Good news in Indonesia, right before the not-so-good
News in mining for clean energy
A friend called me last Thursday and passed on rumors he had heard: the largest project planning to dump its mine waste in the ocean decided not to. Sure enough, Reuters had confirmed it.
For people on Sulawesi Island, and surely for the voiceless ocean, this was a win. Protests from locals and foreign investors had occurred several times after I reported on the plans to send battery nickel and cobalt to China while leaving behind almost 100 times more waste in the ocean. PT Hua Pioneer Indonesia, led by China’s steelmaking Tsingshan Group, planned to dump up to 25 million tons of tailings into the ocean for four projects.
Now that it has rescinded its request for a dumping permit, according to a ministry official, smelters will have to find other ways to feed nickel into the EV battery supply chain.
Moh Taufik, a mining activist in Sulawesi, said:
The cancellation of the tailings disposal plan is good news for coastal communities in the coastal marine area of Morowali Regency. This will save the deep waters of Morowali coral triangle, which is the water area in the western Pacific Ocean, including Indonesia, which contains very high species diversity.
Now, advocates are focused on plans to fuel production with coal power and whatever new method PT HPI will use to manage tailings. A second battery nickel project, on Obi Island, has not changed its plans to dump waste into the sea.
The encouragement for downstreaming through electric vehicle batteries by providing the benefits of clean air in cities should not leave a trail of destruction of marine and land biodiversity in remote areas, marginalizing the lives of local residents and workers who are not prosperous.
Then,
The Indonesian parliament approved a ‘job creation’ bill. The government says it’s meant to spur investment, especially foreign, by making the country’s workforce and red tape more attractive. Toward that end, the bill loosens 1200 provisions in 79 laws.
Under the law, companies can increase overtime, shrink severance benefits, and hire part-time workers over full-time workers. Under the law, community objections to environmental permits have to prove a direct impact, companies no longer have to reserve 30% forests in some areas, and the central government alone determines waste dumping.
It’s a law that even the World Bank is worried about. A letter from investors representing $4.1 billion in assets called out the bill for contradicting international best practice standards and putting Indonesia’s massive tropical forests at risk.
Indonesia wants to be the world’s breadbasket for palm oil, paper and pulp, metals, labor. The letter may brand any company that takes advantage of the new law.
In other news, Tesla is in early talks to invest directly in Indonesia’s plans for batteries or nickel.
Protests in Indonesia are likely happening as this arrives in your inbox. I reached out to a few people to understand what this means for Indonesia. First, I spoke with Hafidah Nur. She’s a forestry lecturer in Sulawesi.
You just came back from Wawonii Island. What are things like there now?
Things are quiet. People are trying to prepare for a local election [which are going forward despite an intensifying pandemic to postpone]
How are you involved in the mining case in Wawonii? Why did you get involved?
It’s a way of dedicating myself to the community. As a member of the academic community, I have a duty within the Tridharma educational tradition that while my main function is a lecturer, direct service in the community is no less important. It’s a manifestation of my concerns for the Wawonii community, especially the social, economic, and ecological issues that may arise with mining.
What do you believe the impact of the omnibus law could be?
It will clearly open the floodgates to environmental damage, because of several regulatory changes that will impact resource management that is not economically, socially, or ecologically sustainable for people’s lives, especially for the people in direct contact with agriculture, plantations, and fisheries.
What worries you personally about the law?
I worry that there will be a rapid destruction of natural resources, more poverty, and a shift in the morality and culture of Indonesia that once made us proud.
Yuyun Harmono is a climate justice campaigner, and I spoke with him to learn more specifics.
The Omnibus law has a lot of articles. Which articles are you particularly concerned about?
One change to an existing law reduces and narrows environmental announcements to solely electronic bulletins. That can potentially eliminate community information rights in villages, small islands, and other areas without information technology.
Another article has the potential to silence and criminalize community activists who oppose mining, whether coal or nickel.
Indonesia aspires to be the global center of nickel. What effect does this law have on that?
Nickel mining will get more severe and harm the environment, and the same goes for the planned smelters. The transition to clean energy must also be accompanied by a just raw materials transition. How do you get the materials for renewable energy and EV batteries? How do we reduce the environmental and social impacts of extracting raw materials? How are the raw materials processed and with what kind of energy? What about trade relations between countries?
There are many questions that must be answered before we can say that renewable energy and EVs are the path to clean, low-carbon development.
Eye on Industry
Tesla is planning to meet with a group of Russian Indigenous activists that called out the company for buying nickel from a producer that has polluted indigenous communities.
The not-even-nascent US rare earths industry got a boost from Trump last week. He declared the dependence on China’s rare earths a national emergency and ordered funds to be directed toward mining and processing the notoriously difficult to mine and process rare earth elements. Nonprofit Earthworks said:
The President is right that we need to improve our minerals policy which still lingers from an 1872 law intended for white colonization. But that doesn’t mean loosening oversight, it means reforming this law to help redress some of the inequities still evident in our power structures today, where governments permit destruction of indigenous sacred sites.
Soon after, the US government took an equity stake in TechMet to support a Brazilian mining project for nickel and cobalt.
Chile’s big copper miner Antofagasta is eyeing a permit for Minnesota’s contested Twin Metals mine project.
The Philippine government is turning to idle mines for extra revenue after its economy was hit severely by the pandemic.
Ghana is powering forward with its bauxite [aluminum] projects despite a lawsuit and having to dig up biodiverse rainforest.
Reads
In a world that needs metals, how can we mine more responsibly? (The Narwhal)
Land grab, logging, mining threaten biodiversity haven of Woodlark Island (Mongabay)
Listen: Mining and the cost of the energy transition (Eco-business)
And if you like a bit of an academic perspective on extraction and capital and the countryside, the first issue of the new Commodity Frontiers journal is open access.
Hi! I’m Ian Morse, and this is Green Rocks, a newsletter that doesn’t want dirty mining to ruin clean energy.
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