It is going to be an agonizing compromise for Sweden - destroy the Kiruna area with extraction (a million tons is a lot) or be environmentally friendly.

Currently the Congo and Chile are being torn apart with toxic dollar a day child labor extraction.

The Swedes will do a good job of mechanizing/sanitizing the process though.

I went to Kiruna once to see the northern lights but they didn't show up.

The find is 700 meters deep and in an already established mine more than 100 years old.

Yes, yes, but they just discover it. /s

Are you sure you are talking about Chile? As far as I know it doesn't have a child labor problem nor is it a big producer of rare earth metals.

Not one sentence mentions anything close to child labor. And environmental activists are going to be activists wherever you go.

What is however completely missing from the article is them to show actual numbers. If you look at SQMs environmental report you get a different picture: https://www.sqmlithium.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/SQM-Re...

Much of what is being done to protect the environment isn't voluntary, the government is pushing reductionn of water use, use of renewable energy and lowering of emissions at mining sites.

It's a mining country and it has been for more than 100 years, wars have been fought over this. There is no other meaningful industry here. So this won't stop anytime soon.

Africa is where the child labor disaster is, I think everyone who is paying attention knows the methods and issues in Atacama/ Chile are very different to the coming tsunamai of extraction at the altar of electrification.

https://www.nrdc.org/stories/lithium-mining-leaving-chiles-i...