Ecosystem minister says lithium mine can go ahead, with circumstances
3 min read
OTTAWA –

Setting Minister Steven Guilbeault says a new lithium mine in northern Quebec can go ahead with a lot more than 270 circumstances to protect wildlife and respect Indigenous use of the lands for common uses.

The 36-site approval uses the boilerplate language for Impression Assessment Act conclusions, indicating that the minister has identified adhering to a critique that the job is “not possible to lead to considerable adverse environmental results.”

In a tweet publicizing the acceptance Guilbeault reported the mine will go ahead in partnership with community Cree communities.

“This is what a excellent venture is all about and these important minerals are vital to developing a minimal-carbon economic climate,” he said.

The James Bay mine is expected to make lithium for up to two many years, primarily for use in North America’s electric motor vehicle and battery manufacturing industries.

Need has soared for lithium employed in lithium-ion batteries to cost buyer electronics and for renewable electrical power materials and storage. Far more than half the world’s lithium source in 2021 went to electrical motor vehicles, an quantity anticipated to triple by 2025. By 2030, demand from customers for lithium is predicted to increase at least 500 for each cent.

Lithium is a single of the 6 vital minerals identified as a precedence in the federal government’s new crucial minerals strategy, which aims to make Canada a worldwide mining powerhouse for the metals and minerals applied in the electric motor vehicle marketplace.

The only energetic lithium mine in Canada these days is owned and operated by China’s Sinomine Useful resource Group in northern Manitoba and all of that lithium is delivered to China.

China is the dominant participant in lithium processing, and processed two-thirds of the world’s provide in 2021. China does not have steady or huge domestic provides of lithium and relies on imports from mines somewhere else, including in Africa, South The united states and now Canada.

Chile, Australia and Argentina alongside one another hold about 75 per cent of the world’s known lithium reserves, and China about nine for every cent. Organic Assets Canada says this country retains about 2.5 for each cent.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other western allies have indicated a want to slice China’s dominance in the critical minerals business and acquire a supply chain that is a lot more reliable and much less vulnerable to world wide political disputes.

There are various proposed initiatives for supplemental lithium mines, as properly as options to restart production at a Quebec mine that went bankrupt and was sold.

The James Bay venture is the 1st Canadian job for Australia’s Allkem and is intended to start off making lithium in 2024.

The task is meant to produce 280 work opportunities throughout the design phase and about 160 on ordinary at the time in procedure.

Conditions for the approval include checking and reporting on environmental circumstances these types of as soil conditions and tailings, as properly as planning and executing strategies to mitigate impacts on local fish and other wildlife, such as woodland caribou.

The mine is anticipated to deliver about 846,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide or its equivalent in other greenhouse fuel emissions above its two-ten years lifespan, like building. On a yearly basis its emissions will max out at 48,000 tonnes, or about what is made over a person year by 10,000 passenger autos.

This report by The Canadian Press was to start with published Jan. 16, 2023.
