A small Canadian mining company says it has found a way to mine nickel without spewing a ton of carbon into the atmosphere — an engineering challenge that no less than Elon Musk says is the key to producing the energy to power the world’s future transportation needs.
Canada Nickel Company is in the midst of setting up a facility near Timmins, Ont., that CEO Mark Selby said can extract the metal virtually carbon-free.
At least one prominent nickel user is excited. Musk, the CEO of electric car company Tesla, needs nickel to satisfy his company’s insatiable appetite for batteries.
The process hinges on the rock in question being what’s known as serpentine rock, a type of mineral-rich ore that sucks carbon out of the atmosphere when mined.
The company’s property sits on one of the dozen largest known deposits of nickel sulphide on Earth, and about 90 per cent of it is the type that can absorb carbon, Selby said in an interview with CBC News. “When they are exposed to air, they naturally absorb CO2 in a spontaneous reaction.”
That’s an obvious advantage, but the appeal doesn’t end there. Conventional mining often uses a lot of natural gas and diesel to power activities, but that’s not the case in Northern Ontario.
“All of the electricity … will be hydroelectric — and because we have access to it, we can also look at using hydroelectric trolley trucks and electric shovels in place of diesel-powered ones,” Selby said.
Many metal mines also have to ship the raw material over extensive distances for processing, and there’s a similar process for waste product. But that, too, won’t be the case at the company’s one-stop-shopping site.
“The beauty of it is that there’s nothing that we have to specifically invent here,” Selby said. “It’s just taking a bunch of existing technologies and taking advantage of the location of where we’re at.”
Workers examine nickel deposits in a mine in Sudbury, Ont., that uses conventional extraction methods. It’s in the same basin as Canada Nickel’s proposed development near Timmins that would use a new process that’s much less carbon intensive. (Norm Betts/Bloomberg News)
In order to produce the amount of nickel needed for an electric car battery, a conventional nickel mine would produce about four tonnes of carbon dioxide. Canada Nickel’s approach could get that down to practically zero.
The project faces a few hurdles, including environmental assessments by local authorities, as well as a number of internal assessments about profitability and determining exactly how much carbon dioxide the rock in question will be able to remove from the atmosphere. It’s on track for approval sometime next year and to start producing maybe a year after that if all goes well.
Project could bring hundreds of jobs
The result could be one of the largest nickel sulphide mines in the world, a $1 billion investment that will produce hundreds of jobs for decades to come for the local economy — and take a much lighter environmental toll than other forms of nickel mining.
“Timmins is one of a very handful of unique locations globally that could really make that happen,” Selby said.
Musk had a message for nickel miners in the company’s second-quarter earnings call earlier this month:
“I’d just like to re-emphasize, any mining companies out there, please mine more nickel,” Musk said. “Wherever you are in the world, please mine more nickel and don’t wait for nickel to go back to some high point that you experienced some five years ago or whatever, go for efficiency.”
Nickel has a high energy density, which makes it especially useful for cathodes. The metal is doubly in demand because Tesla is in the process of phasing out the use of cobalt in its batteries.
“Tesla will give you a giant contract for a long period of time if you mine nickel efficiently and in an environmentally sensitive way. So, hopefully, this message goes out to all mining companies. Please get nickel,” Musk said.
About half of the nickel in the world currently comes from the South Pacific — either from the Philippines, Indonesia or the tiny island nation of New Caledonia. On paper, Canada Nickel’s facility would be an ideal supplier for Tesla because it is closer to the company’s production chain in California and to Nevada, where it makes batteries — which is perhaps why Musk welcomed news of the project on his Twitter feed recently.
Selby said the idea for the project has been in the works for a while, but the interest Musk has drawn to the venture could be serendipitous because of the attention he commands.
“It’s good to have a good idea, but it’s also good to get the timing right,” he said.
CALGARY – TC Energy Corp. has lowered the estimated cost of its Southeast Gateway pipeline project in Mexico.
It says it now expects the project to cost between US$3.9 billion and US$4.1 billion compared with its original estimate of US$4.5 billion.
The change came as the company reported a third-quarter profit attributable to common shareholders of C$1.46 billion or $1.40 per share compared with a loss of C$197 million or 19 cents per share in the same quarter last year.
Revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 30 totalled C$4.08 billion, up from C$3.94 billion in the third quarter of 2023.
TC Energy says its comparable earnings for its latest quarter amounted to C$1.03 per share compared with C$1.00 per share a year earlier.
The average analyst estimate had been for a profit of 95 cents per share, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
BCE Inc. reported a loss in its latest quarter as it recorded $2.11 billion in asset impairment charges, mainly related to Bell Media’s TV and radio properties.
The company says its net loss attributable to common shareholders amounted to $1.24 billion or $1.36 per share for the quarter ended Sept. 30 compared with a profit of $640 million or 70 cents per share a year earlier.
On an adjusted basis, BCE says it earned 75 cents per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of 81 cents per share in the same quarter last year.
“Bell’s results for the third quarter demonstrate that we are disciplined in our pursuit of profitable growth in an intensely competitive environment,” BCE chief executive Mirko Bibic said in a statement.
“Our focus this quarter, and throughout 2024, has been to attract higher-margin subscribers and reduce costs to help offset short-term revenue impacts from sustained competitive pricing pressures, slow economic growth and a media advertising market that is in transition.”
Operating revenue for the quarter totalled $5.97 billion, down from $6.08 billion in its third quarter of 2023.
BCE also said it now expects its revenue for 2024 to fall about 1.5 per cent compared with earlier guidance for an increase of zero to four per cent.
The company says the change comes as it faces lower-than-anticipated wireless product revenue and sustained pressure on wireless prices.
BCE added 33,111 net postpaid mobile phone subscribers, down 76.8 per cent from the same period last year, which was the company’s second-best performance on the metric since 2010.
It says the drop was driven by higher customer churn — a measure of subscribers who cancelled their service — amid greater competitive activity and promotional offer intensity. BCE’s monthly churn rate for the category was 1.28 per cent, up from 1.1 per cent during its previous third quarter.
The company also saw 11.6 per cent fewer gross subscriber activations “due to more targeted promotional offers and mobile device discounting compared to last year.”
Bell’s wireless mobile phone average revenue per user was $58.26, down 3.4 per cent from $60.28 in the third quarter of the prior year.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
TORONTO – Canada Goose Holdings Inc. trimmed its financial guidance as it reported its second-quarter revenue fell compared with a year ago.
The luxury clothing company says revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 29 totalled $267.8 million, down from $281.1 million in the same quarter last year.
Net income attributable to shareholders amounted to $5.4 million or six cents per diluted share, up from $3.9 million or four cents per diluted share a year earlier.
On an adjusted basis, Canada Goose says it earned five cents per diluted share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of 16 cents per diluted share a year earlier.
In its outlook, Canada Goose says it now expects total revenue for its full financial year to show a low-single-digit percentage decrease to low-single-digit percentage increase compared with earlier guidance for a low-single-digit increase.
It also says it now expects its adjusted net income per diluted share to show a mid-single-digit percentage increase compared with earlier guidance for a percentage increase in the mid-teens.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
