China Gets a Bargain on Peru’s ‘Copper Mountain’

One of the most productive copper mines on earth – Mount Toromocho in Peru – is now in the hands of China. Chinese officials plan to exploit the mountain for all it’s worth, sending all of the copper back home to carry out the electrification of the entire country. The deal not only cheats Peruvians out of the true value of the copper mine, since it was sold to China for such a ‘great bargain’, but will displace all of the residents of the area.

From the BBC:

The Peruvian government is happy with the $3bn (£1.53bn) that Chinalco will invest in the Toromocho mines.

The Chinese will be even happier. They have got themselves a bargain.

The copper Chinalco extracts from Toromocho will cost something like US$410 (£210) per ton. Today, the price for copper on the London Metal Exchange was $8,255 (£4,220) - 20 times more.

Chinalco stands to make a 2,000% profit on its investment.

As destructive as it is, there should be a worldwide ban on mountaintop removal for mining purposes. This isn’t just about frightening amounts of power in the hands of China, taking advantage of poor countries, forcing people out of their homes and displacing wildlife. It’s a scary trend that threatens the beauty of the natural world and has the potential to create even more pollution than we’re already dealing with. China has already shown that the environment is far from its top priority, and as the BBC mentions, it has ‘vast reserves of foreign currency’ at its disposal.

Link [BBC]

Hillary Clinton Does the Waffle Dance Around Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining

The word “jobs” is a magic talisman for politicians. When they want to push a dubious policy, they promise that “jobs” will come of it, and rarely does anyone note that some jobs are not worth having.

West Virginia is having a primary soon, and Hillary Clinton, campaigning there, had the following to say about mountaintop removal mining, a kind of Extreme Coal Mining that does what it says–it removes the mountain to get at the coal. She seems to be okay with it:

I am concerned about it for all the reasons people state, but I think it’s a difficult question because of the conflict between the economic and environmental trade-off that you have here.

I’m not an expert. I don’t know enough to have an independent opinion, but I sure would like people who could be objective, understanding both the economic necessities and environmental damage, to come up with some approach that would enable us to retrieve the coal but would enable us to do it in a way that wouldn’t damage the living standards and the other important qualities associated with people living both under the mountaintop and people who are along the streams.

You know, maybe there is a way to recover those mountaintops once they have been stripped of the coal. You know, I think we’ve got to look at this from a practical perspective.

Meh. Grist does a good job taking this apart. Strip mining for coal in Appalachia was never even good enough to be called a devil’s bargain; the devil got everything, and still does. It’s comparable to burning down your house in order to get a “job” hauling the remains to a dumpster. At the end, Hillary grasps for a tedious old dodge: once the mining is done, we’ll restore the landscape. In my experience of such restoration, the only thing left is rubble and toxins, and the only thing you can grow is noxious weeds.

Link [Gristmill]