JUNE 17, 2026
By Diana Ayeh, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, & Henriette Rutjes, Harz University of Applied Sciences
An issue long debated within regional industry and policy circles is now gaining renewed momentum. With the European Union’s Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA), adopted in 2024, Germany is being called on to reaffirm and secure its place in an emerging geopolitical competition over raw material supply. Regions along its borders, often economically peripheral but rich in minerals deemed “critical”, are being reframed as strategic assets for Europe’s green industrial future. But what if the current hype around critical mineral extraction in Europe tells us more about the past than about the future of the places where mining is proposed? Why is domestic mining in Europe still a political imaginary and has not yet fully translated into a lived reality?
To understand the temporal dynamics of global extractivism and how recent policy shifts play out on the ground, our research digs into the realities of renewed lithium mining in the German Ore Mountains (Erzgebirge) on the border with the Czech Republic. The Erzgebirge has an extractive history dating back to the 12th century, and the region is now being recast as a key site for supplying materials for e-mobility and green energy futures. We argue that this new “greenness” draws on the legacies of past extraction, while also risking the reproduction of familiar environmental and social injustices. Efforts by mining professionals to frame lithium projects as “mining for climate”, alongside the reuse of old mining infrastructure and residues, reveal the discursive and material elements linking past extraction to the feasibility of lithium mining in the 21st century. At the same time, the story is far from stable. As we were finalizing an article on these developments – and later this blog post – the volatility of mining booms became increasingly apparent: shifting demand, fluctuating prices, and increasingly a reframing of raw material criticality in terms of “military minerals”. These global dynamics, in turn, shape and unsettle the very local dynamics we have observed during ethnographic field research in the Ore Mountains over the past four years.
Timelines of lithium talk
Efforts to develop lithium deposits in Zinnwald/Altenberg date back to the early 20th century, when large-scale tin mining dominated the region. Due to the region’s long mining history, many abandoned mines and tailings sites still contain critical minerals. Since the beginning of the 21st century, renewed exploration works target known ore bodies and materials stored in old tailings facilities – including sludges and waste rock from historic tin mining. The scientific and commercial “re-mining” initiatives we studied aim to reopen brownfield sites and reprocess tailings in post-mining areas. One site in particular became central to these plans and to our ethnographic research: the Bielatal industrial tailings management facility (IAA Bielatal). As the region’s largest tailings dam, it was operated from 1967 to 1991. Today, the facility still contains a mix of toxic substances, such as arsenic, and sought-after materials, including lithium-bearing mica. When press releases announced a major lithium mining project in the area around 2012-2013, this coincided with large-scale remediation and renaturation efforts undertaken at the IAA. At the same time, corporate mining plans began to reimagine the IAA as a site for processing infrastructure and renewed waste storage. Back then, production was scheduled to begin in 2017. But these timelines quickly unraveled. Following the bankruptcy of the original mining company and amid limited demand and political interest at the time, it took nearly another decade for lithium extraction in the region to be rekindled, and to become the subject of sustained public debate and controversy.
Infrastructural fixes and changes
As corporate plans expanded in size and scale – from an initial extraction target of 500,000 tons of lithium-bearing rock per year to 1.5 million tons – so did public concern and contestation. Particularly controversial were proposals to reuse the IAA tailings facility as a storage site (linked to the planned lithium mine via an old drainage tunnel) and to build a processing plant nearby. While corporate, scientific, and policy actors framed the project as a “green” contribution to Europe’s net-zero ambitions, many local residents opposed it. They feared that the project would harm a former mining landscape that has evolved into a tourism destination, with protected natural areas, and since 2019 an important part of a UNESCO World Heritage region. After corporate planning documents became public in summer 2023, residents of Bärenstein, a satellite district of Altenberg, formed a citizens’ initiative to oppose the proposed (re-)mining activities in their immediate surroundings. What followed was a wave of protests, including demonstrations, petitions, and self-organized town hall meetings across the municipality. These mobilizations appear to have had tangible effects. From 2024 onwards, discussions shifted toward alternative sites for processing and waste storage, culminating in a new corporate Pre-Feasibility Study in March 2025. In this revised planning document, the proposed location for the mining project’s tailings storage and processing facilities was changed from Bärenstein to Liebenau, another district of Altenberg located a few kilometers away near a major highway.
Faster permitting or ongoing contestation? A reality check in the making
Unsurprisingly, as of summer 2026 the mining plans in Liebenau are facing opposition similar to those in Bärenstein. Many of those who mobilized against mining there have since joined forces with existing and new citizens’ initiatives in Zinnwald and Liebenau – and even across the border in the Czech Republic, where comparable projects are under discussion. At the same time, these local developments intersect with broader European dynamics.
As plans shifted toward Liebenau, the European Commission announced the first round of “strategic projects” under the CRMA, which did not include the Altenberg/Zinnwald hard rock lithium project. While such a designation might have brought additional political backing, including efforts to “streamline” permitting, it is only one of several factors shaping whether lithium hype translates into reality. Limited funding, the relatively small size of the German deposit, and the absence of binding political commitments help explain why the projected start of production in this case has been repeatedly postponed: from 2017 to 2026, and now to 2030.
When debating the biggest obstacles to domestic mining in Europe, industry actors often point to the economic and social challenges that specific projects face. One of the main reasons cited for their failure is a perceived lack of community or societal “acceptance”. In the German Ore Mountains, where mining has shaped the region for centuries, the picture is more complex. Both supporters and opponents of the project based their visions for the future on the legacy of the past. For example, corporate and scientific actors involved in re-mining presented the use of brownfield sites as a pioneering example of sustainable and responsible mining. By contrast, many local residents linked the reuse of old tailings sites to memories of dust, noise, and safety hazards they had previously experienced.
The local manifestations of hyped lithium projects – linking past and present extraction discursively and materially in a former mining region – highlight key preconditions for (re-)mining in Europe. At the same time, however, they also reveal ongoing controversies, hidden values, and lasting memories. Even where future extraction remains uncertain, the last two decades of anticipation and speculation have already left lasting traces on the region’s social fabric. If nothing else, they have encouraged a more open debate about the region’s future – with or without lithium mining.
This blog post is based on the recent paper (2025) “Europe as a reemerging mining frontier? Contested lithium futures in the German Ore Mountains” co-authored by Diana Ayeh and Henriette Rutjes. The article was published open access in Globalizations as part of the special issue “Grey Extractivism: Global connections of ‘green extractivism’ at the intersections of mining and energy” edited by Alexander A. Dunlap and Nikkie Wiegink.
Contact:
Diana Ayeh – diana.ayeh@ufz.de
Henriette Rutjes – hrutjes@hs-harz.de
Contribution from BhA editorial team: Simon Batterbury (Uni Melbourne), Emma Wilson (ECW Ltd), Gertrude Saxinger (Uni Graz & Austrian Polar Research Institute APRI), Marlene Auer (Uni Vienna & Graz)
