In 1759, the King of Spain, hoping to improve coin production techniques, ordered the construction of a new mint. This is the courtyard of the mint, which is now a museum. The Casa de Moneda, as it is known in Spanish, provides excellent physical evidence of the scale and energy required to process the silver after it had been extracted and purified with mercury. It drives home the point that Potosi was indeed the largest industrial site of its time.

The construction lasted 14 years, and cost an estimated $10 million. It required a total of 450 beams, 1,239 frameworks, 10 metal plates, 820 timber frames, 20 beam ties, 120 stone slabs, 1,200 wooden boards, 2,109 ordinary wooden boards, 40 planks, and 20 chunks of wood.

Once the impurities of the metal were extracted, the silver was brought to the furnaces for meltdown. Graphite pots were used to bring the silver to a temperature of 960.5° C.

The heat was generated using a mix of Kewiña shrubs with dried llama dung. The llama dung allowed the fire to burn longer, raise the temperature, and produce less smoke. The process required enormous amounts of energy in the form of woody biomass