Some of the richest men in the world are funding a massive treasure hunt, complete with helicopters and transmitters, off the west coast of Greenland.
The climate crisis is melting Greenland at an unprecedented rate, which – ironically – is creating an opportunity for investors and miners seeking a treasure trove of critical minerals capable of driving the transition to green energy.
Several billionaires, including Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg and Bill Gates, among others, are betting that beneath the surface of the hills and valleys of Greenland’s Disko Island and the Nuussuaq Peninsula are important minerals to power hundreds of millions of electric vehicles.
“We are looking for a deposit that will be the first or second largest deposit of nickel and cobalt in the world,” Kurt House, CEO of Kobold Metals, told CNN .
The disappearance of Arctic ice – on land and in the ocean – highlights a unique dichotomy: Greenland is ground zero for climate change impacts, but it could also become key to obtaining the metals needed to provide solutions to the crisis.
The billionaire club is financially supporting Kobold Metals, a California-based mineral exploration company and startup, company representatives told CNN .
Bezos, Bloomberg and Gates did not respond to requests from the CNN for comment. Kobold partnered with Bluejay Mining to find the rare and precious metals in Greenland that are needed to build electric vehicles and massive batteries to store renewable energy.
Thirty geologists, geophysicists, cooks, pilots and mechanics are camped at the site where Kobold and Blujay are looking for buried treasure.
The teams are collecting soil samples, using drones and helicopters with transmitters to measure the electromagnetic field underground and map the rock layers below. Experts are using artificial intelligence to analyze the data to pinpoint exactly where to drill as early as next summer.
“It is a concern to witness the consequences and impacts of climate change in Greenland,” Bluejay Mining CEO Bo Møller Stensgaard told CNN . “But generally speaking, climate change in general has made exploration and mining in Greenland easier and more affordable.”
Stensgaard said that as climate change is making sea ice-free periods longer, teams can ship heavy equipment and metals to the global market more easily.
Melting terrestrial ice is exposing lands that have been buried under ice for centuries and millennia – but could now become a potential site for mineral exploration.
“As these trends continue into the future, there is no doubt that more land will become accessible and some of that land may have the potential for mineral development,” Mike Sfraga, chairman of the US Arctic Research Commission, told CNN .
Greenland may have good reserves of coal, copper, gold, rare earth elements and zinc, according to the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland.
The Greenland government, according to the agency, has carried out several “resource assessments across the ice-free land” and “recognises the country’s potential to diversify the national economy through mineral extraction.”
Sfraga said the pro-mining stance does not fail to consider the environment, which is critical to Greenland’s culture and livelihood.
“The government of Greenland supports the responsible, sustainable and economically viable development of its natural resources to include the mining of a wide range of minerals,” said Sfraga.
Stensgaard noted that these critical minerals “will provide part of the solution to address these challenges” that the climate crisis presents. Meanwhile, the disappearance of Greenland’s ice – which is raising sea levels – is a major concern for scientists studying the Arctic.
“The big concern about Arctic ice is that it has been disappearing in the last few decades and is predicted to be completely gone in 20 to 30 years,” Nathan Kurtz, a NASA scientist who studies sea ice, told the BBC. CNN . “In the fall, what used to be year-round Arctic ice cover will now just be seasonal ice cover.”
Source: CNN Brasil
