The close proximity of Ontario's Ring of Fire, Manitoba's Thompson Nickel Belt and low carbon-emitting hydro power, give Canada an unparalleled opportunity to become a long-term, producer of stainless steel, the enviro-metal. If only the sustainability of the northern boreal forest could be assured as well.

By Patrick Whiteway

Massive deposits of chromite and nickel have been discovered under the boreal forest of northwestern Ontario and plans by Cliffs Natural Resources and Noront Resources respectively to develop them are well underway. How this development is managed by the federal and provincial governments could be historically significant.

The scale of the undertaking is huge. It could, in the next 10 years, create Canada's first chromite mine and with an appropriate level of visionary leadership, could also transform Canada into the lowest-carbon-emitting source of stainless steel on the planet.

What does stainless steel have to do with mining nickel and chromium? Well, almost all of the inputs needed to make stainless steel - nickel, chromium, iron and low-carbon emitting hyro-electric energy - are readily available within a 500 km radius of the Ring of Fire.

What is not in place is a co-operative agreement with the native people of the northwest and a commitment on the part of the key corporate players to protect the source of these people's livelihood - the boreal forest. That could be a deal breaker.

A feasibility study to construct a $2-billion railway to link the isolated northern property to existing infrastructure just north of Lake Superior is expected soon.

For all Canadians to benefit from this unprecedented opportunity, a high level of inter-provincial cooperation is needed.

Does Canada have a national policy on mineral development?

Canada's policy should be that companies developing mineral resources must add value to those resources before exporting them to other countries.

That means NOT exporting "concentrates" and maximizing the amount of processing done here in Canada, including the processing of chromite and nickel into stainless steel which is then exported.

Game-changing hydro electric developments are taking place in Manitoba. As the world's major economies adopt over the next few years some form of carbon tax or cap-and-trade system for managing carbon emissions, this source of power will give Canada a distinct competitive advantage in the global economy.

Our national mineral development strategy should be to use this resource to our advantage in the processing of mineral resources prior to export.

Also, the close proximity of the Ring of Fire to the Thompson Nickel Belt in Manitoba where smelting and refining facilities are already in place, make stainless steel melting capacity worthy of investigation.

Such an project could be a shinning example of inter-provincial cooperation, resource efficiency and sustainable development for all Canadians.

REFERENCES

"Power to the (other) Provinces", by Jan Carr. Globe and Mail, Saturday, July 31, 2010. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/power-to-the-other-provinces/article1656514/

Access to land resources is an emerging sustainability issue for mining companies and environmental groups alike. In the southeastern United States, for example, coal mining companies want to mine coal by a method called mountain top removal. They are pitted against environmental groups which want to use the same mountains for erecting a string of wind turbines to generate renewable energy in perpetuity. See: "A Battle in Mining Country Pits Coal Against Wind," by Tom Ziller Jr., The New York Times, Sunday, August 14, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/business/energy-environment/15coal.html?_r=1&hpw

Recent studies have shown that mountain top removal does negatively impact the natural environment. See: "Mountain Mining Damages Streams" by Natasha Gilbert in Nature, August 9, 2010. http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100809/full/466806a.html