“The future is batteries”, they said. “We’re going to store the wind in ginormous batteries the size of Pluto“.

Mining remains a deeply divisive industry, as manifested by the explosion of popular rage that’s paralyzed Panama in recent weeks.

After spending the best part of a decade and more than $10 billion building one of the world’s biggest copper mines, First Quantum Minerals Ltd. now finds the project hanging in the balance.

The country’s president this weekend caved to pressure and agreed to hold a referendum on its future, sending the Canadian company’s stock plunging the most on record.

While Panama’s electoral court has since offered a lifeline, saying such a vote can’t proceed without congress first passing legislation, prospects for development look deeply uncertain.

The drama in Panama highlights a growing global trend. Many people don’t want new mines built, judging the environmental impact to be too great despite the boost to jobs and local coffers.

Yet mining has never been more important. It’s impossible for economies to decarbonize without hundreds of millions more tons of metals such as copper, nickel and lithium being pulled from the earth.

In the past decade, the industry has transformed the way it engages with those on the receiving end of massive mining upheaval. Aware of the need to have a social license to operate, companies have gone to great lengths to win over community leaders and politicians.

But they still often fail to garner wider public support. Some of the world’s most crucial new mines are currently stuck in limbo in the face of local opposition.

The development of Europe’s biggest lithium deposit was brought to a sudden halt last year after thousands of protesters took to the streets of Belgrade, Serbia. In the US, what would be the country’s largest copper mine has been stalled for years.

Give the people more stuff. Ban all the things.