Efforts towards adapting a greener future at the brink of climate emergency has led to a shift in the energy consumption trend Resulting in a boom of demand in the technology infrastructure dependent on minerals; especially lithium and copper. In recent years, some sustainable technology have flooded in to our life, such as, electric vehicles, renewable electricity generation in solar area, renewable electricity generation in wind area and construction sector. In this workshop, we will also discuss about how the copper can be used as a green metal and can be recycled in different area.

Copper being one of the main materials fueling this trend, is now seeing a boom in demand projected for the next decade. For example, the growing number of electric vehicles hitting roads is set to fuel a nine-fold increase in copper demand, itself research predicts this increase will raise copper demand for electric cars and buses from 185,000 tonnes in 2017 to 1.74 million tonnes in 2027. An insatiable demand for the copper, lithium and rare-earth metals required to fuel the consumer electronics, electric vehicle, Sustainable energy infrastructure, Construction sector has led to copper industries is leaving indelible scars on our fragile planet. Apart from the physical aspects, this industry is also facing a lot of conflicts regarding human rights violations, Biodiversity loss and fair trade.

The global demand of copper suggests that the production giant- China exports the most amount of copper globally, 95 percent of electric car sales take place in just ten countries - China, the United States, Japan being at the top of that list. As the Gif shows below, China's demand for copper is the highest in the world.

The route of copper trade from Chile to China suggests the different ports that are linked and are fueling the trade route. As we mentioned before, the highest exportation country of copper is Chile, and China is the largest copper import country in the world, as the consequece, the transportation route before Chile and China is the most important element for us to discuss about the copper exportation and importation and also the trace of this green metal— Copper. Chile typically ships the raw material to parts of China's coastal cities and then from those cities to processing plants inland.

On the transfer route map as below, we can easily see that, from Chile to China, there are basically three routes in three different directions: Northern line, Central line and also the Southern line. At first, the ship carried the raw copper from Chile to the coastal habour— Shenzhen, Hongkong (Southern line), Shanghai, Ningbo (central line), Qingdao (Northern line). And then, the labors will check the cargo and delivered to different regions inland, for instance, Liaoning, Beijing, Henan... there are many copper factories focused on a series of professional copper related products. As the demand of copper ore increasingly grow, more and more company want to make a huge amount of profit on copper industry, so many companies, not only representing themselves, but also on the behalf of their governments began to make investment on constructing copper pit in Chile. This reaction boosted Chile local economy and brought more job opportunities to the local area and promoted the local economic construction but also make a huge damage to the local terrain to a certain degree. Then comes the pollution of the natural environment by factories.

When the factories in China finished the processing of copper, they will transfer their refined copper and other related products to the coastal harbours, and then it comes to the copper trade. Nowadays, in the worldwide, most of countries would prefer to import copper products like wire, architecture materials and electric-cars from the biggest manufacturer—China. Not only because the cheapest price, but also because the exquisite workmanship. After that, these refined copper and products will be shipping to everywhere in the world. Surprisingly, the refined copper will also travelled back to Chile. As we mentioned before, although the boosting copper industry improved the local economic environment, it also damaged the environment and caused over-exploitation ineluctably.

From the picture above, we an clearly see the geological strata have undergone great changes and increased the possibility of natural disasters to some extent. In 2015, there has an earthquake which is severely destroyed some small pits, the severity of the damage has much to do with the instability of the geological strata.So if future uncontrolled mining continues, Chuquicamata will suffer even more.

12.11.1989

12.10.2000

12.21.2010

12.08.2019

Chile's Chuquicamata region has the world's largest copper pit, and Chuquicamata is the world's largest open-pit.Behind the scramble for copper are conflicts over pollution. Most of these conflicts are around mines, which are among the most polluted.In this workshop, we will mainly study the largest open-pit in Chuquicamata area, and how it mines and transports copper.At the same time, the influence of politics on the local copper industry was studied.The environmental pollution caused by copper industry is also the focus of our research. In the picture above, you can clearly see how an industry affects the city and how it affects the landscape. The landscape here is more prominent in topography and geology.Factories surround the mines, and cities are located some distance from them. With the continuous expansion of the copper industry, cities are also expanding with the increase of migrant workers.Landscape features such as landform and topography also change gradually with the distribution of copper deposits, and gradually clear copper deposits outline tells us the distribution of copper deposits.

