Noront's proposed Eagle's Nest mine will produce nickel and copper. Nickel mines are generally found in clusters, so there is enormous potential to find more sulphide nickel deposits in the Ring of Fire.

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http://www.thesudburystar.com/2018/06/06/accent-sudbury-as-the-harvard-of-hardrock-mining

Sudbury as the 'Harvard' of hardrock mining

Leveraging strategic minerals

Australia is the world's largest producers of lithium, a key ingredient in the manufacturing of electric vehicle batteries. The state of Western Australia recently established a taskforce to investigate how that state can take full economic advantage of its strategic deposits.

Most industry analysts are predicting a massive conversion from gas-powered automobiles to electric vehicles over the next few decades.

No one is exactly sure on how fast this transition will take place, but it is coming. Electric vehicle batteries have huge amounts of nickel, as well as cobalt, copper, lithium and graphite.

There are basically two types of nickel deposits - sulphides and laterites. Sudbury, Thompson, northern Quebec, Voisey's Bay and the future mines in the Ring of Fire all produce sulphide nickel.

Nickel laterites are subdivided into limonite and saprolite deposits. Electric vehicle batteries can only use the refined pure Class 1 nickel that comes from sulphides and limonites. Refined saprolite nickel (ferronickel) contains iron, making them perfect for stainless steel production - which is the main use for nickel today - but not for car batteries. And the very low-grade nickel pig iron, also used for stainless steel production, is not suitable for these batteries, either.

There are relatively few very huge nickel sulphide deposits in the world and battery makers are very worried there will be critical shortages of pure Class 1 nickel in the near future as the manufacturing of electric vehicles continues to increase.

The three of the five critical metals needed for the electric vehicle batteries - nickel, cobalt and copper are mined in the Sudbury Basin. The other two metals - lithium and graphite - are also found in various undeveloped deposits in Northern Ontario. Noront's proposed Eagle's Nest mine will produce nickel and copper. Nickel mines are generally found in clusters, so there is enormous potential to find more sulphide nickel deposits in the Ring of Fire.

A quick tangent about cobalt is also in order. Roughly 70 per cent of cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo, a very politically insecure country with no rule of law, rampant corruption, very poor environmental standards and routinely use child miners.

All the car manufacturers of electric vehicles fear a shortage of all these materials. The new Ontario government should establish another industry task force made up of mining companies and car manufacturers to see how the province can leverage this strategic and politically secure source of raw materials, through security of supply, to ensure that the auto assembly plants stay in the province when they transition to the electric vehicle future.

The current President is vigorously lobbying for more vehicle manufacturing to be moved back to the U.S. In addition, the taskforce should analyze how Ontario can entice other car manufacturers to locate here like Nissan, Volkswagen and BMW with the possible security of supply of critical raw materials.

The series

Saturday, June 2: Queen's Park strangling Northern Ontario

Monday June 4: How to develop the Ring of Fire

Tuesday: Move 10,000 civil service jobs to Northern Ontario

Today: Creating the Harvard of Hardrock Mining at Laurentian