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The smelter flame went green - and Chile kept selling its copper ore
A Chilean smelter flame turns green in a converter - and a country with the world’s largest copper reserves stopped building new smelters.
The smelter flame went green - and Chile kept selling its copper ore
In this episode, we trace how Chile moved from the heart of copper production to exporting mostly raw concentrate, and why its smelting capacity vanished while demand for refined cathode rose. What industrial choices and historical turns left Chile with mines but not refineries?
Person: José Tomás Urmeneta
Date: 1850 (Urmeneta walked into the hills above Tamaya)
Location: Tamaya, Atacama…
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