Several waste piles of different sizes are distributed beside the open-pit. As the largest copper mine area in the world, Chuquicamata wastes a huge amount of the same resources every year, and the waste tailings generated by copper mining are not properly disposed of and then thrown into the useless deep pits around it.These wastes cause huge pollution to the local environment, not only in terms of water quality and soil, but also in terms of air quality.

With the mining of the mine deeper and deeper, the pollution scope of waste pile gradually expanded, more and more people moved out of the city due to environmental pollution, and the whole Chuquicamata area became a huge processing plant.

CO

PM5

so2

The air pollution from these mines can be categorized in these three categories:
1. Every minute transportation of mineral excavated and waste costs 3 litres of diesel. Transportation of material causes CO, NO3 and many other toxic emissions  
2.Particulate matter emitted during the excavation and waste management associated with these sites
3. The smelting of copper ore is anintensive process that involves the emission of SO2 in the air and many othertoxic particles

In the sections below we can see the relationship between workers, factories, mines, and cities, where pollution affects people's behavior.It only took 10 years for more and more people to come to work here and gradually become a ghost town.So the movement of copper across the landscape has a huge impact on the environment, the economy, the politics.

1989-2000

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The nationalization of copper mines in Chile created a job market . Before 1950, the Chileans had already discovered the mine and started to mine copper on a small scale, but because of the lack of technology, very little was mined until 1950, when the United States government discovered the mine and provided the technical and financial support to mine the copper, and the United States became the owner of the Chuquicamata.

In 1969, the Chilean government negotiated with the U.S. government and got 25% ownership.

In 1976, the coup led to Chilean government owning 100% of the Chuquicamata copper mine.

The landscape here is more prominent in topography and geology.Factories surround the mines, and cities are located some distance from them. With the continuous expansion of the copper industry, cities are also expanding with the increase of migrant workers.Landscape features such as landform and topography also change gradually with the distribution of copper deposits, and gradually clear copper deposits outline tells us the distribution of copper deposits.

2000-2010

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In the following years, chuquicamata was found to be the world’s largest open-pit as more and more copper was mined, and China, the largest copper importer, entered into a cooperation agreement with Chile in 2002 to import copper at favorable prices.

In 2006, there was a big strike at the mine because copper prices had jumped three times in a row, but the worker wages had remained the same. After this strike, Chile opened the gate and began to attract investors from more countries.

After that, with the development of science and technology and the increasing demand for copper, the amount of copper mined in Chile surged, which caused great pollution to the local environment until now. So at this stage a large number of people were displaced from the town because the pollution was so severe that some local women were unable to pregnant. and nowadays the small city in our site become to a ghost city.

As the demand of copper ore increasingly grow, more and more company want to make a huge amount of profit on copper industry, so many companies, not only representing themselves, but also on the behalf of their governments began to make investment on constructing copper pit in Chile.

This reaction boosted Chile local economy and brought more job opportunities to the local area and promoted the local economic construction but also make a huge damage to the local terrain to a certain degree. Then  comes the pollution of the natural environment by factories.

2010-2019

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In 2019, Chuquicamata had its second major strike because of this serious environmental pollution.

In 2015, the electric car started large-scale used in the world, increasing local mines, in order not to destroy local geological layer, CODELCO ready to begin an underground transportation technology in 2020, on the one hand, it can prolong the service life of the copper, in the second can reduce a lot of Labour. Which can save money for the CODELCO company.

Although the boosting copper industry improved the local economic environment, it also damaged the environment and caused over exploitation ineluctably. From the picture above, we an clearly see the geological strata have undergone great changes and increased the possibility of natural disasters to some extent.

