A small Canadian mining company says it has found a way to mine nickel without spewing a ton of carbon into the atmosphere — an engineering challenge that no less than Tesla’s Elon Musk says is the key to producing environmentally friendly batteries.
A small Canadian mining company says it has found a way to mine nickel without spewing a ton of carbon into the atmosphere — an engineering challenge that no less than Elon Musk says is the key to producing the energy to power the world’s future transportation needs.
Canada Nickel Company is in the midst of setting up a facility near Timmins, Ont., that CEO Mark Selby said can extract the metal virtually carbon-free.
At least one prominent nickel user is excited. Musk, the CEO of electric car company Tesla, needs nickel to satisfy his company’s insatiable appetite for batteries.
The process hinges on the rock in question being what’s known as serpentine rock, a type of mineral-rich ore that sucks carbon out of the atmosphere when mined.
The company’s property sits on one of the dozen largest known deposits of nickel sulphide on Earth, and about 90 per cent of it is the type that can absorb carbon, Selby said in an interview with CBC News. “When they are exposed to air, they naturally absorb CO2 in a spontaneous reaction.”
That’s an obvious advantage, but the appeal doesn’t end there. Conventional mining often uses a lot of natural gas and diesel to power activities, but that’s not the case in Northern Ontario.
“All of the electricity … will be hydroelectric — and be