The Dirty Truth About Open-Pit Mining For Greenland’s Rare Earth Minerals

Many believe that open-pit mining of Greenland’s rare earth metals is necessary to build and run electric cars, windmills, and solar panels.

Except open-pit mining of Greenland’s rare earth metals will have a far greater impact environmental impact than portrayed by the media, the United States Government, and mining companies.

I was one of two onsite geologists who aided in the expansion of Idaho’s huge open-pit Maybe Canyon Phosphate Mine. This experience taught me that it is difficult to appreciate the size and complex operations of a giant open-pit mine unless you have worked in one.

I am certain the public does not have any idea of the processes involved in open-pit mining. Like most products, the public thinks that rare earth metals magically appear.

They Don’t.

The photo below is Utah’s Kennicott open-pit copper mine, which is 2.5 miles wide, 0.75 miles deep, and has removed six billion tons of rock rich in copper.

Copper is a rare earth metal so this mine is an excellent example of what an open-pit mine in Greenland would look like.

Operations of an open-pit mine

1. Use chemicals that were taken from another mined area to explode solid rock areas of the mine.

1. Use diesel-powered machines to reduce the size of large boulders created by the explosions.

1. Utilize multiple monster diesel-fueled trucks to haul off the crushed rock. Trucks that are built with iron extracted from another mine and rubber tires that are generated by processing oil. You need to drill wells, some in ocean areas, to produce oil.

1. Build a diesel- or natural gas-fueled refinery plant. It is important to note that natural gas is composed of 90% methane. So, the refineries will emit huge amounts of methane into the atmosphere. Also, a rare earth metal plant needs 20 tons of water (150 trillion gallons of water) to make one ton of rare earth metals.

1. Build a large reservoir capable of retaining vast amounts of mined waste rock.

1. Construct a network of huge pipelines to transport mined waste rock to the mined waste-rock retaining reservoir.

1. Ship the now concentrated metals to another processing plant that prepares the metals, which are placed in a renewable-energy device.

1. Restore the mined area to its original state. This process uses monster trucks, graders, etc. So, the restoration process also has a large carbon footprint.

Potential Environmental Damage from the Open-Pit Mining Process

The process of open-pit mining Greenland’s rare earth metals will cause significant, unintended, and irreversible damage to Greenland’s physical and biological environments. Here are a few examples.

1. Scares on Pristine Coastlines.

2. Failure of Mine Waste Rock Retaining Lakes

Pictured above is the failure of Imperial Metals Mount Polley gold and copper mine waste-rock retaining-reservoir failure. This occurred in British Columbia, Canada, and it dumped 24 million cubic meters (more than 31 million cubic yards) of mine waste and sludge into neighboring Lake Polley and polluted the Hazeltine Creek watershed (above figure and here).

Through the years, thousands of waste-rock retaining reservoirs and lakes have failed. Mostly because when the mines are abandoned, they aren’t maintained. Failure of Greenland’s rare earth metal mines would empty into surrounding ocean areas and bays. Not good.

3. Radioactive Pollution

Greenland’s rare earth metal accumulations are very rich in radioactive uranium. In the not-so-distant past, Greenland was on the verge of opening a monster open-pit mine that contained significant amounts of uranium.

“Greenland may soon start building the world’s fifth-largest uranium mine and second-biggest rare earth operation, which could fuel independence dreams in the island, an “autonomous administrative division” within Denmark since 2009” ( see here ).

However, native Greenlanders strongly objected to the mining of radioactive-rich rocks near their hunting grounds and villages. The proposed mines are known to have high levels of radioactive rocks.

The quote below details the presence of radioactive rocks in the open-mining areas within Greenland.