In 2015, there has an earthquake which is severely destroyed some small pits, the severity of the damage has much to do with the instability of the geological strata.So if future uncontrolled mining continues, Chuquicamata will suffer even more.

We then use PROCESSING to design a simulation software (.exe) and to analyze the environmental pollution of our site. Four representative years are selected, namely 1989,2000,2010 and 2019. We first crawled the terrain to simulate the terrain, and then summarized the integrated CSV file based on the data information of different local population mortality and other data.

The technical tool we developed tries to identify the polluted micro-environments around the site to help planning of settlements around mining industries tackle better with pollution. The tool takes input of three parameters:

The first is the terrain and landscape change over time.
The second parameter is the correlation of policy change and law enforcement over the changing landscape.
Third parameter is the seasonal wind data of the site over a year.

The copper mine of Chuquicamata hassled to contamination of the area around the site and here we have tried to highlight the pollution emitting zones in and around the site. The zones are as following:
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1. Excavation at Chuquicamata open-pit mine and Tailing
2. On-site smelting plants
3. Transport of minerals and waste materials
4. Water supply from the lakes of Altiplano
5, The city of Oasis CALAMA,

The tool lets us control visualizing data by a number of factors such as:The year slider, helps us visualize the terrain and the pollution zones over a period of time to identify patterns in the landscape. And the pollution zones trigger helps us visualize the pollution zones on the terrain. Thirdly, The seasonal wind data initialization options help us simulate the wind movements over the terrain and it’s interaction with the pollution zones. In the next step, The additional controls such as the wind speed and terrain visualization help user interaction by respectively  changing the wind and pollution relationship and help us visualize terrain through contours. Final step is the trigger that deposits the pollution particles on the terrain to identify pollution accumulation areas around the site.
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The resulting visualization of the site processed by the tool looks like this. Here you can see the change in terrain triggered by the year slider as the excavation is proceeded over the years. You can also access information about the change in policy associated with the chosen terrain. Next we can switch on the pollution zones around the site and see them expanding over the years.

The pollution particles and the relationship with wind is illustrated here. The Wind speed of a particle denotes it’s tendency of randomness in position. The seasonal wind data gives these particles a sense of direction that dictates the major movement of the pollutants over the site. By manipulating the two triggers we can visualize pollution particle movement over the site in different scenarios.

Spiralling particles

Slow movement

Fast movement

Here we see the visualization of particles associated with the fore mentioned controls. The spiraling movement of particles around the site can be seen in the first Gif. This is the movement of particles without any direction associated to them. The movement of seasonal wind, when triggered, gives a sense of direction to particle movement as seen in the second Gif. The third Gif shows the employment of both speed and direction and we see how the particles move faster in space.

Spring

Summer

Autumn

Winter

In the spring, the average wind speed is 8.7, and the main wind direction is the northeast wind from December to January, and there will also be some partial breakdowns.

In the simulation, we can see the movement track of particulate pollutants from two waste piles, and then it subsidence in a certain period of time. These pollutants then settle down, adsorb on the ground, and then accumulate. And these red particles are the pollutants that settle down from the air and adsorb on the ground. These concentrated area is the main pollution area.

In the summer, the average wind speed is 7.8, and the main wind direction is the Southwest wind from March to May, and there will also be some partial breakdowns. Similarly, we can see the major pollution areas around the copper mine when the local summer monsoon blows.

In the autumn, the wind speed change, the wind direction change to West, indifferent situation, we can simulate it and have different pollution results.And under the west wind in autumn, some pollutants accumulate in the open pit,which might pollute the copper mine as well.

In the winter, the average wind speed is 9.1,and the main wind direction is the South wind from September to November, and there will also be some partial breakdowns. After a period time, the pollutants go down and stick on the terrain, and then these turn red to show the polluted area.

For more information about simulation software please contact me in the CONTACT PAGE.