Global accounting firm EY says Chile is at the “epicentre of [a growing worldwide] conflict” with its environmental opposition to any new coal-fired power plant, seismic risks seemingly ruling out nuclear energy and community opposition to expanding hydropower due to loss of wilderness areas and the impact of high-voltage transmission lines spanning the country.

Energy-intensive mining has its own constant economic battle: global energy prices have leapt, by some calculations, by 260% since 2000.

Falling grades mean more energy is needed to extract each tonne of mineral.

So arguments for large investments in renewable energy go beyond sustainability and social responsibility, according to EY.

“The role that renewables will play is not as remote or futuristic as you may think,” the firm says.

Chile’s mining industry has emerged as one of the leaders in embracing the potential of renewable energy, it says.

Last year, Codelco’s Gabriela Mistral mine started receiving power from the huge Pampa Elvira solar project and its 2620 solar panels covering nearly 58,000sq.km in the middle of the Atacama Desert.

The solar plant generates 51,800 megawatt-hours of energy a year and covers about 85% of the mine’s energy needs.

EY highlights “inflexible attitudes in parts of the engineering community within the sector that are relatively dismissive of possible change as they’re thinking in an old paradigm of renewables being highly experimental and difficult to finance”.

But it claims rapid changes with regard to substitution of conventional sources with renewables will challenge the engineering community to take a fresh look.

“The big turning point will be improving battery technology in both scale and cost so renewable energy from solar power and wind can consistently power mining’s 24-hour operational cycle,” EY’s research shows.

“What will really make an impact are the technological improvements that bring down costs and improve reliability and these improvements are likely to be delivered in the next two to three years.”

Chaos rules

“I accept chaos, I'm not sure whether it accepts me,” music legend Bob Dylan said. Fit this whatever way you will to India and its mining industry, which exists in a state of seemingly perpetual chaos.

A leading investment advisor and India expert who once worked for a Canadian explorer said the company, having fossicked around for opportunities in India, decided actually working there was going to be impossible.

“Geologists would tell you that India is a very prospective place for minerals [but] ironically India has one gold project that produces 50,000 ounces a year,” he said this week when I asked about the recent Supreme Court decision to cancel 214 coal allocations made between 1993 and 2010.

“At this moment, the court has cancelled almost all coal block allocations, for they had been allotted ‘arbitrarily’,” my learned colleague said.

“The reality is that in India everything is done arbitrarily.

“You might recall that India used to export about 125 million tonnes of iron ore a few years back. Today, this is about 10Mt.

“This happened when Brazil and Australia were ramping up their own production. The reason was that the Indian Supreme court had asked the mines to be stopped.

“Now, the question is if the iron ore mining and coal block allotments were done ‘arbitrarily’, will it now be done in a proper way? Not a chance.

“This only means that between now and then there will be more chaos.”

All this was good for coal and iron ore companies in Brazil and Australia, he said.

“That is where my money should go,” he added.