Focus on Arts and Ecology

As the region plunges deeper into an energy crisis, the way out could lie in a determined move towards EV adoption and reduced reliance on oil and gas imports. 

By Putra Adhiguna, May 1, 2026

As the Iran war crunches global energy supplies and disrupts prices, Southeast Asian leaders may need to diversify oil and gas supplies in order to protect ordinary people.

However, they must also look beyond short-term remedies and seek to get their countries off the fossil fuel rollercoaster. As well as building out renewable energy generation and modernising the grid so it can handle the new power, the region should be more prudent about importing gas and turbocharge electric vehicle (EV) adoption.

Road transport is a key driver of oil demand in the region, and gas is a core part of several countries’ power supply. The crisis in the Strait of Hormuz is disrupting roughly one-fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) flows. Of the gas exported through the strait last year, 90% was destined for Asia.

Southeast Asia has been a net importer of oil for over two decades. With its population growing, the region’s meeting of its demand continues to rely on a 1990s model: more car and fuel subsidies; more imported cooking fuels; and a continued push to build even more gas power capacity. Yet its oil and gas production has been decreasing.

Indonesia’s oil production peaked in the 1990s, and it now imports 60% of its needs while spending tens of billions of dollars annually on fuel and electricity subsidies to keep prices stable for households. Thailand’s gas production has been declining since the mid-2010s, yet it still generates about 65% of its power from the fuel; and, in 2023, it imported nearly half of its gas supply, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Though the region as a whole has been pushing to produce more gas, largely via drilling, the implication is clear: however quickly countries try to ramp up production, demand on its current trajectory will continue to far outpace supply growth. Southeast Asia is on track to become a net gas importer.

To secure its energy future, the region needs to accelerate the electrification of its transport sector via EV adoption and strengthen its clean energy development, opening a credible path towards energy self-sufficiency.

The impact of EV adoption

People often dismiss the benefits of EV adoption when fossil fuels’ share in the energy mix is still high. But there is another pathway: electrify and open up possibilities of powering the sector through green energy. Even when powered by a fossil-fuel-heavy grid, EVs produce less emissions over the vehicle’s lifetime than conventional cars by avoiding tailpipe emissions once on the road, eventually reaching a “breakeven” point, as research by BloombergNEF has shown.

More importantly, increased EV adoption enables the region to decouple from fossil fuels as the grid cleans up, while gasoline and diesel vehicles offer no comparable exit path. Clean electricity creates a route to both lower emissions and greater energy self-sufficiency.

In 2025, 2.3 million barrels of daily oil use were avoided through the global EV fleet, BloombergNEF estimates. This represents a mere 2% of global oil demand, but is a clear signal of an alternative path.

China chose the EV route partly to reduce its reliance on oil imports, which account for around 70% of its needs. That strategy is estimated to have yielded results amid the Gulf energy crisis. For Southeast Asian countries to do the same, its governments need to increase public and political support for greater EV adoption. They should do this by working with electric automakers to boost EV manufacturing and create local jobs, as well as by establishing charging infrastructure.

Gas as a stable transition fuel?

With Asian LNG prices remaining highly volatile amid the global energy crisis, the narrative of gas as a stable transition fuel is beginning to unravel. The crisis has exposed the risks of rapidly expanding gas’s share in Southeast Asia’s power mix.

Gas has been widely promoted as a stopgap measure to achieve the region’s aims of reducing its coal dependence and CO2 emissions while it grows its renewable power. Research by the Energy Shift Institute, where I work, shows that many Asian governments count gas as part of sustainable investments. But though gas combustion does result in less emission than coal, when leakage occurs in its value chain it is 80 times more potent as a climate heater than CO2.

There is also the premium on imported LNG from distant suppliers, which is significantly more expensive than domestically produced piped gas.

Gas is far harder than oil to stockpile, making it riskier for import-dependent economies. This vulnerability was evident during the 2022 energy crisis brought on by the war in Ukraine, when LNG prices surged and cargoes originally bound for Pakistan were diverted to Europe as traders sought to capitalise on higher prices. Similar episodes are likely to recur in future supply shocks.

There will be a place to develop some local resources and stockpiles. As with oil, gas will continue to have a role to play as an energy and industrial material input, particularly in industries with limited alternative technologies, such as fertiliser.

China can again be looked to as an example, with an 8% gas share in its total energy supply in 2023, nearly 40% of which was imported. This, combined with its rapid renewables growth, reveals a clear underlying logic: limit exposure to imported energy while reserving gas for purposes that critically need it.

