Minera Aclara is a project promoted by the company REE Uno SpA, now known as Aclara Resources, which aims to extract rare earths from two sites, one in the hills of Penco, territory occupied by the Chilean state, and the other in Goiás, Brazilian territory. Rare earths are a set of 17 minerals mainly used for weapons and the technology industry (batteries, luxury electric cars, wind turbines, etc.), everything that is sold today as green technologies. These technologies, which are not for mass use but rather for industry and the military and economic elites, are sustained by the extraction of raw materials from Abya Yala region and other territories that have historically faced colonization by world powers. Currently, Penco and Goiás are territories that are in the global spotlight of extractivism, representing a strategic point in the war for control of the production of these substances.
The project to be installed in Penco consists of three rare earth extraction zones, consisting of open-pit mines with a diameter of approximately 45 hectares, equivalent to 45 soccer fields, and a depth of between 40 and 60 meters, which is where the concentrations of these minerals are found. On the other hand, the module that they intend to install in Goiás comprises an expandable area of 1,500 hectares.
What do we know about rare earth mining?
For years, China has controlled rare earth mining, generating more than 95% of the world’s production of this mineral alloy. A terrible example of the consequences of this industry was what happened in Baotou, the world’s largest supplier of rare earths, where a former pasture was turned into a toxic lake of waste from the extraction process, “composed of a cocktail of acids, heavy metals, carcinogens, and radioactive material used to process the 17 most sought-after minerals in the world.”[1]
But this monopoly is being threatened by other capitalist powers: the US and Canada, which intend to compete with China for control of rare earth extraction. This is where the territories of Abya Yala, from the colonialist perspective of these two countries, appear as key suppliers for carrying out this plan, just as Boutu was for China. Currently, the company Minera Aclara presents itself to the outside world as a “sustainable” alternative to the Chinese extractive market and aims to compete against Chinese control through the extraction of rare earths in Goiás, Brazil, and Penco, Chile. Continue reading “Minera Aclara: Rare Earths, Geopolitics and Extraction in Abya Yala (Chile, Brazil)”