Diego Gomez

Dr. Dupee

AP Environmental Science

1 January, 2022

Nickel Mining

The mining of nickel is a dirty process that has affected many people around the globe.

An island called New Caledonia is known for this, as the islands contain about 10% of the

world’s nickel supply. Many companies have come to New Caledonia seeking profits from nickel

mining and left a mess thereafter, sometimes not even profiting. Now, New Caledonia is in a

mess as the biodiversity and rights of natives are not in great shape right now. The people on the

island are split between seeking work in the mines or completely refusing to work there,

sometimes even in the same family. What the islands need is a savior who will clean up the mess

and provide jobs with rights to the natives, but who would it be?

There are many environmental concerns surrounding New Caledonia. The process of

pumping acid at high pressures to extract nickel has led to five chemical spills in the last five

years. The biggest of these leaks had 100,000 liters of waste empty into a lake, killing thousands

of fish. The company behind these spills, Vale, is notorious for these accidents as they recently

had a tailings dam break and killed 270 people with many of their homes being taken down with

them. When I read this, I thought it was outrageous that a company was able to do that. They are

taking advantage of the natives of the island for personal gain. Not only have the Kanaks

experienced environmental damage, but they have had their land taken by settlers. In 1774,

James Cook sailed by the island for the first time near Prony Bay which is near the

now-established Goro mine. After becoming a French colony in the 19th century, surveyors
found nickel in the soil. Soon after, French settlers took the land from the natives and forced

them onto reservations. Within seventy-five years, the Kanak population halved and they

continued to be forced to live under that abusive power. Upon reading this, I got reminded of the

indigenous people in America who also had settlers come and attack them. The indigenous

people of both regions were forced out of their lands and they were forced to adapt to their

cultures. Even though I believe their rights should be extended and their living conditions

improved, I think that it is for the greater good because as a world, we need to begin using

renewable energy, and to supply the demand, we need to collect resources that may not be in the

best of places. The promise of sustainability is enough to sacrifice that money to mine nickel.

With renewable energy, we may even be able to solve the problems created by mining the

resources to begin with.

Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla, is looking to take control of Goro’s supply chain, the

largest mine in New Caledonia. Tesla wants to directly source the materials they need to produce

its vehicles. This effort will cause carbon emissions to significantly decrease and the tailings

from mining would not be released. In all, this will begin to compete with China in the electric

vehicle battery market and encourage other companies to follow suit. I believe this is a great

thing for Tesla to do and I think everyone would benefit from this purchase. However, I also

realized that this would be very hard to pull off, considering how difficult it is to achieve full

sustainability. The natives of the island agree with this, as they still reject Tesla coming and

taking over operations because their land is still being taken and torn up without permission. I

believe the pros: true sustainability, tailings management, and human rights will far outweigh

any cons to the island and the people that live there. After all, they will have a bigger say in what

will happen with the mines and there will be a much smaller chance that any tailing should spill.
 In all, years of irresponsible mining and colonialism have plagued the islands of New

Caledonia. The natives are scarred and they are against any company that may want to come and

mine nickel. Tesla believes that it will be able to make its car production truly sustainable and to

accomplish this, they need to directly source its materials. They have a strong promise saying

that they will reduce energy consumption, lower the impact on biodiversity, and give the natives

rights. Do you think Tesla will be able to profit at Goro while also staying environmentally

friendly?