Continuing to rely on gas imports threatens to lock Southeast Asia into the same vulnerability it is only beginning to reckon with on the oil front.

Its governments and utilities routinely cite high upfront costs as a barrier to building renewables and modernising grids, yet sign long-term LNG import contracts without similar scrutiny. They are also burning through cash during the Gulf crisis: Malaysia’s bill for subsidies to stabilise retail fuel prices for consumers has shot up by over ten times. Meanwhile, Indonesia’s fuel subsidies to keep prices affordable for households and motorists are estimated to cost the state IDR 6.7 trillion (USD 387 million) per US dollar increase in the price of oil. This raises the urgent question of how budgets can best be deployed to secure energy supply for the region.

Short-term fixes during crises are crucial, but true leadership in establishing a secure energy supply requires long-term visionary goals. Competing government budgetary priorities and the need to secure immediate energy supplies understandably pull attention toward familiar remedies such as diversifying oil and gas suppliers and creating more emergency stockpiles.

But in energy, there are no quick fixes; the key is in pursuing a steady direction. Southeast Asia has yet to fully explore exit routes that can reduce its exposure to oil and gas supply shocks. The 1970s oil crisis sparked the emergence of renewables, and the current crisis may prove equally defining for the world’s energy systems.

Clean energy deployment must be accelerated. The transition will take time, but the starting point is clear: governments need to electrify as much as possible before the next crisis peeks its head around the corner.

China has won an international tender to execute the Poechos and Alto Piura megaprojects, both key to the Piura region’s future water security. 

By Ralph Zapata, April 29, 2026

The sun beats down on Cieneguillo, a valley famed for its lemon and mango plantations near Peru’s northern coast. Farmer Yhon Silupú Córdova – thin, slow-moving and tanned – walks silently across his plot until he stops and points: “I lost these two hectares to the drought. I haven’t recovered them.”

In economic terms, the loss represented about 33,000 soles (about USD 10,000) for Silupú. His story reflects a phenomenon being repeated across the world: extreme weather and uneven water management are strangling production systems. In Cieneguillo, one of the worst droughts in decades sparked a water crisis in 2024. Silupú and other local agricultural leaders say it affected some 6,000 farmers in their area.

According to estimates by Piura’s chamber of commerce, the drought caused economic losses of up to 1.3 billion soles and put nearly 60,000 jobs at risk. Key export crops – rice, mangoes, lemons and grapes – were among the most affected.

In urban areas, families waited with buckets for the arrival of water tankers. In the countryside, farmers fought over access to the resource; the army was deployed at the drainage system that supplies water to Piura to ward off potential thieves.

Reduced rainfall played a role in the crisis but many also point to weaknesses in the water system. For example, according to the local government’s Piura Region Water Plan, 63% of the more than 725,000 hectares with productive potential do not have an irrigation system. 

The water crisis has also revealed deep asymmetries in access to the resource. Research published in 2024 found that, despite growing water scarcity, large-scale agricultural export companies had received 93% of the water licences granted in Piura since 2010.

Families, too, are going thirsty. According to the Piura Sanitation Services Company, drinking water demand in the region reaches 2,400 litres per second, but actual production barely reaches 1,500. Water production takes place at the Curumuy treatment plant, which receives water from the main reservoir of northern Peru, called Poechos, as well as approximately 30 underground wells. This production gap forces thousands of families to live without continuous access to water – or to dig holes in search of it.

China and northern Peru

In December 2025, the Peruvian government announced China had won an international tender to deliver initial studies for two water megaprojects in the region: Alto Piura and the reinvigoration of Poechos. Both are aimed at securing water access but have been delayed for decades.

Mario Montero, a professor at the National University of Piura (UNP) and a specialist in water management, tells Dialogue Earth the main obstacle has not been technical but political: “Every year, a budget is announced to move them forward, but they don’t.”

China’s interest in Piura goes further than water projects, however. The region is one of Peru’s main agro-export hubs, shipping mangoes, lemons, avocados and grapes to the US, Europe and, increasingly, Asia. Last year, for example, a Piura-based company exported frozen avocados to China for the first time. In 2025, the Chinese market was the second largest destination for exports from Piura, after the US.

This relationship is also reflected in Chinese investments in other strategically important sectors. China’s Zijin mining group is the majority shareholder of the Río Blanco copper mine in the Piura Highlands.

