The World's Largest Copper Mine: Chile's Chuquicamata | The Earth's Riches | Spark
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 ธ.ค. 2019
- From spaceships to mobile phones, metals are an integral part of the objects that make up the world around us and that we use in everyday life. The metal industry is a major component of the world economy, and mining takes place all over the world. Yet their extraction and refinement is still an arduous and dangerous process, not only for the workers but for the surrounding environment.
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#Copper #Mining #ChileanMiners #spark #sparkdocumentary #sciencedocumentary - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
This documentary gave me a whole new appreciation , as well as a sense of pity, for miners and smelters. Without them, so many technologies and products that we rely upon cannot be made available to the masses. They worked their entire lives only to end up as retirees with ill health caused by prolonged exposure to toxins and fine dusts.They deserve honour salutes and bows of respect from the rest of society. 😢
I guess Im asking randomly but does someone know a tool to log back into an instagram account??
I was dumb lost my account password. I love any assistance you can give me.
@Leandro Aydin instablaster =)
Hope they didn't drink coke with every meal???
Á
Could not agree with you any more!! They have also got to figure out a way to protect the coral reefs. That runoff will destroy all the coral, and life that live in and around it. With new Nickel mines there, this will increase tri-fold!!
Respect for those workers.
Well... I work in an artisanal mine where we still use jackhammers, picks, wood timbering and hand-pushed mine carts... This is truly something else. Impressive.
Is a personal mine?
Wow yea, I’d like to see some work video of that.
small batch minerals are the only way to fly.
I too would like to see what you're mining there?
LOL "Artisanal mining". Don't tell the hipsters!
THESE MEN APPEAR HAPPY & KIND HEARTED... THANK YOU FOR SHARING..
Good to see you won't see one of these guys stomping their young daughter's brains out because her scarf fell off of her head...
@@venharis2012 How the hell did you manage to turn this into a religious/islam thing? Chileans are Catholic... but the least religious country in the americas.
Never seen a crib room that nice in all my career. Light and a table were a luqury. Flask, tupperware, six blocks and a 10x4 to sit on--a good day. Winter, go down before sunrise, back to grass at sunset. No hi-viz. No train ride. No Jumbos. Bugger all electricity beyond the shaft. Conditions should be better but Chile now is better than my days in Australia and the UK. Mining used to be a hell of a lot harder than that one generation ago. Two generations--brutal. Three generations--lethal.
QqJcrsStbt between 1750 and 1850, 150,000 people in the UK died due to mining. So yeah mining 3 generations ago would be awful
sure it was Even as late as the 80s in Thatcher's Britain when the miners went on strike for safety reasons Maggie the darling of the rich elite did everything legal n Illegal to destroy the miners specially the Yorkshire miners
Its like they were mining in Mars, the landscape are amazing
NASA actually tested the Mars rovers on the Atacama desert so you are not far off.
Oh look! A documentary that isn't a phony "race against the clock" to keep us watching. Thanks for not insulting our intelligence!
Its phony.
@@samsngdevice5103 how
The phone I'm watching this on probably has copper from that mine. 🤔
oof
@MokeTip *insert slightly confused laugh here*
Orrrrrr... the copper on our phones are from the us and South America BOOM PROBLEM SOLVED
Yeah the USA does get copper to but I'm sure chilli sends a lot of there product to china were your phone is made so yeah you can say that
I was arrested by a copper from that mine
Chuck norris while having lunch : Many people don't like me here. But I don't care 😂 33:58
Good Morning all you Observers, may His force be with you . Blessings to all , and remember to help someone when you can !!
I worked in a nickel smeltor in 2010, for 8 yrs, its amazing how close the production of both metals are done, I certainly don't miss the sulfur gas that used to come off those converters. Great video though all the same,
Yeah, Nickel production is...harsh. I mean damn.
Was the ni smelter off shore?
Hope the house energy bill gets passed….we need to mine and process our own strategic minerals…..
Interesting and very well done documentary. Silicosis is a miserable way to die.
@White Man Because men dying ''behind the curtains'' are in their favour.
@White Man Because feminist "equality" is not true equality. They want it completely in their favor.
Rev. Taylor, oh yes, I've heard of how slow and painful it is. Basically the lung membranes become harder, less like tissue, and more like a hard rubber. Ohh, I can only imagine...
@@osrr6422 True equality is not in anyone's favor for true equality HAS NO FAVORITES!
