Timmins mine developer Canada Nickel is pocketing $3.4 million from Ottawa to pilot a technology that treats mine waste.
The funding comes through Ottawa’s Energy Innovation Program and is earmarked for the company’s patent-pending in-process tailings (IPT) carbonation process. It's a proprietary technology developed by Canada Nickel for its proposed Crawford open-pit nickel mine project, 40 kilometres northeast of Timmins.
As part of CEO Mark Selby's campaign to attract public and private funding to his nickel project, he's been pitching Crawford as one of the world’s great untapped nickel resources and as an emissions-free mine of the future that will follow responsible practices and mitigate any adverse environmental impacts.
The company has spent considerable time in the lab finetuning this IPT carbon capture technology to allow mine tailings (waste rock) to absorb carbon within just a few days. From its latest testwork, the company maintains this technology can store 1.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually during peak production.
Canada Nickel's goal is to create an ambitious “zero-carbon industrial cluster” of mining and manufacturing in the Timmins area.
Crawford is its leading project in its stable of nickel, copper and cobalt exploration projects around Timmins and across northeastern Ontario.
“This funding support is instrumental for innovation in advancing our shared goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and transitioning to a low-carbon economy,” said Selby in a Feb. 12 statement.
The company maintains it will have all its government permits for Crawford by this fall at which time a mine construction decision will be made. Construction, conceivably, could begin next year with first production in 2027.
“This funding support is instrumental for innovation in advancing our shared goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and transitioning to a low-carbon economy,” said Selby in a statement.
"The technologies needed to reach Canada's long-term economic and environmental goals are here to stay, thanks to the investments that the Government of Canada is making in state-of-the-art carbon capture and storage. These innovative clean energy projects will help grow the economy, fight climate change and create good jobs for Canadian workers,” said Nickel Belt MP Marc Serré, the parliamentary secretary to Energy and Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson.
