Energy Usage in Artisanal Mining
By Michael Karpati
There are approximately 40 million artisanal miners around the world right now. When Hobbes said that life is ‘nasty, brutish and short’, he was not talking about these miners, though he could have been. Artisanal mining is highly informal and lacks regulation, often involving impoverished miners working with a lack of safety measures, tax avoidance, corruption, and child labour. People who become artisanal miners believe that there is easy money to be made, but become trapped in a cycle of poverty where there is a lack of opportunity for escape.
Nobody Dies Here, directed by Simon Panay, is a documentary shedding light on a single representative artisanal mine, the Perma gold mine in Benin. Through the words of miners, viewers come to understand the conditions in a mine where 12 deaths were officially recorded in 2014, although over 100 deaths likely occurred. As one miner says, ‘it was hell at the mountain. You see a hole that’s at least 15 meters deep. Any job can be hazardous...you have to risk it. People have been digging up gold for years now. I lost three of my brothers at the same time. In the same hole. In the same hole three brothers together. He never earned anything. I think there’s nothing to gain there.’
This paper focuses on energy in the artisanal mining sector, one of many of the sector areas which would benefit significantly from formalization and organization.
Artisanal mining uses a wide variety of energy sources obtained in numerous ways. As a small-scale informal operation, this mining is limited in terms of which energy sources it can utilize. It is human-intensive work, with muscles taking the brunt of the punishment and doing most of the real work in small, dark, and dangerous holes in the ground – shattered rock surrounding open pits. Diverse tools are utilised, equipment such as pumps to remove water from the interior of mines, powered by diesel, and simple tools such as hammers, chisels, and flashlights; dynamite is used to blast new tunnels or deeper pits. Electronic items we often take for granted, in the vein of phones and lights, are powered by batteries. However, these tools are limited, and the energy to power any tools which require electricity to operate often comes from informal service providers. In Nobody Dies Here, a miner talks about how he dugs open pits for three straight years, only to stop each year when rain came and flooded him out; this example shows how most work in these mines is limited to muscle-power, with very limited use of effective technology. The people participating in artisanal mining operations suffer from intense poverty, and often feel stuck, with no option other than to use their muscles combined with illicitly sourced energy for their work. Informality perpetuates and takes advantage of this sense of being stuck, allowing bad actors to take advantage of the people involved in artisanal mining, where there is no guiding hand for enabling cleaner or more effective approaches to energy.
Artisanal mining, by its nature, has a low carbon footprint, but it uses black carbon, which essentially means fossil fuels and oil. The ultimate goal is ‘greening’ the carbon, enabling the usage of clean carbon in artisanal mining. This complies with SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy). Shifting the source of energy through mini grids and central processing facilities artisanal miners can have access to legality and validity, so in turn miners can finally get loans from banking institutions to improve their livelihoods and invest in better practices. Formalization is the key to shifting towards greener energy.
- Burkina Faso © Simon Panay -
Black carbon takes the form of oil, fossil fuels, and other non-renewable sources of energy. Such sources of energy often come from non-legitimate channels, such as criminal networks, which removes from the legitimacy of the operations, and, in turn, reduces the ability to locate funds which do not come from illegitimate lines. Thus, ‘greening’ the carbon is an important aspect to both lessening the mine’s impact on the environment, in the form of carbon emissions and greenhouse gases, and legitimizing the operation, therefore removing the cycle of criminality from the equation. Until a change is made, this cycle, in which traders bring in energy from unofficial sources, thus forcing artisanal miners to continue finding energy from unofficial sources, will continue.
Instead of paying the huge cost of smuggled petrol and diesel, green energy is far more affordable. This also maintains artisanal miners’ independence from the fuel provided by the criminal underworld, which, in turn, makes them more accessible to the formal market, and also serves to further reduce their carbon footprint. The informal nature of artisanal mining opens miners up to widespread, systemic abuse. Crime is involved; cheating, theft and bribery is rampant. This is why the idea of formalizing the industry matters, and businesses can become more above-board and gain legitimacy. This includes energy. There isn’t any one specific roadmap towards formalization; Transparence engages in landscape analysis and situational work to make it happen, with work well underway in parts of West Africa. Even if formalization occurs, any system of green energy – for instance, solar panels – must be maintained.
- Burkina Faso © Simon Panay -
The governments in question have limited infrastructure to repair a system of solar panels. Part of developing a roadmap going forward is planning for this problem before it comes up. So how does the formalization process turn energy from illicit to licit? It can become a part of the audited, official processes and records of the formal entity under discussion. Illicit energy is under the table, cash in envelopes, obtained through nefarious means, often paid for in gold or ore. Smuggling is something you cannot police with reliability, but there are other ways it is possible to intervene, bringing in needed equipment through legal means. If illicit actors lose their revenue from supplying energy to artisanal miners, they will be forced to find other modes of making money – legal methods, perhaps. If enough mines go green, the illicit actor inevitably needs to find a better business to be a part of. Of course, illicit energy will be used elsewhere in this scenario. The governments involved must fight this, but don’t, as illicit energy is difficult to regulate and control. Greening the energy could solve this, assuming the proper kind of energy is used.
To conclude, there is benefit to altering the industry in a way that formalizes the energy supply, which can be seen both through the redirection of the illicit actor and the carbon footprint and financial standing of the artisanal miner. How are people sucked into artisanal mining? In Nobody Dies Here, a miner is quoted as saying ‘I thought it was easy. It’s not easy’, summing up both the lure and the trap for impoverished miners. Why do they draw energy from illicit sources? Why is that still seen as practically mandatory for people in the field? Most people, even if they intellectually understand the issues faced by people in other areas around the globe, have not experienced firsthand the poverty others suffer from, forcing others into work or occupations that they would not otherwise participate in. People find hope in the field, then find what the field is really like, but cannot leave, as they’ve risked everything to make the jump into artisanal mining. A miner in Nobody Dies Here describes how he joined the artisanal mine when he was 10 years old, 15 years ago, and still has no money. Most people can’t imagine the pressures that necessitate the usage of illicit energy sources. Most people don’t want to think about it. The formalization of the industry is equalled in importance only by the need to make everyone aware of the risks associated with artisanal mining.
Interview with Simon Panay, director of Nobody Dies Here.
- Burkina Faso © Simon Panay -
Why did you take this thematic for your short film?
The gold mining world is fascinating in many aspects, but it's also a social tragedy. I wanted to understand the reasons why people get stuck in this without earning anything. It's a story of addiction, where people are ready to lose everything, driven by the hope to eventually one day become rich.
What touched you most during filming in terms of bravery of people so desperate making a living doing a dangerous job?
We talked with a father; he was a farmer and left his land to come with his family to the gold mine because he had heard you could easily become rich there. After three years, he lost everything he had, including one of his sons in the galleries, and never found gold. I was moved by his story because I can understand that when you have made so many sacrifices for a purpose, you can't give up anymore, because then it all would have been done for nothing.
What change in mindset do you hope to achieve with your short film?
My dream is to contribute to the renewal of the mining industry, and to one day see the creation of a fairly traded gold circuit, with transparency and equity, solving the many environmental and social issues that are actually facing this sector. As for now, the consumers are not aware of those issues, but I hope with all my heart that when they are, they will claim for change, just like they did in the past with palm oil, fair trade coffee, and so on.