Poechos: On the road to recovery?

Poechos celebrates its 50th anniversary in June. Designed to store up to a billion cubic metres of water, the reservoir’s effective capacity has been reduced to less than half. Even so, it remains a key asset: it supplies water to nearly a million people and irrigates more than 100,000 hectares of agricultural land.

“It is the largest reservoir in Peru, ensuring the local and export food chain,” says Antonio Valdiviezo, Piura’s regional director of agriculture. “Its recovery will depend on the coordinated work of all Peruvian authorities.”

A project to update the reservoir is under consideration, perhaps by expansion, dredging or building smaller, satellite reservoirs. This would require huge investment.

The economist Miguel Zapata, a member of the Regional Institute for Water Resource Management Support (Irager), says the success of Poechos’ consolidation will depend upon political and institutional factors. Zapata explains that defining the final proposal will take much of this year, and the government will want to ensure it is protected, legally and financially: “A rigorous administrative roadmap is needed. It is essential to have a solid contract that covers hidden defects and force majeure, to prevent the project from ending up in international arbitration, which the Peruvian state usually loses.”

Zapata also points out that similar projects have stalled in the past because of financing issues, so funding must be secured from the outset to avoid construction pauses.

Peru is currently in the middle of a presidential election, its second round of voting scheduled for 7 June. Montero points out this could also impact the project: “Sometimes, due to a change of government, the works come to a standstill.”

Alto Piura: Water and energy

The second megaproject is the Alto Piura Special Irrigation and Hydroelectric Project (Peihap). It includes the construction of a dam, a 33 km trans-Andean water pipeline and two hydroelectric power stations. Peihap will upgrade existing agricultural irrigation infrastructure, but also build out more across another 19,000 hectares. All in all, the project will secure irrigation for at least 50,000 hectares and have a total installed capacity of 300 megawatts. This makes Peihap one of northern Peru’s most significant and anticipated hydro projects.

However, Peihap has already gone through two international contractors and arbitration. China could face quite a challenge in taking on this project.

Zapata says the intra-governmental agreement is “already a step forward” but “a roadmap for the project must be established.” No contract is likely to be awarded until 2027, he adds.

Paul Viñas, a UNP biologist specialising in water management, emphasises the importance of incorporating nature into the project: “We must take advantage of all of China’s experience in water solutions. But engineering must go hand-in-hand with nature-based solutions. For example, we must restore the forests in the upper Piura Basin, which serve as rain regulators.”

The National Water Authority (ANA) told Dialogue Earth it would not comment on water management in northern Peru. Unsuccessful attempts were also made to interview representatives from the Peruvian Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation (MDAR).

Far away from talk of technical studies and governmental deal-making and announcements, Yhon Silupú walks around his plot in Cieneguillo. The soil is still dry, and the lemon trees have not sprouted again. For him, the promises of dams and tunnels remain remote. “Water is urgent for us,” he warns.

Ralph Zapata

As the parks multiply, unified standards and better carbon accounting are needed to maximise their potential. 

By Liu Jingning, Yang Li, Diego Montero, April 27, 2026

The drive to create “zero-carbon industrial parks” is here to stay. This was made clear last month at the annual plenary meetings of China’s top legislature, the Two Sessions. Such parks were assigned a prominent role in two key documents emerging from the meetings, namely the 15th Five Year Plan – China’s economic blueprint for 2026-30 – and the 2026 annual development plan.

The drive could be highly significant because industrial parks as a whole currently account for 31% of China’s carbon emissions, 50% of its industrial output value and 80% of its factories. They often contain a high concentration of companies involved in heavily emitting industries like steel, cement, autos or chemicals manufacturing.

In a recent report by Beijing-based think-tank the Institute for Global Decarbonization Progress, we analysed 85 pilot zero-carbon industrial parks in eight of China’s provinces.

What decarbonisation experiences have they been accumulating? What do they tell us about the challenges ahead as the national government doubles down on the initiative?

As China ramps up its zero-carbon industrial parks effort, our key prescriptive takeaways are that voluntary standards should be elevated to national ones, parks should shift from isolated decarbonization projects to integrated system-wide designs, and carbon market and green finance mechanisms should be expanded.

What is a zero-carbon industrial park?