“NOAH and Renewable Energy, another Danish NGO, list many serious environmental costs if the Kvanefjeld mine is allowed to proceed. There are huge risks from air pollution during open-cut mining and even greater risks associated with dumping radioactive waste in Lake Tareq. In addition to uranium, the radioactive waste would include thorium. Thorium tailings are 3‒10 times more radioactive than uranium, the two NGOs pointed out in their September 12 submission, responding to the mine’s latest Environmental Impact Statement. The tailings will cause health problems, even if the built-in dams behave as planned. The risk increases over time, primarily after the mine has been shut down and when monitoring and maintenance have been completed. In addition to the planned discharges, there will be unintentional spills via leaks and accidents. In the long run, large areas around the mine will be contaminated with radioactive elements and non-radioactive substances, many of which are highly toxic. The people living in the polluted areas will be permanently exposed to radioactive and other toxic substances via drinking water, food, and air. Seafood is also becoming polluted due to the massive discharges of waste, including wastewater, along the coast. Bioaccumulation of radionuclides and non-radioactive chemicals can become a serious problem. All this means that uranium mining in Kuannersuit in addition to significant chemical pollution will leave millions of tons of tailings containing some of the most toxic known radioactive substances, such as radium, thorium, radon, and polonium, and this waste remains radioactive at a dangerous level for hundreds of thousands of years. In addition, the Arctic environment is particularly vulnerable to pollution because it is rebuilding very slowly, and the long-term consequences of uranium mining could be extensive radioactive pollution, which, due to the health hazard, may make it necessary to ban agriculture, fishing, trapping, and livestock farming.” (see here).

4. Mercury Pollution

Research studies have proven that the rivers, ocean bays, and open ocean waters in the proposed Greenland mining areas have extremely high concentrations of natural mercury.

Mercury comes from bedrock layers that are mercury rich. Mercury is a rare earth mineral. If anything goes awry with the mining process, huge additional amounts of natural mercury will get dumped into Greenland’s seawater and freshwater systems.

“Unlike polluted rivers in other parts of the world, contaminated by industrial activity, the researchers believe the Greenland mercury is coming from natural sources. If it were coming from human pollution, then the snow on top of the ice sheet should also be full of mercury—yet previous studies have shown it’s comparatively clean. Instead, the scientists believe the meltwater mercury is probably leaching out of the bedrock beneath the ice. Mercury concentration in the meltwater rivers was at least an order of magnitude higher than the concentrations found in ordinary rivers across the Arctic. These concentrations became slightly diluted by the time they flowed out into the fjords—but were still higher than expected, the researchers say. Even after mingling with the salty water, the levels in the fjords remained about an order of magnitude higher than the mercury levels found in most open ocean waters” (see here).

Who Controls the World’s Despots of Rare Earth Metals

Prior to the 1980s, the United States was the world’s top owner of rare earth metals. Beginning in the 1980s, environmental groups began taking action to shut down all the United States’ rare earth mines, saying they were destroying the environment.

They succeeded.

By the middle of the 1990s, there was only one operating rare earth metal mine in the United States and this one is near abandonment. During this time, the United States gave up its legal right to own another country’s accumulations of rare earth metals.

These actions have had consequences.

China now owns 90% of the Earth’s rare earth metals. The recent tensions between China and the United States could result in them ending sales to the United States or greatly raising the sale price of its rare earth metals to the United States.

Also, when China’s economy recovers from the current worldwide financial slowdown, its economy will return to its fast-paced growth. This rapid growth will force China to use most of its rare earth supplies. As a result, China will reduce sales to the United States.

Also, China has done a very poor job of keeping their rare earth metal mines environmentally safe as seen in the photo below (see here).

Summary

This article is purposely loaded with numerous photos of open-pit mining operations for a reason. A picture tells a thousand words. Too often, recent media articles have used words and not pictures to convince the public that open-pit mining of Greenland’s rare earth metals will help save the environment.

It’s normal to believe that open-pit mining of many minerals is necessary to support human life.

However, it is also necessary to inform the public that open-pit mining is a very messy business. In fact, open-pit mining in Greenland may help mitigate destroying parts of the United States. This, though, will be at the expense of damaging Greenland’s pristine environment.

James Edward Kamis is a Geologist with a B.S. in geology from Northern Illinois University and an M.S. in geology from Idaho State University who has always been fascinated by the connection between Geology and Climate. More than forty-four years of research/observation have convinced him that the Earth’s Heat Flow Engine, which drives the outer crustal plates, is also an important driver of the Earth’s climate. The Plate Climatology Theory (plateclimatology.com) was recently presented at the annual 2016 American Metrological Society Conference in New Orleans, LA. (see here)