Silicosis requires constant ultrafine spraying and misting on a 360 degree angle all around. But newly developed and designed and ULTRA-SIMPLIFIED and mass producible and scalable electrostatic repulsion all weather and all climate D.C powered hyper-safety
GFI all analog circuits gounded filters has been around since the 1950s but no one is willing to pay a few hundred thousand dollars per mining site for it. Despite the fact that the mining site is producing a few to several hundreds of millions of dollars in NET INCOME A YEAR!
14:28 "The hunger for copper is insatiable." That shot man.
This is a great documentary, and you're very fortunate to have been given access to the mine. However, I feel compelled to point out that your title is incorrect: Chuquicamata is NOT the world's largest copper mine and never has been. That title currently goes to the nearby Escondida mine, and by a very big margin - Escondida produces 3x more copper per year and has a 3x larger reserve than Chuquicamata. Chuquicamata ranks 3rd to 6th for global production, depending on the year (2nd placed Collahuasi, also in Chile, is also well ahead of it for production).
Furthermore, Chuquicamata isn't the world's largest artificial hole as you note at 7:27, although it's probably second or third. That honor goes to the Kennecott (Bingham Canyon) copper mine in Utah, U.S., which is 4km wide and 1.2km deep and counting.
hey maybe theres a difference between the MIne that produces the highest quantity of copper and the 'biggest' , 'widest' one.. Chuquicamata is not the one that produces the most copper. n4 or n5 in regards to that criteria. It is however said to be the largest 'open'/ open top mine of copper. Highest producer undoubtedly goes to the Escondida mine, with 1,126 THOUSAND TONS produced in 2020 alone. Chuquicamata stands at 400,72 THOUSAND TONS for the same year. I heard there were talks about ramping that up, partly thanks to new gear and tech for extraction process
i installed Blast hole drills in this mine in the 80's. Most contamanated place i ever worked it, The "Cleft Pallet" capital on earth. But i enjoyed going there.
I once was invited to go to Chile to rebuild a blast furnace. I was looking forward to it, but they had some civil unrest and it didnt gain traction
Yeah, the country is going to hell. More than 40 people have died recently in social unrest related incidents and the government has unleashed the police and the military to brutally fight the protesters off the streets. Last time I was there was some 3 years ago, and I always wondered why the majority of the people were so submissive and compliant even when they were so poor and totally left behind by their governments. It is possibly something they got from their indian origin, as most of the population has no white or European ancestors. In any case, it seems to have reached a point of no return. It will take decades for that country to return to normality now.
@@marcteenhc9793This is not true at all. You are a liar, a xenophobe, a racist and an ignorant.
Chile is not a poor country, Chile has a poverty rate of only 8.6%.
95% of Chileans have some European ancestry.
Please refrain from posting any more misleading false information regarding Chile, if you want to comment about this topic then at least have the decency of informing yourself first
Don't be a coward, reply to this comment with actual backed arguments and not with bullshit pseudo arguments that have no basis in reality
@@marcteenhc9793 I didn't think your first post was racist but this last one here sure as hell revealed your true colors!
@@mariobastidas3102 Do not get me wrong Mario, the first comment was an honest attempt to contribute to the discussion, and the second one was just a reaction to the other guy's attack. Still, although it may not sound polite or PC, on average it is not very away from reality, wouldn't you agree? If you have been to Chile, Bolivia or Peru, you know what I am talking about.
@@marcteenhc9793 Lmao, you probably didn't get to see reality, boy
38:32 Looks so nice! I really wanted to send that.
38:31 oops someone missed that in the background.
hahhahahahahahaha
How could you miss it. Hahaha
Lmao
sausage 😂
lol
Great work, thanks.
What a beautiful documentary..
33:31 "Chuck Norris and his mates" lmao
This was shot pre 2007. Would like to know how are these people now
the one guys watch from 80s digital cheapie
The moment the narrator indicated this was pre-2007, we can't help but wonder why SPARK seems proud to be posting this in December of 2019..
@@Fluffy65 i love these old documentaries. just spent a couple days going through a whole bunch about appalachia and the ozarks from the 60's, 70's, and 80's. fascinating stuff.
dead
Dead
There's also a couple of "large" copper deposits to be further drilled in Cuba, with the significant porphyry deposit to begin drilling in july 2022, and the 40km VMS belt to commence drilling 2023 Q1, so very interesting given the neighbourhood of other large mines
Fascinating video about a really dangerous occupation. I just wished they had told more of the history. I'd like to know who owns those mines also. That Chuck Norris really looks like Chuck Norris. Just needs to dye his hair and he could double for him. LOL
I used to own a home in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan's "Copper Country". There were tunnels on either side of the house. Every time a big truck would turn down Smith the house would shake and windows rattle. Mine Street was down farther down and one could drive down this dirt road to a mine but it's really bumpy and has a good number of potholes too.