While there is no one official definition of a “zero-carbon industrial park”, Chinese policy and pilot practices are converging around common features. These parks are clusters of industrial enterprises that aim to achieve near-zero or net-zero emissions by combining deep decarbonisation and carbon-management measures like offsetting and energy-efficiency gains. They are usually located outside but not far from urban centres and can host anywhere from a handful to several hundred enterprises.

In practice, the zero-carbon designation often applies to pilot zones within larger economic development zones, rather than entire administrative districts. As a result, most pilots currently occupy a modest area – generally 10-20 sq km, with some in the 20-50 sq km range.

That upper limit is roughly comparable to the size of Manhattan, underscoring both the manageability of pilot projects and the challenge of scaling up to larger industrial systems. Guiding indicators in the zero-carbon industrial park national framework require clean energy to account for at least 90% of total energy consumption; carbon emissions per unit of energy to fall 90% below the current national average for industrial parks; and industrial solid waste utilisation to exceed 80%.

Regional differences

While only seven of the parks we analysed appear in the first batch of 52 pilots, they offer a view into the parks’ development patterns and trends across different geographical and economic conditions.

The parks along China’s eastern coastal areas evince a “new-industry-driven” model that emphasises advanced manufacturing, export-oriented industries, “high-end services” like IT and finance, and leverages complete industrial chains and mature technology. They tend to focus on “strategic emerging industries” and promote use of renewable power, distributed energy and green building applications.

Wuxi, in Jiangsu, offers an interesting example. Early-mover advantages in solar photovoltaics and energy storage have enabled it to demonstrate pathways for green electricity consumption and industrial development, showcasing a zero-carbon development model driven by technological innovation.

China’s central areas have developed an “energy-transition-driven” model oriented towards adjustments in the energy structure. Because these regions have a high proportion of traditional manufacturing and coal-fired power, their challenge is to drive high-quality economic development through green transformation. Parks in Shanxi, for example, have focused on promoting the transition away from coal and toward new energy industries. They are searching for synergies between the need to upgrade existing industries and cultivate emerging green industries.

The parks in China’s south-west, meanwhile, display a “clean-energy-driven” model that draws on local advantages in hydro, wind and solar power, to couple clean energy with industrial production. Parks in Sichuan, for example, tend to focus on developing industries such as electrolytic aluminium, silicon materials and batteries for new energy vehicles. Yunnan has been promoting the use of hydropower in green aluminium and green silicon industrial chains to develop a competitive advantage in international markets.

Standards and technical challenges

The technical standards for China’s zero-carbon industrial parks have also been developing along different pathways.

Voluntary industry-association-led “group standards” have been spearheaded by bodies like the China Energy Conservation Association and the China Association for Engineering Construction Standardization. In addition, local government standards have been made in accordance with local resource endowments and industrial characteristics. Finally, divergent local implementation plans have been developed to bridge high-level national policy and ground-level operational needs.

Our report found that these multifarious standards have led to challenges such as inconsistent carbon accounting methodologies, a lack of unified third-party verification protocols, and difficulties in benchmarking performance across parks. This undermines the credibility of carbon reductions, raises compliance costs for businesses, and impedes the development of scalable financial instruments based on park-level carbon assets.

Building an energy supply system centred on green power is crucial for zero-carbon industrial parks, but practically challenging. The direct green power supply model – which sees a renewable power generator bypass the grid to supply an industrial consumer directly – often encounters issues such as complex approval procedures, high upfront investment costs, and imperfect market trading rules during implementation. Meanwhile, the technological challenges of integrating renewables into the grid at scale have yet to be resolved. Long-duration energy storage technology remains immature, for example.

High-quality carbon accounting data is the basis for measuring emission reduction effects, overcoming international trade barriers, and attracting green finance. However, current systems for carbon accounting have frailties.

First, measurement and monitoring suffer from weak underlying data-collection capabilities. Second, the accounting process is complex, professional talent is scarce, and unified, authoritative third-party verification and certification standards are missing. Third, the technological and economic bottlenecks of deep decarbonisation are becoming increasingly prominent, especially in high-emission traditional industries such as cement, steel and chemicals. These sectors are hampered by insufficient supply of key inputs such as green hydrogen, low technological maturity, poor economic viability, and incomplete supporting policy systems and market mechanisms.

What’s next?

According to national plans, there will be 100 national zero-carbon industrial parks developed during the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-2030). The first batch of 52 pilots will be expected to demonstrate pathways for the subsequent scaling up of the pilot program.

