Mining in Portugal
Photos courtesy of Saleem Ali June 04, 2024
UD’s Saleem Ali travels to Portugal as part of a Fulbright Specialist Award to talk about mining activities
When he talks about the green energy transition, University of Delaware professor Saleem Ali is quick to point out that there is no such thing as a free lunch. That is, in order to move away from fossil fuels, we’ll have to mine the minerals needed to fuel clean energy sources and electric cars.
Portugal is a great example of this conundrum. The European Union (EU) aims to be climate-neutral by 2050, and Portugal has vast lithium deposits that could be used as a homegrown stockpile to help achieve that goal. Critical minerals like lithium make green technologies possible, but extraction has the potential to negatively impact communities if not managed properly.
“It’s the classic mining problem that you have anywhere: People want the minerals, but they don’t want the mine to be in their backyard,” said Ali, Blue and Gold Distinguished Professor of Energy and the Environment.
The same is true in Portugal.
“In one area where lithium mining is being planned, there is an old agricultural area, and farmers feel that their agricultural land will be used,” said Ali, who holds appointments in both the Joseph R. Biden, Jr. School of Public Policy and Administration and the College of Earth, Ocean and Environment. “So there's a concern about competing water usage with other agricultural needs.”
Ali recently traveled to the Escola Superior de Comunicação Social (School of Communication and Media Studies) in Lisbon as part of a Fulbright Specialist Award he received from the U.S. Department of State and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board to address mining in the country.
Ali is one of more than 400 U.S. citizens who share expertise with host institutions abroad through the Fulbright Specialist Program each year. The program is designed to build lasting connections between the people of the U.S. and the people of other countries.
Ali spent 18 days giving lectures and visiting some of the sites where there is both a history of mining in Portugal and where mining is planned. He visited the southern part of Portugal, known as the Iberian Pyrite Belt, which is a region that stretches into Spain and is where iron ore and sulfites were once mined. He also saw some of the downstream lithium processing plants.
“Lithium is a metal that's essential for electric car batteries as well as batteries in our laptops, phones and so on,” Ali said. “It's considered a critical mineral for the green transition. The goal was that I would help give them some knowledge transfer around communicating to the general public about how to reconcile conflicts around mining.”
In the Iberian Pyrite Belt, in particular, Ali said it was interesting to see how they have developed museums around some of the older mining sites.
“In the United States, many of these old mining sites would have big fences around them with ‘do not enter’ signs,” Ali said. “But in that area, they're actually embracing the heritage of mining and educating the public about the problem that happened as well as the ways in which minerals are so important for our existence. They also are educating about the history of mining around employment and things of that nature.”
Portugal is one of the EU countries tasked with mining lithium, so educating the public on the history of mining — as well as the necessity of mining — will be critical moving forward, Ali said.
Portugal’s lithium deposits are seen as a key part of the EU’s efforts to secure its own reserves, said Vera Moutinho, who hosted Ali and is a professor of multimedia and climate journalism at the Escola Superior de Comunicação Social. But last year, an investigation into alleged corruption in handling lithium mining and hydrogen projects led to the fall of the socialist government and made some people question the true cost of the green transition.
“That investigation opened a debate on the pressure to sacrifice nature in the name of investment in new technologies and the energy transition,” Moutinho said. “After the PM resigned, anti-mining groups in Portugal urged the government to suspend and review all lithium projects.”
As both a journalist and a teacher, Moutinho said that she learned a lot from Ali’s visit.
“I've gained invaluable insights from Professor Saleem during his visit,” she said. “I had the privilege of accompanying him on some field visits related to lithium projects, and each excursion felt like an immersive lesson encompassing critical minerals, politics, economics, energy and sustainability."
Ali takes a pragmatic perspective when it comes to the environment, and his approach in Portugal was no different.
“My research is focused on trying to find solutions,” Ali said. “I'm very focused on using science and data to actually find a path forward with development, and so that's what the people I spoke with appreciated — that I was willing to talk through those issues rather than just lamenting the past.”
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