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BARROSO IS NOT A MINE: IT IS AN IRREPLACEABLE LIVING SYSTEM

Writer: Isabel Marcos
Isabel Marcos
Oct 7
12 min read

Updated: Oct 8

Article by Isabel Marcos

© Photo by USGS on Unsplash

Destroying in Order to Pollute? US$4.8 Billion in Revenue for the Company, More Than 107 Million Tonnes of Waste for Portugal — and an Investment That May Be Obsolete Before It Begins.


What I discovered while studying this project may constitute one of the greatest ecological scandals of the century in Portugal.


In the name of a transition presented as “green”, the proposal is to destroy a living system that sustains water, food, biodiversity and the habitability of the territory. When an investment described as sustainable and future-oriented destroys the very conditions of our survival, it is no longer a solution to the climate crisis: it is the reproduction of the logic that caused that same crisis.


We must reject the construction of the Barroso mine. Not only because of its local impacts, but also because it represents a profoundly misguided political, economic and ecological choice: granting a foreign private company the right to exploit a vital territory, allowing it to extract billions of dollars in revenue, while more than 107 million tonnes of waste remain in Portugal, together with ecological destruction that may deprive future generations of something no financial compensation could ever restore.


Savannah’s feasibility study presents the project as an exceptional financial opportunity. During the first phase, the company expects to generate approximately US$ 4.8 billion in revenue and US$ 3.2 billion in EBITDA. Net present value is estimated at US$ 1.23 billion before tax and US$ 913 million after tax, with an internal rate of return of 43.2%. According to the company’s own projections, the invested capital could be recovered in less than two years. By contrast, the Savannah Foundation promises local communities only € 500,000 per year. Over the projected fourteen years of production, this would amount to approximately sevenmillion of euros: a minute fraction of the economic value extracted. This disproportion reveals the model: the benefits are privatised and rapidly distributed; the waste, risks and damage remain embedded in the territory and may persist far beyond the company’s financial lifetime.


The Infinity of Money Versus the Finitude of the Earth

The text accompanying this reflection identifies a fundamental opposition between the apparent infinity of economic signs and the material finitude of the Earth. Money can multiply through accounting, circulate between funds and be converted into new promises of income. An ecosystem, by contrast, is constrained by the material conditions that enable it to reproduce itself.


The project rests upon precisely this confusion between the monetary sign and biophysical reality. In the financial model, the territory is reduced to tonnes of ore, operating costs, future prices and rates of return. Yet everything that makes Barroso alive — its soils, water, biodiversity, pastures, community relations and accumulated knowledge — disappears from the accounts or appears merely as an “impact” to be mitigated.


The company expects to extract approximately 20.6 million tonnes of ore while simultaneously removing 107.8 million tonnes of material classified as waste. More than five tonnes of rock and soil will be displaced for every tonne of ore. A further 13.4 million tonnes of tailings will have to remain stored and monitored after mining has ended.


The mine therefore produces two very different outcomes: for investors, it produces a financial asset; for Portugal, it produces an irreversible material transformation of the territory.


An Ecosystem Cannot Be Rebuilt with a Closure Budget

The company estimates the cost of closure at approximately US$ 237 million. However, this amount does not correspond to the reconstruction of the ecosystem. The study undertakes only to restore the topography “as far as practicable”, fill the pits with waste, dismantle certain infrastructure and revegetate the surfaces. It does not explain how a living soil formed over centuries can be reconstituted, how the relationships between aquifers and watercourses can be restored, or how degraded or destroyed habitats, ecological corridors, grazing practices, agricultural knowledge and community relations can be rebuilt. Revegetation is not regeneration. Planting vegetation over mining waste does not recreate the complexity of an ecosystem. Ecological restoration does not consist in producing a visually acceptable image of the former landscape, but in restoring the functions, relationships and self-organising capacities of the living system. Some of these losses are irreversible within a human lifetime.


Nor has it been demonstrated that the US$ 237 million will be fully constituted from the outset as an autonomous financial guarantee, unavailable for any other purpose. An accounting estimate for closure is not necessarily equivalent to protected funds capable of supporting decades of maintenance, monitoring and repair of future damage.


The Invisible Debt of Carbon and Water

The study estimates annual emissions of close to 319,000 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent, approximately 287,000 tonnes of which result from road and maritime transport and the industrial processing of the concentrate. If this level of emissions is maintained, approximately 4.47 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent will be released over the fourteen years of operation.


The company acknowledges that mining will begin with diesel-powered equipment and trucks and that no on-site renewable generation is initially planned. For residual emissions, it considers afforestation, the creation of grasslands or the purchase of carbon credits. However, it provides no precise financial allocation and does not demonstrate the availability of the land required to sequester the emitted carbon permanently.


Buying credits does not erase emissions. Planting trees in another territory neither restores the carbon released today nor compensates for the destruction of soils and pastures that already stored carbon.