Our analysis points to three areas of work that deserve special attention. First, the existing, industry-led group standards should be gradually upgraded to sectoral and national standards. A tiered and categorised carbon emission accounting and certification system would enhance the standardisation, comparability and implementation for parks in the system. 

System integration is another priority. Overall operational efficiency and emission reductions could best be realised by strengthening the parks’ links between energy, industrial production, transportation, buildings and resource recycling. This will require breaking down administrative and departmental barriers.

Third, to strengthen the foundations for carbon trading, the parks should accelerate the development of diversified trading mechanisms covering carbon emission rights, green power certificates, and voluntary emission reductions. This will facilitate the introduction of carbon financial products and services, allowing market-based incentive mechanisms to drive decarbonisation.

Further down the line, it will be interesting to see whether China’s ministries coordinate to export lessons learned in its pilot program to its overseas industrial parks.

Ultimately, industrial parks will have to develop against policy mandates, assess the low-carbon demands of their consumer markets, and make the most of their local advantages.

With more than 800 mining waste ‘tailings’, the country is exploring how to take advantage of the key energy transition minerals they hold.

By Barinia Montoya, April 23, 2026 

Chile is seeking to rescue the critical minerals from its mountains of mining waste, amid concerns this re-exploitation could damage communities and environments.

Tailings are the mixtures of ground rock and water left behind after extraction at a mine, their deposits resembling giant piles of scree. There are now 836 such deposits throughout Chile. These are mainly concentrated in desert regions, like Atacama in the north, where vast mineral reserves have helped Chile become the world’s leading copper exporter. 

Communities have lived beside these deposits for decades but in recent years, their potential value has changed radically: they could be packed with critical minerals, such as cobalt and rare earth elements. These minerals are essential to the energy transition, for electric vehicles and renewable energy technologies. An analysis of a 1.7 million-tonne deposit in Spain last year, for example, suggested it could yield 168 tonnes of rare earth elements alone.

This has led to hopes that circular mining (reincorporating waste into the production cycle) could repurpose the world’s growing collection of tailings. On the other hand, environmentalists argue, this recycling could cause pollution and affect water supplies.

Luis Cisternas is a lecturer at the University of Antofagasta in the north, and a researcher for the Chilean capital’s Advanced Mining Technology Center (AMTC). He says reprocessing waste requires large amounts of energy and water – the latter being a particularly critical and scarce resource in the Chilean desert: “The major challenge will indeed be significant water consumption.” If not rigorously managed, Cisternas says, this consumption could compete with the water needs of local communities and fragile ecosystems.

‘Hidden gold’ in mining waste

Last year, the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland published an evaluation of various secondary sources of rare earth elements, such as recycled electronic waste and red mud (bauxite residue). It deemed mining tailings to have the highest potential.

China currently dominates both the mining and processing of rare earth elements globally, accounting for around 60% of production and close to 90% of processing capacity. Aside from energy transition technologies and electric vehicles, critical minerals are integral to modern military equipment. A coalition of governments led by the US and Europe has moved to diversify critical mineral supply chains, elevating countries like Chile to strategic importance.

Humberto Estay Cuenca, director of the AMTC, says there is a unique opportunity for Chile to further solidify its status as a supplier of minerals – “if this is combined with a strategy for value extraction and socio-environmental solutions”. However, he warns that the economic viability of tailings’ “low concentrations” of minerals will prove a challenge.

Nevertheless, Chile’s National Geology and Mining Service (Sernageomin) is putting more resources into tailings deposits; it launched a National Observatory of Geological and Mining Hazards in October. The Sernageomin geographer, Silvia Arce, is this project’s technical director. “We want to establish a monitoring system that allows us as a state to have operational control, or a mirror of what is happening in each mine,” she explains to Dialogue Earth.

One example of successful tailings extraction is Minera Valle Central, in central Chile. High-pressure hoses are being used to convert deposits back into slurry, enabling mineral recovery. Those include copper and molybdenum, the latter used in steel alloys.

“This is then reprocessed and sold on the market,” explains Cristóbal Carrasco, a Sernageomin engineer. He says this hydraulic method reduces risks for workers by avoiding direct contact with unstable mountains of waste.

However, rolling out this technique is a “major challenge”, according to Cisternas: “Each tailings deposit has a particular mineralogy. That means there is no one-size-fits-all solution.”

The researcher warns the process must be extremely rigorous if it is to control and contain any potential chemical impacts: “Sometimes, rare earth elements are accompanied by radioactive isotopes that could be released into the environment, if the resumption of operations is not backed by dedicated studies.”

