to increase the use of renewable energy and electric cars and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. The companies have already spent more than $2 billion on exploratory work and to prepare for the project. They have the support of many local and state elected officials.
“Copper is critical for the energy transition,” said Vicky Peacey, the mine’s project director. “Climate change is the single biggest crisis facing the world. We have to do this right.”
The battle over copper in southern Arizona highlights a growing dilemma for policymakers and investors eager to move from fossil fuels to clean energy. Making that switch will require new mines, sometimes in pristine and sacred lands, to extract a lot more copper, lithium and other metals. Extracting coal, oil and gas has significant environmental costs, too, but they often come from places, like Louisiana, New Mexico, Texas and Wyoming, with established mines and oil and gas fields and scant local opposition to those businesses.
Copper is abundant in the Western Hemisphere, so its availability has been taken for granted. The United States was nearly self-sufficient in copper until the 1990s. But because demand is growing fast and older mines have been depleted, domestic sources provide just half the country’s needs.
The United States could be importing two-thirds of its copper by 2035, according to S&P Global. Relying on other countries might not be a good strategy, energy experts said, because copper-rich countries like Peru and Chile are also struggling to produce more as a result of political turmoil and growing opposition to mining.
At stake are the ambitious climate goals set by President Joe Biden, who wants to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 50% to 52% from 2005 levels by 2030 and effectively bring them to zero by 2050. To meet those targets, the country will need many more wind turbines, solar panels and electric vehicles — and all of those will require a lot more copper. An electric car, for example, has three times as much copper in it as a comparable gasoline powered vehicle.
“So much of the energy transformation is about electrification, and copper is the metal of electrification,” said Daniel Yergin, the energy historian and vice chair of S&P Global. “But in order to meet the 2050 net-zero carbon goals that the United States and European Union have embraced, global copper production has to double, and it’s very hard to see how that is going to happen.”
Peacey said in an interview that her company was willing to compromise with the local Apache. Executives have already scaled back the scope of their mine from their original proposal. But many Apache leaders say no compromise is possible as long as the miners plan a drilling technique that, over decades, would produce a gaping canyon, killing wildlife and oak trees.
“Would anyone destroy Mount Sinai to drill for oil?” asked Nosie, who lives as a protest in two caves that will eventually be disturbed if the mine is built. He said he was ready to go to the Supreme Court to defend what he characterized as the Apache’s constitutional right to practice their religion.
Nosie, 64, said his ancestors inhabited Oak Flat back in the mid-19th century before U.S. soldiers herded them to the reservation where the tribe is still based. As a child, he would visit the area with his grandfather. “He opened up my eyes,” Nosie recalled.
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