{"id":1300,"date":"2022-04-02T17:59:00","date_gmt":"2022-04-02T17:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marssadrine.org\/?p=1300"},"modified":"2025-05-11T04:18:45","modified_gmt":"2025-05-11T04:18:45","slug":"europes-biggest-lithium-mine-is-caught-in-a-political-maelstrom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marssadrine.org\/en\/europes-biggest-lithium-mine-is-caught-in-a-political-maelstrom\/","title":{"rendered":"Wired: Europe\u2019s Biggest Lithium Mine Caught in Political Maelstrom"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Europe wants to source EV materials within its own borders. But fierce opposition ahead of the elections in Serbia shows locals don\u2019t trust mining companies.<\/strong> By Morgan Meaker for WIRED.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

ONLY RED-ROOFED HOUSES interrupt the vast carpet of fields that surround the village of Gornje Nedeljice, in western Serbia. To resident Marijana Petkovi\u0107, this is the most beautiful place in the world. She\u2019s not against Europe\u2019s green transition<\/a>, the plan to make the bloc\u2019s economy climate neutral by 2050. But she is among those who believe Serbia\u2019s fertile Jadar Valley\u2014where locals grow raspberries and keep bees\u2014is being asked to make huge sacrifices to enable other countries to build electric cars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Around 300 meters away from Petkovi\u0107\u2019s house, according to the multinational mining giant Rio Tinto, there is enough lithium to create 1 million<\/a> EV batteries, and the company wants to spend $2.4 billion to build Europe\u2019s biggest lithium mine here. But Petkovi\u0107 and other locals oppose the project, arguing it will cause irreparable damage to the environment. When asked about that claim, a spokesperson for Rio Tinto told WIRED that throughout the project, the company has \u201crecognized that Jadar will need to be developed to the highest environmental standards.\u201d Petkovi\u0107 is not convinced. \u201cI want the western countries to have the green transition and to live like people in Jadar,\u201d she says. \u201cBut that doesn’t mean that we need to destroy our nature.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Officially, the Jadar mine is not happening. After months of protests against the project, the government conceded, and in January it was canceled. “As far as Project Jadar is concerned, this is an end,” Serbian prime minister Ana Brnabi\u0107 said<\/a> on January 20, after Rio Tinto’s lithium exploration licenses were revoked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is widespread suspicion, however, that the project was canceled to stop protests overshadowing the presidential and parliamentary elections on April 3, and could restart if the government is reelected. \u201cThis might have been a pre-election ploy,\u201d says Florian Bieber, a professor of southeast European history and politics at Austria\u2019s University of Graz. \u201cI wouldn’t be surprised if the government picks up this issue again once the elections are done, because they see the economic benefits.\u201d A Rio Tinto shareholder expressed<\/a> a similar expectation to Reuters<\/em>, adding they expect the mine to be renegotiated after the vote. Rio Tinto denies this is its intention and says it has not planned or implemented any activities contrary to the project\u2019s legal status.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Europe has big plans to phase out fossil-fuel cars. In July, the European Union proposed<\/a> a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2035. The bloc wants to replace those cars with electric vehicles, built with locally produced<\/a> raw materials like lithium. The top lithium producers are currently<\/a> Australia, Chile, and China. But Europe has ambitions to produce more of the materials it needs for electric cars at home. These materials \u201care extremely expensive to ship and are transported across the world several times over,\u201d says Emily Burlinghaus, a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies in Germany. \u201cSo it’s much cheaper and much safer to have these operations close to battery manufacturing plants or auto manufacturing plants.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Europeans it\u2019s also a security issue. \u201cWe cannot allow [the EU] to replace [its] current reliance on fossil fuels with dependency on critical raw materials,\u201d said<\/a>  Maro\u0161 \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d, the commission vice president for inter-institutional relations, in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem is that Europeans don\u2019t trust mining companies in their backyards. The resistance that Rio Tinto has faced in Serbia is not unique. Portugal also witnessed protests against lithium mining in October<\/a>. The following month, mining company Vulcan Energy \u201cpaused<\/a>\u201d its lithium operation in Germany\u2019s Upper Rhine region after facing community opposition to its plans. But the ferocity of Serbia\u2019s opposition to the mine marks a major problem for the European Union\u2019s ambitions to source lithium from closer to home. In 2020, \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d said<\/a> the EU cannot achieve its climate goals without raw materials like lithium, adding that the bloc will need 18 times more lithium by 2030, and 60 times more by 2050.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rio Tinto\u2019s charm offensive in Gornje Nedeljice started soon after the mining group discovered an entirely new type of mineral in the area in 2004<\/a>. The mineral, called jadarite in tribute to the Jadar Valley where it was found, contained both borates and lithium\u2014two materials that Rio Tinto says have a role in the green transition. Lithium is used in EV batteries while borates can be used in wind and solar projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the years that followed, activists say, Rio Tinto employees made an effort to immerse themselves in village life. They turned up to villagers\u2019 weddings and celebrated religious holidays with them. Adverts were also beamed onto local TVs telling villagers if they work with Rio Tinto, together they could save the planet<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Relations with locals were good in these years, according to Petkovi\u0107, who is a member of the local campaign group Ne Damo Jadar. The villagers weren\u2019t too worried when Rio Tinto said it wanted to build a modest mine on just 20 hectares. \u201cThey said it is going to be a modern mine that will not damage nature,\u201d Petkovi\u0107 says. But last year, locals discovered that plans for their village had drastically changed. Rio Tinto wanted to build on 600 hectares<\/a>, nearly the size of 10,000 tennis courts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe started to fight against the mine when they found out the company was lying to us for 14 years; when we found out how big the mine really is,\u201d says Petkovi\u0107. Environmental concerns also started to emerge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Guardian<\/em> obtained<\/a> a study, funded by Rio Tinto, which outlined how the mine would cause irreversible changes to ecosystems and local rivers. The study recommended \u201cthe abandonment of planned exploitation and processing of the mineral jadarite.