Regulatory barriers

Chile’s regulatory procedures are playing catch up to this potential. Amendments to the regulations governing the design, construction and operation of tailings projects are currently under debate in congress. The new regulations seek to promote the reprocessing, reuse and relocation of tailings, as well as give Sernageomin more inspection and management tools.

“The idea is to give any individual or company the opportunity to intervene in a tailings deposit, safeguarding its physical and chemical stability,” explains Carrasco.

At present, assessing a tailings pile requires virtually the same complex and costly permits as opening a mine from scratch. The new regulations would introduce the concept of “extraction deposits”, thus distinguishing simple waste accumulation from the activity of recovering minerals. This would enable the streamlining of permit processes, reducing bureaucratic costs and making it easier for small businesses or local innovators to invest.

Up until now, says Carrasco, lengthy administrative procedures have slowed down many initiatives.

But this red tape has not prevented some pilot initiatives from emerging: in Tierra Amarilla, a mining community in the Atacama region, tests have been conducted to make bricks from tailings.

However, such initiatives still represent a tiny fraction of the millions of tonnes of waste generated by copper mining each year.

The threat of waste

The need to tackle these waste mountains was underlined in 2024, at a mine in Cabildo operated by Las Cenizas, in north-central Chile’s Valparaíso region. The mine’s tailings dam failed, causing a spill that contaminated nearby streams. Solid tailings material flowed through the streets of nearby towns, damaging homes and triggering an environmental alert. Chile’s environmental regulations office (the SMA) fined Las Cenizas in 2025.

Of Chile’s 836 tailings deposits, about 80% are inactive or abandoned. Through its latest tailings policy, the Ministry of Mining is attempting to identify owners by referencing mining property studies.

Many belong to companies that are inactive or no longer exist – their owners have disappeared or died, leaving the state responsible for managing the risks. This situation also limits the government’s ability to act to secure deposits and manage those risks, such as physical damage caused by earthquakes or acid drainage. (The latter is chemical contamination of groundwater, triggered by water meeting these minerals to produce acid.)

The private sector can also play a role in securing the safety of tailings dams. Mario Escobar specialises in digital tools at Chile’s Blue Mining, a company working to optimise water use at mines. He argues that, with copper prices currently at record highs, investment in safety is a must. But he also says the region’s main challenge is its “access gap” – the combination of high implementation costs and insufficient technological infrastructure that is holding back small- and medium-scale tailings enterprise.

Software companies have developed tools that use artificial intelligence algorithms to monitor the stability of tailings. This enables the prediction of potential failures in the event of earthquakes or torrential rain.

Digital monitoring is supplemented by satellite imagery, which can detect minute changes in moisture levels or deformations in abandoned tailings. This is helpful for remote areas that human inspectors are often unable to reach.

Environmental concerns

For communities close to tailings, the possibility of a failure – combined with the possibility of exploitation – can fuel a constant feeling of vulnerability.

Michael Lieberherr, a researcher for the Chilean environmental defence NGO Ecosistemas, warns that saturated waste sites have turned some localities into environmental “sacrifice zones”. He adds: “The fear is not just of collapse, but of the persistence of heavy metals in the ecosystem that have never been remediated.”

Dialogue Earth also talked to Manuel Cortés, president of Chadenatur. This environmental group represents the northern coastal city of Chañaral, which has been marked by decades of mining pollution. Cortés views the growing interest in tailings with caution: “Generally, the main interest is to exploit the minerals that companies are interested in.”

For many residents, there is a fear that any promises of environmental remediation will simply be used as an excuse to reopen old deposits, without fully addressing the potential health impacts. Because as well as leaching harmful substances into their surroundings, mining tailings have been linked to respiratory illnesses through the dust they release.

A study published by the journal Minerals in 2024 warned reprocessing tailings could lead to increased water consumption. It also said there was the potential for toxic substances to be released, which could have “negative environmental consequences”. It recommended the continued improvement of these technologies, with a focus on environmentally friendly methods.

Then there are the financial viability concerns: last year’s analysis of a Spanish tailings deposit suggests the costs involved in extracting the rare earths there were not offset by their value.

Circular mining promises to turn a historical environmental liability into a new source of strategic resources.

But, as scientists warn, viability depends on ensuring this reprocessing does not also recycle the environmental and social risks that litter northern Chile’s mining history.

Barinia Montoya