Who are the big entrepreneurs who finance the mining of metals in Greenland
KoBold Metals, a startup also supported by Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates, wants to extract nickel and cobalt for batteries in Greenland. To do this, it relies on artificial intelligence. All the details
US mining startup KoBold Metals is looking for a large deposit of nickel and cobalt – both crucial for batteries, and consequently for the energy transition – on the west coast of Greenland. The research is taking place on Disko Island and the Nugssuaq Peninsula and concerns "a deposit that will be the first or second largest in the world" of the two metals, chief executive Kurt House told CNN .
WHO FINANCES KOBOLD METALS
KoBold Metals was born in 2018, is based in California and is financed by several major entrepreneurs such as Michael Bloomberg, Jeff Bezos of Amazon and Bill Gates of Microsoft through the Breakthrough Energy Ventures fund, set up by Gates and dedicated to clean energy technologies. .
THE USE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
It differs from more traditional companies in the sector because it uses artificial intelligence to optimize the search process for fields.
THE PARTNERSHIP WITH BLUEJAY MINING
KoBold had signed an agreement with the British company Bluejay Mining for the exploration of metal deposits in Greenland, forming a 51-49 joint venture. And he said he would pay $ 15 million by the end of 2024 to fund the Disko-Nuussuaq project. According to Bluejay's assessments, the territory of West Greenland has geological similarities to the Norilsk region of Russia, where large quantities of nickel are produced.
WILL DRILLING START NEXT SUMMER?
CNN reported that KoBold and Bluejay's team are collecting soil samples and carrying out aerial surveys using drones and helicopters to measure the electromagnetic field of the subsurface and "map" the rock layers. The collected data is then analyzed by an artificial intelligence platform that will help select the places to drill, perhaps as early as next summer.
THE LOGISTIC ADVANTAGES OF THE MELTING OF ICE
Møller Stensgaard, chief executive of Bluejay, told CNN that there is concern about the impact of climate change in Greenland: the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world. But he also added that "climate change has made exploration and mining easier and more accessible". Due to the melting of the ice, in fact, it is easier to navigate the arctic waters: this situation allows KoBold both to get the heavy machinery it needs for drilling to the base, and then to market the metals it extracts. .
Mike Sfraga, chairman of the United States Arctic Research Commission, said “if these trends continue into the future, there is no doubt that more land will become accessible and that some of this land may have the potential to mining development ". He assured that mining is not in contradiction with environmental protection.
GREENLAND MINING RESERVES
According to the Geological Institute of Denmark and Greenland, the island's subsoil could contain important reserves of coal, gold, zinc, copper and rare earths. The objectives that the European Union, the United States and other governments around the world have set for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and the "sustainable" transformation of industry and transport place these countries in front of a serious problem of strategic vulnerability: to date, in fact, all of them depend on China for supplies of critical metals for the transition, particularly for rare earths.
THE STRATEGIC ADVANTAGES FOR US AND EU
From a strategic point of view, Greenland could be the perfect supplier of metals for Washington and Brussels: it is geographically part of North America, while politically it is linked to Denmark, a member of the European Union.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/energia/kobold-metals-groenlandia/ on Sat, 13 Aug 2022 06:56:48 +0000.