Not too many years ago there was a cave-in at the mine I frequented. I think of all the times I had walked across that spot! Most mines were filled with old cars and such then capped but apparently this one wasn't as it just looks like big black abyss.
Having that house made me interested in history. A friend I was doing genealogy research asked me if I could find her ancestor who was one of the first to have died in one of the mines. We searched all the nearby cemeteries but did not find him. I did send her a photo of the plaque outside this mine.
I was a 'rockhound' for 30+ years. There was a time when I could make a good guess as to where the copper containing rock came from. There was a time when all the world's native copper was being compared to Copper Country's as to purity.
I was kind of wondering is this copper in Chili was native, oxide or sulfide? Native copper in MI was 'stamped' from the containing rock & smelted into ingots. One of the mines there paid for its operation with just the silver contained in it!
There are ancient copper mines preserved in the mountain of Ural where ore used to be mined 3500 - 5000 ago. It was a very arduous hands on process just to get a-bit of copper , nothing like today.
Tell me about it dude!, I worked in the Urals copper mines in a past life back in 1147 BC. Our labor unions werent as proactive back then.
The copper mines in the northern Michigan area go back even further in time.
@@charlesaanonson3954 wait, I thought native Americans didn't use metal to make tools, only stone and bone(??) Or was that just in south America(or am I mistaking metal tools for the wheel)?
The country on Oman has a huge pit mined from around that time too, it might even be a bit earlier.
That dude legit looks like Chuck Norris.
Well done documentary thank u
Dang Good Educational Video .
And THIS I call documentary. Superb script and direction.
Very well done video. Thankyou for the history lession.
36:45 that lunchbox! :D
40 y/o guy with kenshin on his lunchbox :D were everywhere, you never know a weeb standing next to you
excellent vid, even if a few years old. Subscribed, and thank you for your effort to explain this crazy industrialized part of Earth.
LOL, it's more than just "a few" years old.
@@Fluffy65 uh. 2 and half fews?
Nice!! Just like the Nickle mines I worked in, in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada.... :-)
Hi. I’m a student metallurgist. What challenges did you experience in terms of processing?
Chile is such an awesome country! It's not perfect [no country is], but it's a great country. Apart from the US, I think I would choose Chile to live.
I LOVE his attachment the "Tonia" the rudimentary A.I. in the mine.. Haha he's in Loooove
I don't think its an A.I. i am pretty sure they're recorded voice lines that correspond to specific conditions throughout manufacturing process. It's female because research carried out in the 60s/70s shows that men react faster and take more notice of a female voice. All warning messages in combat aircraft are voiced by women for this reason.
@@daftpunk1285 yeah I'm aware it's not ACTUALLY AI in the mine, but thank you for correcting it for anyone confused 👍👍👍
PS I'M AN A.I. !
And just FYI I used to live en El Salvador and worked there. You translate dirt as earth and make so many more mistakes. It was good to see Chuquicamata, El Salvador and Chañaral again. But make sure that what you narrate has no errors
Spark should come and document copper and lithium mining operations
This place is hardcore and awesome.
Our nickel mine in Nth Australia was hot and humid underground, and we pumped the waste rock from refinery back into the mined out sections, that helped stablise it.
Today copper price sky
11:40 No details on the "chemical processing" part? Just "It's ground up into a fine powder, then chemical... stuff, is done to it". I mean I'm sure it's just some strong acid or base solution to dissolve it, then something to precipitate it out to form the "mud", but I was curious what chemicals they use on such a scale.
Try google
Arsenic , lead,
@@zanekidd4394 thats not the point, genius
Umm. No champ, just floated.
2:44 The risk of losing one of those expensive trucks over the edge of that slag heap is too great, the mine should install a 'Dump Platform', where the driver simply drives over a platform, one that has a conveyor belt that then moves the slag ore over the edge for disposal. Every day that platform is then dragged to a new location for dumping waste slag.
That MEANS MORE LABOR ?? YOUR IN CHILE!!