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was at this point that local anger toward Rio Tinto ignited national frustration toward Serbia\u2019s relationship with foreign mining companies. Investors are drawn to the small country because it borders the EU but does not have the same strict regulations, says Bieber.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In April<\/a>, thousands of people took part in protests in the capital Belgrade that became known as Serbia\u2019s \u201cenvironmental uprising.\u201d Those protests continued on and off<\/a> through the rest of the year. The movement \u201cis not about one company,\u201d says \u017daklina \u017divkovi\u0107, an activist with the Right to Water initiative, adding that the government plans to open 40 mines in the next 15 years, including seven lithium mines<\/a>. \u201cRio Tinto is a metaphor for all of the different investors and all the mines that are being planned in Serbia,\u201d \u017divkovi\u0107 says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arriving soon after a year marked by protests, this weekend\u2019s election was supposed to be the breakthrough movement for Serbia\u2019s environmentalists, says Engjellushe Morina, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. \u201cJust as we were expecting that there will be a bit of a win for environmentally friendly movements in Serbia, we have the Russia debate,\u201d she says, referring to Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She believes the return of war to Europe has empowered the ruling coalition parties and the incumbent president, Aleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107. The ruling coalition which approved the mine, led by president Vu\u010di\u0107\u2019s Serbian Progressive Party, was comfortably leading in polls<\/a> as of Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back in the village of Gornje Nedeljice, Petkovi\u0107 has the sense that Rio Tinto is not worried about the election\u2019s outcome. She believes the company has invested too much to stop, whatever the result. The miner has created its own technology<\/a> to extract the jadarite, which is found nowhere else in the world. Since the government canceled the project, Petkovi\u0107 says, there have been no signs Rio Tinto is preparing to leave. The machinery stayed, and the miner kept buying up local real estate, she claims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On March 30 another activist organization, Mar\u0161 sa Drine, published<\/a> the details of a phone call that they claim proves Rio Tinto is preparing to restart work on the mine after the election. The phone call was between a University of Belgrade professor involved in the Rio Tinto project and an anonymous source impersonating an employee of Rio Sava, Rio Tinto\u2019s Serbian subsidiary. In the conversation, the two discuss the arrival of equipment from the German company DMT and an Austrian company called Thyssen, which the professor said is \u201clikely\u201d to arrive in April. Neither DMT, Thyssen, nor the professor replied to WIRED\u2019s request for comment. In a statement, a Rio Tinto spokesperson described the \u201calleged\u201d recording as \u201cmisinformation,\u201d adding that the agreement with the two suppliers was signed before its permission for the mine was withdrawn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey lied to us in January,\u201d Mar\u0161 sa Drine said<\/a> on Twitter, urging their followers to vote against the project on Sunday. \u201cWhy is ANY equipment, no matter whether it\u2019s a bolt or a bulldozer, being discussed within the context of a project that has been CANCELED?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some believe that Rio Tinto has faced so much opposition in Serbia because of the company\u2019s legacy, associated with multiple<\/a> cases<\/a> of environmental damage. \u201cMining companies have been viewed so negatively historically that it doesn’t matter in the eyes of the public if they are transitioning to minerals that are being used for the energy transition,\u201d says Burlinghaus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Resistance to EV mining across Europe is not Nimbyism, says Diego Marin, associate policy officer for environmental justice at the NGO the European Environmental Bureau. \u201cCommunities are saying, \u2018We’re having our areas devastated and sacrificed to make what? Cars for rich people that our communities can never afford,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cIn the end, we pay the price that our air gets cleaner but our land gets poorer.\u201d It\u2019s not that these activists don\u2019t want clean air. But an idea is beginning to spread among green groups in Europe: that the green transition is turning into a capitalism rebrand that is still focused on planet-harming mass production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe purpose of the green transition is to make an industrial transition sound like it fits in with a solution to a problem that cannot be solved through industry,\u201d says Bojana Novakovic, an activist with Mar\u0161 sa Drine and also an actress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Officials have tried to reassure Europeans that this is a new era of mining. “Mining in the past was a very dirty operation,” said<\/a> Peter Handley, head of the European Commission’s raw materials unit, speaking at a conference on \u201cgreen\u201d mining in Lisbon last year. “It is becoming highly technological these days.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Europe\u2019s environmentalists are divided on whether \u201cgreen\u201d mining is possible, even by new companies that are untarnished by their history. \u201cI don’t care whether Mother Teresa wants to extract lithium from the Jadar Valley; she wouldn’t be doing it on my watch,\u201d says Novakovic. \u201cThere is no green way to extract lithium from fertile soil. Period. It has never been done before.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Europe wants to source EV materials within its own borders. But fierce opposition ahead of the elections in Serbia shows locals don\u2019t trust mining companies. By Morgan Meaker for WIRED.com ONLY RED-ROOFED HOUSES interrupt the vast carpet of fields that surround the village of Gornje Nedeljice, in western Serbia. To resident Marijana Petkovi\u0107, this is the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1302,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[58,79,55,1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1300","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-info-and-news-en","8":"category-general-information","9":"category-foreign-media","10":"category-uncategorized-sr"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marssadrine.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marssadrine.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marssadrine.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marssadrine.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marssadrine.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1300"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/marssadrine.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1971,"href":"https:\/\/marssadrine.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1300\/revisions\/1971"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marssadrine.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marssadrine.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marssadrine.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marssadrine.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}