The Arctic town of Kiruna is subsiding and under threat from being swallowed by a vast iron ore mine. But what does its relocation mean for the local Sami reindeer herders?
, three kilometres east of the old town. Billed as the world’s most radical relocation project, Kiruna is moving because subsidence from the local iron ore mine is threatening to swallow the town. Cracks have already appeared in the hospital; a school is no longer safe for its pupils.
“We are more than happy that the church can move,” Tjärnberg said. “Of course, I know people can be sad. Kiruna church is a landmark here, you can see it everywhere. You can feel sad about the skyline.” The town has a population of 18,000, and its fate has been intertwined with that of the mine since it was founded in 1900 . The mine, run by Swedish state-owned company LKAB, is the largest iron ore mine in the world, producing 80% of the EU’s supply.
Now LKAB hopes to be at the forefront of Europe’s green industrial revolution and drive for autonomy in natural resources, in response to the climate crisis and alarm about Europe’s dependency – often on autocratic foreign governments – on vital metals and minerals. It began producing fossil-free sponge iron in 2021, by replacing coal with hydrogen produced from green electricity.
“Sweden is literally a goldmine,” the deputy prime minister, Ebba Busch, who is in charge of climate and business, told reporters inside the mine, 500 metres below ground. “Europe needs to learn the lesson, to not be so highly dependent on one single country for gas in the way we were [on] Russia.”The discovery of rare earth metals offered the chance, she said, to also become less dependent on China, the source of 86% of the global supply of rare earth elements.
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