First and despite the videos use of the term it isn't a "slag heap" at all, it's a waste dump. A slag heap is where the left over impurities go after smelting metals. And slag is the common term for those impurities. Don't believe me? Well who's stopping you from Googling it? A waste dump is where the non ore bearing "waste"rock gets dumped or stock piled. And there's no such thing as slag ore. So lemme take a not so wild guess, you've never actually worked in a mine before but you've somehow come up with your very own Einstein level idea that millions of people working in the industry since the first mining truck was invented that have all been just too damn stupid to think of if it had it the remotest chance of working. I've worked in the open pit mines for over 20 years and not once has any "expensive truck been lost" on a waste dump so the risk is just about nil unless the driver is a brain dead idiot. Yes it has rarely happened in various mines, but it usually takes multiple mistakes for that to occur. In a properly run North American mine there's a safety berm and by law it has to be over half the height of the truck tires that a cat builds for the trucks to back up against. I don't know nor do I care what the mining laws are in Chile. If they loose trucks all the time then there doing it wrong and I really doubt that's happening so this video is BS'n about that.
@@turningpoint6643 You are correct. These videos need editing and proof checking. Here in Australia we call waste tailings.
Iam not a miner but an industrial chemist. When documentaries make factual errors sometimes by omission, it shows me incompetence.
Seen this video 4 times is good to watch
Im on my third time watching now. Its a good doc.
VERY INTERESTING!😉
Thanks ver much.indeed...!
@26:16 copper skies..befitting
**DAMN! Every 3 days that mine produces enough to build 4 world war 2 era destroyers ENTIRELY out of copper!**
@Redrooster they said it at the start its state owned.
@Redrooster well the chilean government gets their share from their income taxes and royalties and w/e other taxes are applicable plus taxes from the employees salaries.
@Redrooster Sounds to me like you just want something to moan about for all the inequalities in the World...
@C R No shiite Sherlock! Nobody said they make warships out of copper. It's a point of reference.
I wouldn't mind being buried in that graveyard. Beautiful scenery.
7:35 I wonder if they could build a conveyor and save the hassle of driving trucks up and down that pit.
the size of the rocks has to be small though
@@idree7955 Just haul or hoist a rock crusher to the bottom and that problem should be solved. Perhaps my sense of reality is warped from video games though. In a game you just set up a miner and conveyors and badda bing, it works. Probably a tiny bit more complicated for real life mines though :p.
The problem is that they weren't done digging out that hole so the conveyor would have to be moved every day, mean while these trucks can already empty all of the blasting from the hole in a day and they can drive to anywhere inside of it. You'd also need some sort of splitter system for the spoil whereas the truck can just drive to wherever it needs to be dumped and when it dumps it, it creates more road. So they'd probably end up needing just as many people but it'd be less flexible and mean that you spend less time moving material out of the pit, since now after the blast they'll also have to move the conveyor before they can start moving material. And it might even get damaged in the blast. Once they start shaft mining though they might very well set up more permanent infrastructure like that since they'll have one unmoving entrance.
You guys should look into the hellish iron mines of Gilenor, venezuala.
this is from the early 2000's
Yeah, that driver has probably almost reached retirement by now.
Wow. Almost ancient! Thanks for the valuable information! ;)
@@theobserver9131 considering your name you are quite ancient you're self
@@zarahalora7567 Do you know what sarcasm is?
@@theobserver9131 not really..all i know is that sommeone is saying "i hate you" but in their minds its "i love you" thats all i know about sarcasm
Copper is the most precious mineral ever. It is a resource given by the creator to use it as much as the resource it provides. Whenever we cut a string of copper it is very important to think the peoples who work behind it. One day the earth will give all its resources that time we will regret how abusive mankind is in utilizing the resources rather than recycling the already available. Hatts of for this heros of the mine!
Stack your copper
Hats down for those miners
It would be nice to see an update on this family and the mine.
The mine is about to close and the familys were realocated to chañaral , copiapo y caldera but most of the miners died from health issues
I worked there...
I am the kid of the family
este documental es muy viejo, yo vivo aqui en chile cerca de chuquicamata, ahora esta mejor deverian hacer uno nuevo
They need to pack more commercials in here! There have only been 6 in less than the first ten minutes.
Hahahaha facts
use ad blocker extension on your chrome/firefox etc browser. its free and you will never see an ad again on youtube
You are watching such a good quality documentary for free. You can very well watch a few 5 secs commercials to support it.
@@hanas_340 A few are fine. One every three minutes, no.
Fascinating. Expertly edited. Every word well chosen.
36:44 is that kenshin himura lol
The lot of the miner has always been a hard one, down throughout the centuries.
At the beginning, the narrator states copper does not rust, which is correct. However, it does corrode and this can be quite detrimental for the equipment it is used in. In particular, electronic contacts often corrode because of the copper, the circuit stops due to the corrsion product or the pitting and carbon layer formed.
