As Yukoners increasingly adopt low-carbon technologies like electric vehicles and solar panels to do our part to help address climate change, we face a question: is there more we can do to help with the green transition?
Generation, transmission, and storage of renewable energy rely heavily on critical minerals, which the Government of Canada definesi1 as building blocks for a clean and digitized economy. Although mining presents a number of environmental challenges, the world will need to develop more critical mineral deposits to meet projected demand for renewable energy.
Canada has committed to invest strategically to boost production and processing of critical minerals and to grow its manufacturing sector to supply, among other things, electric vehicle batteries. What will Yukon’s contribution be to these efforts?
The logical answer is raw materials. The Yukon is well-endowed with many of the critical metals needed for clean energy2. Take copper for example. Electric vehicles contain more than three times as much copper as conventional cars, and world demand for copper is expected to result in future supply shortfalls.
The Yukon is currently home to one copper producer – Minto Metals’ Minto copper mine. It produces high-grade copper, but in small quantities compared to Canada’s total production of the metal – it produces about 33,000 pounds of copper annually, compared to Canada’s total copper production of about one billion pounds.
There’s the potential for the Yukon to contribute much more. There is over 15 billion pounds of copper contained in 15 mineral deposits in the territory3. Two regions that are particularly well-endowed with copper are the Dawson Ranges, which hosts a number of significant porphyry deposits (including the Casino deposit), and the Finalyson Lake district, characterized by volcanogenic massive sulphide deposits. Western Copper and Gold’s Casino Project, to highlight one deposit, could produce more than four billion pounds of copper. At this point, the project is in the early stages of environmental assessment, but if it goes into production it would be the Yukon’s biggest mine ever built, and a significant contributor to Canada’s copper output.
The Yukon is also rich in zinc, with an estimated 60 billion pounds of the metal spread across more than 25 deposits2. Currently, only a small amount of zinc is being produced in the territory, by Alexco Resource’s Keno Hill complex, which is focused on producing silver. But that could change soon.
BMC’s Kudz Ze Kayah project is expected to produce 235 million pounds of zinc annually for a minimum of nine years of operation, along with 32 million pounds of copper and 56 million pounds of lead concentrates. The project recently cleared its environmental assessment, although First Nations continue to raise concerns about it and are seeking a judicial review of the approval.
Fireweed Zinc’s deposits at MacMillan Pass and Selwyn Chihong Mining’s Selwyn Project also contain significant zinc resources (6.7 billion pounds and 38.6 billion pounds, respectively).
Another notable deposit of critical minerals in the territory is Nickel Creek Platinum’s Nickel Shäw Property, which the company touts as one of the world’s largest undeveloped deposits of nickel-copper sulphide and platinum-group metals. Measured and inferred resources for the property include 1.9 billion pounds of nickel, 1.1 billion pounds of copper, 107 million pounds of cobalt, and 5.8 million ounces of platinum group metals and gold. With the exception of gold, these commodities are all critical minerals.
Yukon also hosts the Mactung and Logtung tungsten deposits; both are ranked among the world’s 10 largest undeveloped deposits of tungsten.
Of the 31 critical minerals on Canada’s critical minerals list, all but six have been documented in the Yukon. Many of the territory’s critical mineral occurrences have, to date, seen limited exploration, but as demand for these commodities increases, it is likely that we will see more.
The Government of Yukon supports responsible resource development while ensuring that the environment and First Nations’ rights and interests are protected. In fact, the government is currently working in partnership with Indigenous governments to develop new mining legislation that respects First Nations’ special relationship with the land. At the same time, our government is also committed to reducing the territory’s carbon emissions by 45 per cent by 2030 under its Our Clean Future climate change strategy.
There is clearly alignment between our carbon emissions goal and the opportunity to be a net contributor to the supply chain of critical minerals. Climate change, economic opportunity and a strong regulatory regime just may converge and allow Yukoners to boast that we are driving electric vehicles built with some metal mined close to home.
1. Natural Resources Canada, https://www.nrecan.gc.ca/our-natural-resources/minerals-mining/critical-minerals/23414
2. Natural Resources Canada, https://data.geology.gov.yk.ca/Reference/95924#InfoTab
3. Yukon Geological Survey, https://data.geology.yk.ca/Reference/95917#InfoTab
