Australias Green Transition Bumps up Against a New Hurdle: Water

An employee monitors the 8mm diameter copper cable which is rolled up before passing through a rolling mill to become cable at the Nexans manufacture in Lens, France, on May 11, 2022. DENIS CHARLET/AFP via Getty ImagesFor decades, Australia’s water debate has revolved around the Murray-Darling Basin, irrigation, drought, and lately data centres.But a new front is emerging, where the nation’s push for critical minerals and the green energy transition is colliding with the water security of farming communities.A parliamentary inquiry has been told that mining for critical minerals—a vital component for renewable and sophisticated technologies like smartphones—will need to tap into the same groundwater Australian farmers currently ration and divvy up.Fiona Rasheed, a member of the National Farmers’ Federation, pointed to one example in south-east South Australia, where a major copper project is being developed.“The concern from those in the community is that there isn’t a clear pathway at the moment for how that project is going to access water, so they have to buy a licence off the open market, but the water resource is already under stress, it’s restricted,” Rasheed told the Standing Committee on Primary Industries on June 26, which is examining the push to expand the critical minerals sector locally.“And there’s a water allocation process underway that is potentially going to restrict allocations already, so if you’ve got a new very large water user coming into the region, the concern is we haven’t got enough for the agricultural industry that’s there … so how are we going to then provide water for a significantly large new water user that comes in?” Copper is considered a “strategic mineral“ by the Australian and U.S. government and is used in powerlines, EVs, wind turbines, and solar panels due to its high electrical conductivity.Yet mining for copper—and other critical or rare earth minerals—is water-intensive.According to the engineering firm Worley, a conventional copper processing plant uses between 0.45 and 0.6 cubic metres of water to process a dry tonne of ore. So, if a copper mine produces around 50,000 tonnes of ore a day, it needs approximately 30,000 cubic metres (30 million litres) of water each day.  That is equivalent to the average daily water consumption of more than 63,000 households, based on an average use of 476 litres per household. Concerns Over Chemicals Leaching into Aquifer At the same time, Rasheed warned that chemicals from copper mining could leach into the aquifer during operations. “They’re still working out how they’re going to undertake the mining activities and extract the minerals from the clay soils, so [there are] concerns around whether there’s going to be use of acids that might leach into the aquifer,” she said. “All those things are still being worked through, so for the community that is reliant on water for their livelihoods, for those things to still have question marks next to them, is what places uncertainty.  “And concern for them about where they are going to get the water from, and even if they do get the water, some of these mining processes that then jeopardise the current aquifers, there aren’t clear answers to those questions yet.” Rasheed also noted that unless project developers need to win over communities. “The underlying concern is to address those broader issues like water, soils, so unless they’re addressed, then there won’t be a social licence,” she said.