Public geoscience solutions for diversifying Canada's critical mineral production

Abstract

Achieving net-zero carbon emissions goals will increasingly rely on critical mineral resources while simultaneously decreasing the extraction, processing and use of hydrocarbons as the primary provider of energy. Canada is well-positioned to contribute to this effort through a series of innovative policy and research initiatives, and it is Canada's goal to be a stable supplier of critical minerals into the future. To this end, Natural Resources Canada and the Geological Survey of Canada invest financial resources into critical mineral research initiatives. This research aims to generate precompetitive baseline geological, geochemical and geophysical data for large, underexplored regions within Canada, whereas targeted studies focus on mineral systems science and improved exploration models for the large variety of critical mineral resources distributed throughout Canada. These research approaches can be combined, digitally, to generate mineral potential models. These ongoing efforts by the Geological Survey of Canada enhance the viability of Canada being (or maintaining its status as) a hub for critical mineral resource development and processing well into the future.

Mapping Canada’s Green Economic Pathways for Battery Minerals: Balancing Prospectivity Modelling With Conservation and Biodiversity Values

“…The resulting prospectivity modelling predictions are distinct from the maps that have been used in most previous conservation assessments which depict the surficial expression of known deposits (Maus and Gilijumm, 2020) or mineral claims (Coristine and Jacob, 2018). We focus on Canada's main source of battery minerals, i.e., Ni and Co, even though these critical minerals can be sourced from multiple mineral systems (Gadd and Lawley, 2022). The prospectivity of Ni and Co are coupled because the concentrations of these elements are primarily controlled by the modal abundance of pentlandite and pyrrhotite within these magmatic mineral systems; whereas Cu and PGE are hosted by different mineral assemblages and may be spatially decoupled).…”

“…However, the manufacturing process for renewable energy technologies tends to be material intensive (Valero et al, 2018;Calvo and Valero 2022) and the proliferation of electric vehicles, solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries is placing unprecedented pressure on the supply chains of critical raw materials (Sovacool et al, 2020). The list of minerals, chemical elements, chemical compounds, metals, and/or metalloids required for manufacturing renewable energy technologies are hereafter referred to as critical minerals for simplicity (Gadd and Lawley 2022). Improved processing and extraction methods of ore and waste from currently operating mines and/or new recycling technologies are unlikely to meet the expected growth in mineral demand (Ali and Giurco, 2017).…”