Water is treated in an equally revealing manner. The study states that sufficient water will be available to ensure the mine’s continuous operation, taking into account processing, dust suppression, tailings management, human consumption and evaporation. Yet the executive summary does not provide a clear, total and immediately verifiable figure for annual freshwater consumption.


The company’s question is: “Will there be enough water for the mine to operate?” The collective question must be different: “Will there continue to be enough clean water for rivers, ecosystems, agriculture, communities and future generations?”


The Economic Risk That Investors Are Not Calculating

Even from a strictly financial perspective, the project is far from risk-free. Its value depends heavily on the future price of spodumene concentrate. The study uses an estimated average price of approximately US$ 1,788 per tonne, while acknowledging recent volatility ranging from less than US$ 600 to around US$ 3,000.


This dependence must be assessed in the context of a structural transformation of the sector: the growth of battery recycling and reuse, the reduction in the quantity of materials required per unit of storage, the evolution of European policies and the emergence of new technologies that may reduce dependence on lithium. These technologies include sodium-ion batteries, which replace lithium with a raw material that is far more abundant and geographically distributed.


CATL, the world’s largest battery manufacturer, has announced that its Naxtra sodium-ion battery is expected to enter large-scale industrial production by the end of 2026. The company reports an energy density of 175 Wh/kg, already comparable to that of some lithium iron phosphate batteries, and a range of more than 400 kilometres in electric vehicles. CATL is also preparing stationary storage systems based on this technology, with the first deliveries scheduled for September 2026 (CATL — Naxtra battery production and CATL — sodium-ion energy storage). Sodium-ion batteries will not immediately replace lithium batteries in every application. According to the International Energy Agency, lithium-ion technologies are expected to continue to dominate the electric vehicle market until 2030, while sodium-ion batteries may gain ground primarily in stationary storage, shorter-range vehicles, hybrid systems and cold-climate applications. Their expansion nevertheless represents a technological diversification capable of reducing part of the future demand for lithium, limiting price increases and altering expectations regarding the profitability of new mining projects (International Energy Agency — Sodium-ion battery momentum grows, but challenges remain).


Recycling constitutes a second decisive transformation. The International Energy Agency concludes that its expansion could reduce the need for new lithium mines by approximately 25% by 2050. In Europe, secondary supply from batteries could meet around 30% of lithium and nickel demand by that date. On average, recycled minerals used in the energy transition generate approximately 80% fewer greenhouse gas emissions than those obtained through primary extraction (International Energy Agency — Recycling of Critical Minerals). Lithium recycling is still starting from a limited base because most electric vehicle batteries have not yet reached the end of their useful life. However, this situation is expected to change rapidly: from 2035 onwards, used batteries could become the principal source of materials for recycling, representing more than 90% of the available material by 2050.


It is precisely during this period of transformation that Savannah intends to extend and expand mining. The study envisages increasing the resources to the equivalent of more than forty years of activity, doubling processing capacity and potentially reaching an annual production of 500,000 tonnes.


The fundamental question is whether a European mine with high extraction and processing costs will remain viable, if sodium-ion battery production achieves scale, recycling supplies a growing share of raw materials and other countries continue to produce lithium at lower cost. This combination creates a genuine risk of a stranded asset: infrastructure designed to operate for several decades may lose competitiveness as the supply of recycled materials grows, sodium-ion batteries and other technologies spread, material intensity falls, regulations change and lithium prices potentially decline.


It is not scientifically possible to claim that sodium-ion batteries will inevitably make the mine unviable, just as it is impossible to predict lithium prices over forty years with certainty. But it is equally irresponsible to present as secure, a return based on price and demand projections for a sector undergoing such rapid technological change.


Europe Has Already Chosen Circularity

The European Batteries Regulation confirms this shift. The European Union has determined that lithium recovery must reach 50% by the end of 2027 and 80% by 2031. It has also established recycling-efficiency targets, traceability obligations, battery passports, carbon-footprint information and the progressive incorporation of recycled materials. Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 Investors should therefore ask whether the true investment of the future lies in an open-pit mine or in the creation of European infrastructure for collection, repair, reuse, dismantling and material recovery. Portugal could invest in urban mining: recovering lithium from batteries, copper from cables, metals from electronic equipment and rare earths from discarded magnets, motors and devices.


In 2022, the metals contained in the world’s electronic waste were valued at approximately US$ 90 billion, yet only around US$ 28 billion was actually recovered. There is therefore an enormous material reserve that has already been extracted, transported and incorporated into the objects we use.


A rational strategy does not consist merely in replacing one primary source with another. It must begin by reducing waste, extending the life of equipment, repairing and reusing it, repurposing batteries for stationary storage and, finally, recovering the materials. Recycling also produces impacts and will not immediately eliminate all mining, but it substantially reduces extractive pressure and keeps the value of materials within the economy.


Cities Depend on the Territories They Intend to Sacrifice

Large cities want pure water, healthy food, breathable air and tolerable temperatures. Yet they often behave as though these conditions were produced within their own administrative boundaries. Lisbon does not, by itself, produce the material foundations of its survival. It depends on territories that filter and store water, preserve fertile soils, produce food, regulate the climate, maintain biodiversity and sustain communities capable of caring for the landscape.


