Risks of the post-fossil energy transition in Latin America on overexploitation and pollution of nature

Abstract

The present study took as its starting point the question: Will the post-fossilist energy transition based on renewable energies affect the Latin American countries that have the main mineral and metallic reserves that constitute the material base of the batteries that it requires, due to the environmental devastation that the expansion of the extractive frontier will cause? In this sense, the objective was established to analyze, based on scientific data, the estimate of the demand for strategic minerals and metals for the energy transition, to know how much extractivism will increase. From the Critique of Political Ecology supported by the scientific method of the Critique of Political Economy and through a documentary analysis, the main environmental and health implications for Latin America in the energy transition proposed by capital were analyzed; when calculating the deepening of mining extractivism in the region, based on an estimate of the demand for certain critical minerals such as lithium, copper, manganese, nickel, nobio and molybdenum, necessary for the production of batteries; as well as for the replacement of conventional vehicles powered by fossil energy by electric and hybrid-electric vehicles. The results obtained were: by demanding an amount 6 or 7 times more of certain critical minerals, the extractive frontier will multiply exponentially in the same proportion, mainly in the demand for copper and lithium. The study concludes that, by increasing mining extractivism six or seven times more, in the same proportion, biodiversity, water and the health of the population will be devastated, as well as socio-environmental conflicts in the countries with the main reserves of these minerals.