Where do the raw materials
of tech come from ?
of tech come from ?
Minerals and metals needed for the production of device components are extracted from quarries and mines.
The basic materials are aluminum, iron, lithium, copper, gold and silver. Some device components have needs for more specific and less common materials such as rare earths.
They have been classified as 17 chemical elements also found on the periodic table, to date these materials are at the center of the energy transition and renewables discourse.
Between the exponential demand from tech industries and renewable energy production, rare earth mining is expected to increase by 500% by 2040. Some of these elements such as lithium (the basis of every battery) are difficult to extract, and multinationals are resorting to powerful acids that are also toxic to the earth and surrounding habitat, thus making scorched earth effect.
Most mineral resources are found in the global south for geological reasons. The scarcity or absence of laws to protect the habitat and the workers, entices and facilitates corpoorations to occupy yhe territories.
South Africa / Tanzania / Zimbabwe / Congo / Rwanda / Botswana / Angola / India / China / Inner Mongolia / Mexico / Chile / Bolivia / Brazil / Australia
Extractivism
After Colonialism, mankind have not stopped colonizing and being colonized, that's why we can and should still speak of colonizers and the colonized today. Sometimes the occupation of land is illegal, sometimes well defended by law that those in power and the means use instrumentally to legitimize unethical, immoral and criminal behavior. Turbo capitalist practices such as extractivism are closely linked to a colonial approach and attitude.
Yesterday's and today's extractivism fuels and promotes alienation from nature and creates ecocides. Not only does extractivism involve the exploitation of land and geological resources, local people are also being exploited, with children and women paying the heaviest price.
Multinational corporations are legitimized to establish themselves in the territories and extract minerals; in southern Africa, governments cannot deny them access to geological resources. Moreover, multinationals always promise to enrich the country and create jobs for the local community, what happens is that there is no diversification of labor and economy. In this way, not only do the multinationals hold the country and citizens in check with the blackmail of the only possible job, but once mining ceases in that area there is nothing left. The economic wealth leaves the country that has been completely exploited and deprived of its resources, also leaving a trail of environmental and social destruction in its wake.
Corporations often leverage the instituzional political corruption of governaments in the countries where they estabilish. A little slice of profits go into the pockets of governaments that don't redistribuite wealth to the community. The social effects that extractivism produces manifest themselvves within a spiral of violence in which desperation and frustration lead the oppressed to behave like the oppressor.
Land mining:
Extraction of valuable geological materials and minerals from the surface of the Earth.
Material extraction has a strong impact on habitat. Lithium mining for example is very complex and expensive, an acid is used that makes scorched earth effect in the area where it is operated and completely destroys the balance of the environment. All mining processes also release large amounts of pollutants and toxins into the land, water and air.
Deep Sea mining:
Deep sea mining is the extraction of minerals from the ocean floor at depths of 200 metres to 6,500 metres. Deep-sea mining uses hydraulic pumps or bucket systems that carry deposits to the surface for processing.
In deep sea mining, one does not directly extract the substance sought; one enters a mush full of polymetallic elements. To do this you have to move the seabed which has a major impact in the balance of. marine habitats. In addition, in some areas and at certain depths, there may be creatures that have not yet been studied and known that would therefore need to be protected.
Space mining:
Also known as Asteroid mining, is the hypothetical extraction of materials from asteroids and other minor planets, including near-Earth objects.
Asteroids are full of elements such as iron, nickel, gold, silver and even diamonds, yet for obvious reasons, mining materials in space would be very expensive. However, NASA has launched a mission to discover more toward the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. This kind of extractivism shows man's boundless and reckless colonizing desire.