Barroso is neither an empty area nor a backward reserve of raw materials. It is an agro-sylvo-pastoral system built over thousands of years, in which agriculture, forests, livestock, mountain meadows, commons and community knowledge remain interdependent. It was precisely because of this continuity that the FAO recognised it as a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System. FAO — Barroso Agro-Sylvo-Pastoral System. Portugal is not merely Lisbon. And Lisbon will not survive if the rest of the country is transformed into an extraction zone intended to supply European cities. The rural landscape is not picturesque scenery: it is vital infrastructure.


Changing the Object of Investment

Preserving Barroso does not mean ceasing to invest. It means radically changing the object of investment. Instead of investing in the destruction of an ecosystem to extract a material for a few decades, we should invest in the permanent capacity to recover the materials already circulating in society. Instead of financing pits and tailings deposits, we should finance laboratories, recycling facilities, chemical research, collection systems, repair, reuse and vocational training.


We should also invest directly in safeguarding ecosystems, because they sustain every economic activity. A territory capable of producing water, food, biodiversity, climate regulation and fertility for centuries possesses greater strategic value than the temporary income obtained by extracting a mineral. Before granting any authorisation, the State should require an independent assessment comparing at least three scenarios:


  1. mining and all its foreseeable expansions;

  2. equivalent investment in recycling, reuse and the reduction of material demand;

  3. the active preservation of Barroso, remunerating communities for the ecological and food-related services they provide to the country.


The company should also demonstrate the project’s viability under scenarios involving a sharp fall in lithium prices, growth in recycled supply, new battery chemistries, the real cost of water, full carbon compensation and the advance establishment of financial guarantees for closure and post-closure. Until such a demonstration exists, the mine’s alleged profitability will merely be the private profitability of an operation that does not fully account for its public costs. The fundamental problem is not technological. It is civilisational. We continue to subordinate the organic level that sustains life to the financial and speculative level that represents value. We confuse the growth of monetary signs with the growth of well-being and forget that no society survives when it destroys the natural resources that sustain its own life.


Investors may choose to finance another cycle of extraction or participate in building a genuinely circular and regenerative economy. The first option produces rapid returns and long-term territorial liabilities. The second simultaneously protects materials, ecosystems, communities and the future. Barroso is worth more alive than transformed into a mine. Truly strategic investment does not consist in extracting until exhaustion, but in preserving the finite conditions that make it possible for us to continue living.


Barroso is not a reserve of raw materials: it is a living system that gives us water, food, biodiversity and a future.


Methodological note: As a researcher in eco-semiotics, this analysis is based on a systematic comparison of the discourses of the different actors involved: the project developer, public institutions, national and European legislation, environmental assessment documents, scientific and international organisations, and the communities of Barroso. The aim is not to reproduce the position of any one party, but to analyse their arguments, concepts, values, assumptions and omissions by comparing them with the available data. In this context, eco-semiotics makes it possible to understand how each actor constructs the meaning of the territory: as a mineral resource, an economic investment, agricultural heritage, a living system or vital infrastructure. The conclusions result from this comparative, documented analysis, clearly distinguishing verified facts, forecasts, institutional discourses and my interpretation as a researcher.


Sources and References

1. Eco-Semiotic Framework and Scientific Research

  • Brandt, P. A. (2017). Écologie et sémiotique [Unpublished manuscript].

  • Harper, G., Sommerville, R., Kendrick, E., Driscoll, L., Slater, P., Stolkin, R., Walton, A., Christensen, P., Heidrich, O., Lambert, S., Abbott, A., Ryder, K., Gaines, L., & Anderson, P. (2019). Recycling lithium-ion batteries from electric vehicles. Nature, 575, 75–86. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1682-5

  • Lèbre, É., Stringer, M., Svobodova, K., Owen, J. R., Kemp, D., Côte, C., Arratia-Solar, A., & Valenta, R. K. (2020). The social and environmental complexities of extracting energy transition metals. Nature Communications, 11, Article 4823. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-18661-9

  • Marcos, I. (1996). Le sens urbain : La morphogenèse et la sémiogenèse de Lisbonne — Une analyse catastrophiste urbaine [Doctoral dissertation, Aarhus University].

  • Marcos, I. (forthcoming). Ecosemiotics of regenerative design.

  • Sonter, L. J., Dade, M. C., Watson, J. E. M., & Valenta, R. K. (2020). Renewable energy production will exacerbate mining threats to biodiversity. Nature Communications, 11, Article 4174. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-17928-5


2. Scientific Reports and International Institutional Sources


3. Portuguese Constitutional Law, Legislation and European Regulation


4. Administrative Documents and Environmental Assessment


5. Technical and Financial Documentation from the Project Developer

Isabel Marcos

Founder & President, Significant Design

Research Centre · Art · Science · Regenerative Design




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