Rare earths are the Grand Prix that everyone wants to be in their territory, in terms of natural resources and mining. Although when talking about this diverse type of minerals that encompass that concept of rare earths one will think directly about the precious ‘white gold’ -the fundamental lithium for electric batteries and solar panels -or in the necessary silicon -for semiconductors And microchips-, there are many others.
In fact, there is one that already meant a blow on the table of geopolitics, but decades ago. In the first bars and heat of World War II, when Nazi War machinery and other European armies understood the need for robust combat cars.
So much that it ended as a kind of check to China, the main seller of this resource to Germany, and that. But Berlin found in Galicia (in the Barbanza, Noia, Bergantiños, Xallas or Valdeorras regions) and part of the Cantabrian cornice 90% of the entire Wolframium that was extracted in Spain.
This armor guarantee passed through a dark mineral that today is used for technological components, from refrigerators, printers, LCD panels for screens to mobile phones, radars and even missiles. This metal is known as tungsten, the result of subjecting a certain process to the Wolframium (wolfram‘Peido de Lobo’ or Wolf Fart in Galician).
Is it exploited?
However, it is necessary to point out that in the last decade there have been certain reactivations of mining projects to extract the coveted Wolframio. Some of them not exempt from controversy. For example, beyond the Galician farms there were initiatives in the Salamanca town of Barruecopardo or in the grill mine in Almoharín (Cáceres), as stated A few years ago.
However, some of those that are presumed as the main wolframium reserves in the Spanish State continue to be in Galician lands. Mainly in the province of Ourense and in the old Coruña mine of Lousame, in the Noiesa region. There was a Sacyr project through a subsidiary, it values mining, to continue exploiting this site, but the different criticisms and complaints of environmental and collective entities in defense of the estuary and the seafood wielded reports on heavy metal leaks and the company ended getting rid of that asset.
It was sold, precisely, to whom the other great Galician mine controls. To the company Galicia Tin & Tungsten, which has as the only shareholder the Australian group Rafaella Resources, as collected in her day .
