Our country has large reserves of these critical minerals, essential for manufacturing everything from batteries to wind turbines. In this scenario, Andalusia has emerged as the modern “El Dorado”, concentrating 90% of the value of national production metal mining.
As stated in the Map of Critical Minerals of Andalusia edited by the Boardaccess to these resources is already a “strategic security issue” to be able to move forward with the European Green Deal. The fear is clear: we risk replacing our former dependence on fossil fuels with dependence on raw materials for which there is increasing global competition.
Berja hits the first blow on the table. While the offices debate, the province of Almería is already preparing to drill. According to The Diario de AlmeríaIn just three months, the Minera de Órgiva company will begin extractive activity in the Lupión well concession, in the municipality of Berja. Its owner, Celso Amor, confirms that start-up is imminent and they will begin extracting mineral to carry out industrial tests and design the final plant.
The target there is fluorite, a raw material considered critical by the European Union which is vital for steel mills, hydrofluoric acid production, refrigeration systems and the chemical industry. It is not a minor project: estimates indicate that there are more than 10 million tons of fluorite in the deposit, placing it among the most important in Europe. Furthermore, to minimize its ecological footprint in the Gádor mountain range, the exploitation has opted for a design in which the entire mine will be completely underground, including the treatment plant; a model of which there is only one similar installation in the world, located in Chile.
The geopolitical pulse: disengaging from China. The opening in Berja is not an isolated case, but the reflection of a policy of continental survival. Currently, much of the critical raw materials are concentrated in countries like China, which controls 90% of rare earthsor the Congo, main supplier of cobalt. The European Union wants to cut this dependency to shield sectors ranging from automotive to artificial intelligence.
Brussels currently has 47 strategic projects identified linked to mining throughout the continentof which seven are located in Spain. Our country He is already a key pawn: we provide 17% of the copper extracted in the EU, 12% of the zinc and we are the leading European producer of fluorine and gypsum.
There is a regulatory controversy behind this.
However, removing these minerals from the earth collides head-on with the protection of ecosystems. As he warns The Newspaperdozens of extractive companies have long warned that the EU Water Framework Directive prevents them from receiving the necessary authorizations to operate.
To resolve this situation, the European Commission launched a public consultation process (‘Call for Evidence’) aimed at reviewing and making this water legislation more flexible. Brussels’ official goal is to address regulatory bottlenecks and simplify legislation to promote access to critical raw materials. However, environmental platforms have raised the alarm. Environmental sectors They criticize that these changes They want to do it on the fast track and warn of its consequences: if the flexibility goes ahead and a project is considered of “higher interest”, “greater pollution” will be allowed, authorizing discharges into rivers or aquifers that until now were prohibited. All this in a country like Spain, where 43% of water bodies already fail to meet environmental requirements.
To try to balance the balance, the European Commission has opened a call for experts to form the Stakeholder Platform on Water Resilience, seeking to protect the water cycle from pollution and climate change.
Beyond fluorite: the Andalusian map. While Europe decides what to do with its waters, the Andalusian subsoil continues to attract attention. As the local Almeria media reportsthere are projects in initial phases to study the extraction of lithium in Pulpí, and metals such as silver, iron or copper in the Sierra Almagrera and Los Filabres. Rafael Navarro, researcher at IGME-CSIC, calls for caution, remembering that from the time an investigation is carried out until a mine is opened, three or four years can easily pass.
The map of Critical Minerals of the Junta de Andalucía confirms this potentialhighlighting a high potential in the Arteal area (Sierra Almagrera, Almería) as a possible lithium resource associated with brines. The document also reveals that in the Granada basin (Montevives, Escúzar) the second largest deposit of strontium in the world is located, producing 200,000 tons annually and crowning Spain as the main producer in the EU.
The high price of sovereignty. We have the resources that Europe desperately needs to not depend on Asian powers, and projects like Berja show that the industry is ready to start operating.
However, the debate on the modification of the Water Framework Directive raises an uncomfortable question that society and European institutions will have to answer very soon: are we willing to relax the protection of our rivers and aquifers to secure our technological and energy future? The answer will define the environmental landscape for decades to come.
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