The dark side of the energy transition: Extractivist violence, energy (in)justice and lithium mining in Portugal

Abstract

Focusing on a case study in Northern Portugal, this research mobilizes an energy justice lens to unpack multiple forms of violence reproduced by lithium mining projects, advanced as urgent and necessary for the energy transition. Framed under ‘green transition’ discourses, a ‘corporate energy transition’ follows a mineral-intensive pathway which increases demand for critical raw materials and expands extractivism to new commodities and marginal territories. Lithium (Li) is central to this transition, with an estimated 1500 % rise in the global demand of this rare earth mineral by 2050. Yet, the socio-ecological impacts of Li-mining remain largely overlooked, despite driving significant environmental conflicts in Portugal and elsewhere. Based on empirical research, this article examines how Li-mining projects in Portugal reproduce distributive, recognition and procedural (in)justices which assist the ‘green grabbing’ and infrastructural colonization of peripheral territories, turned into new ‘green sacrifice zones’. By attending to the voices and experiences of those resisting Li-mining projects, the results present the energy transition as a ‘trojan horse’ for extractivism, with Li-mining driving multiple energy injustice(s), reproducing violence against local communities and disrupting wider multispecies relationalities in traditionally sustainable rural territories. The research contributes to: (1) unravel the empirical contradictions of a corporate energy transition, problematizing hegemonic socio-technical responses to address the climate crisis, which expand extractivism through depletion, segregation and exclusion; and (2) reveal links between energy (in)justices and the constitution of ‘green sacrifice zones’, highlighting how territorial struggles embed a clash between different relational ontologies in more-than-human territories.