Looking at the control room it's obvious Chile understands and is even willing to implement proper safety measures; unfortunately they seem to only care to do so for highly skilled engineers and other technical experts.
what's be the name of the Chile copper quarry？anyone could you tell me many thanks
Atacama, land of copper and telescopes :-)
Don't forget Lithium mines that kill migrating flamingoes
This looks like a scene from a star wars movie! If there was that much copper making its way out to sea, the previous mining efforts cant have been very efficient!
you upload very interesting content, pity for the low quality of the images.
16 tons and what do you get another day older and deeper in dept, Thank God for MSHA.
St. Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go. I owe my soul to the company store.
Without safety regulations, Employers will (generally) exploit their employees. Profit and bottom lines are all they care about.
28:21 niceee
don't understand the guys that complain about sitting in a chair driving truck or train all day..ill take that fucking job and love it every day.
Lmao, imagine getting your pickup truck driven over by that yellow dump truck
It happens more than you think in non-automated operations. Even in ones that are automated.
This must be the first documentary I ever watched that was narrated by a (very good albeit) non native speaker.
27:05 Chuck Norris can smelt copper with his bare hands.
When Chuck Norris spits, the bile acids in his saliva dissolve pure copper right out of bare rock.
😂😂
FFS One ad every 4 minutes??
traffic on the left? those trucks are just driving up the center of the road lol.
so is nobody’s gonna talk about why the guy in the beginning says “copper will NEVER rust” when my copper sink faucet literally is rusted and chipping of piece by piece
TH-cam doesn't bother to censor out a man packer 38:31
38:32
Look at the background
Importante é fazer dinheiro, não importa como...
42:23 Eh Manny, look at 'dem pelicang fly! Come oooon pelicang!!!
in 19:00 the biologists are taking Algae and Kelp samples 20km north of the area in order to replant them in the Cu, As, etc. contaminated area. The outcome is almost predictable. My question is: is there still plenty of Algae and Kelp at this Northern-site, nowadays in 2020? Did the Kelp and Algae at the Chilean coast, in general, suffer after the years 2011/2012 (Fukushima: Cs, Sr, U, Pu! in the Pacific Ocean waters) and did it recover by now?
where do they get the idea that copper doesn't rust (intro 0:14) from? that's why the stuff turns green in air, oxidisation...
So would I. Haven't been to Region II since '96, and that was to El Abra.
how old is this..... over 12 years
Hes like they always wear their gear guy with no mask in a business shirt walkin around wveryone in hazmat suits lol
this is and old documentary. It talks about relocation by 2007 12:07
2004, see credits
00:22 Copper in a whisper voice.
Its funny how the drivers make the most at that mine. The mine i work at drivers make the least since it’s the easiest job lol
2:23 Those big trucks can probably run over a small car and barely feel it. Oops, hit a bump. Nope, that was the missus.
28:20 we all know why we clicked back on that part XD
Why music with a video like this? Not necessary with a documentary about copper mining.
Why?Because I like it and miners like it.
Make your own documentary the way you want.
They ran that plant the same way for years after the people from other companies did after they left
Get caught without PPE 3 times and you're cautioned. After that, you "get fired"
Chuck Norris is a legend
An excellent film, tho I'm sure they gloss over the worst aspects of the working conditions nd pollution.
Why the yellow filter?
10 seconds in, he says that copper does not rust. I beg to differ, that green film all copper gets on it as it ages is technically rust.
Jason Kerlin wouldn’t that just be tarnish, like sliver does? Or that technically the same thing?
Its all oxides either way
@@PersonalStash420 there are 20 or so metals that do not oxidize at standard temp and pressure.
@@Petem7668 silver tarnished from sulphur. It is silver sulphide. Rust is an oxide, which is from oxygen combining with a base metal.
@@Petem7668 yes it is basically the same.
How can i apply????
God bless these men who do this.
There are 4200 religions in the world as we know of. Tens if not hundreds more deities over that number.
BE MORE SPECIFFIC ? Make sure you choose the right god, that these men are born to.
@Martin G what the fuck are you even writing about ? ...
If the narration was any more dry, it would be the atacama desert
The water is toxic and those scientists are sitting in it. Real smart.
wow. nobel prize in biology right here
They say in the beginning I don't rust but it does corrode
@C R lmao
Even in 2005 (film production year) Chilean miners working in better conditions and earning more then Ukrainians and Russians nowadays. These are main differences between state owned and private mining companies.