/ 5 July 2011

Melting ice caps open up Arctic for ‘white gold rush’

The crumpled figure in seat 22 on the Air Greenland flight from Ilulissat to Kangerlussuaq was no Indiana Jones. But Dennis Thomas, a mining engineer viewing gold and diamond prospects in the Arctic, was happy to play up the part. “I’ve been shot at and involved in all sorts of other scrapes,” boasted the 62-year-old as the plane cruised at 3 300m

Thomas had spent 30 years scouring Latin America, the Far East and most other points around the globe, but this was his first time in Greenland. And it will not be his last. The British mining engineer was impressed with what he had seen and said he would be back after discussions with various mining companies and investors who pay him a “finder’s fee” for putting them on to new, commercially viable, deposits.

“This is a very exciting place … There is only one working mine but in 10 years I would like to see them with half a dozen serious mines,” he said.

It is not just small operations like Thomas Mining Associates, based in West Sussex, that are newly on the hunt as the ice caps melt in the far north. A host of major companies have recently set foot in Greenland hoping to carve out — literally — a new mineral frontier. Political visits from countries such as China are also on the rise. They are being driven by the insatiable demand for a variety of precious stones and other commodities which has driven up prices and sent prospectors on a frantic search for new supplies.

Greenland has long been known to harbour everything from uranium — needed for nuclear plants — to rare Earth minerals used in everything from cellphones to flat-screen TVs and modern weaponry.

The Arctic was largely off-limits because much of the land was considered unworkable, buried under hundreds of metres of snow, and with nothing in the way of traditional infrastructure.

Global warming has changed that picture. While Greenland’s traditional way of hunting wild animals is endangered by the melting ice cap, mineral mining is entering a new potentially lucrative chapter. More and more of the land is becoming ice free — unleashing carbon in the process — but offering new opportunities for diggers in the “white gold rush”.

New mining applications are being submitted for extraction — all the way from Canada through Greenland to Finland. The Greenland government in Nuuk has just underlined its commitment to new ventures by repealing a law that prevented any kind of uranium mining.

Greenland’s government has just amended the terms of its exploration licensing to allow for radioactive elements such as uranium and thorium on a case-by-case basis.

It benefits companies such as Australian-owned mining company Greenland Minerals & Energy which is chaired by Lars Emil Johansen, who was Greenland’s second prime minister.

“It’s not permission to start mining, but it is permission to make studies for mines with uranium. It’s a very big step forward for the company,” said Johansen.

World’s sixth-largest uranium deposit
This is happening at Kvanefjeld — said by the company to be “one of the world’s most exciting emerging mineral projects” and believed to hold the world’s sixth-largest uranium deposit. There are also plans to open up uranium exploration in the far north of Canada, Russia, and Finland.

Uranium is controversial because of the potential health risks associated with its extraction, plus wider issues associated with its use: in nuclear weapons and atomic power stations.

Meanwhile one of the world’s biggest gold mines was recently opened at Kittilä in the far north of Finland and others are already being planned in that country.

But there is already conflict over some of the plans. For example there is particularly vociferous opposition to a scheme by mining companies, including Anglo American, to produce gold and copper at the Pebble Mine in Alaska. Campaigners say such plans threaten the nearby Bristol Bay watershed which supports the world’s most productive wild sockeye salmon fishery, critical to the state’s economy and the livelihoods of many Alaskan native communities.

So far the only current mining operation in Greenland is the Nalunaq gold mine in the south of the country. This was only restarted this year as a going concern by its owner Angel Mining, registered in London. It has created jobs and little opposition but there is more concern over a much larger industrial plan.

Alcoa, the world’s third largest aluminium producer, is working on a scheme to build a massive smelter in Greenland.

It hopes to use hydroelectric power as a cheap and green form of energy and produce a replica of the Fjardaál (“aluminum of the fjords”) smelter at Reydðarfjörður in eastern Iceland.

Henrik Stendal, head of the geology department at the Bureau of Minerals and Petroleum in Nuuk, Greenland, says he is hopeful that there will an increasing amount of activity in his country.

This is not least because rising temperatures mean there is more land to explore now. He spells out something that many in government think privately but are reluctant to say openly: “You could say that global warming is good for Greenland.” – guardian.co.uk