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The wheel of metal companionality. Main metals are in the inner circle and, with decreasing strenght of relationship in their geological occurrences, their companion metals are distributed outwards (Nassar et al. 2015).
Source publication
A new report from Nordic Innovation shows that the Nordics have a large and untapped potential as a sustainable supplier of the raw materials the world needs to become a low-carbon emission society.
The green energy transition is crucial to achieve the climate goals, and it involves a transition from non-renewables to renewables-based production,...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... metals and, in particular, the CRMs are so-called by-product metals or 'companion metals', all depending upon how their deposits formed and which are their preferred host mineral(s). Each CRM typically occurs in 'The wheel of metal companionality' ( Figure 6) together with one or two more common metals and can only be produced as part of production of such main metal(s) ( Nassar et al. 2015). Here we see for example that cobalt (Co) and nickel (Ni) are companions and to increase the production of cobalt it is necessary to increase the production of nickel. ...
Context 2
... metals and, in particular, the CRMs are so-called by-product metals or 'companion metals', all depending upon how their deposits formed and which are their preferred host mineral(s). Each CRM typically occurs in 'The wheel of metal companionality' ( Figure 6) together with one or two more common metals and can only be produced as part of production of such main metal(s) ( Nassar et al. 2015). Here we see for example that cobalt (Co) and nickel (Ni) are companions and to increase the production of cobalt it is necessary to increase the production of nickel. ...
Citations
... The land area of Finland, Norway, Sweden, and the ice-free part of Greenland forms perhaps the most significant domain of the CRM mine production, resource base, and potential in Europe. This is essentially grounded in that: 1) the bedrock is a product of multiple orogenic and non-orogenic events covering a very extensive part of the crustal history of the Earth, 2) it is, hence, similar to major mineral-rich terrains globally but uniquely for Europe, 3) the Nordic countries jointly comprise a land area (1.5 million km 2 ) similar in size to the most mineral-rich parts of Canada, USA, Australia, South Africa, or Brazil, 4) a continuous presence of modern mining, and 5) abundant locally developed leading-edge mineral exploration, mining and ore processing technology (e.g., Eilu, 2012;Boyd et al., 2016;Kolb et al., 2016;Eilu et al., 2021). ...
... Also, Finnish mines produce 95 % of the PGEs and 60 % of Cr, Norwegian mines 90 % of flake graphite, and Swedish mines 90 % of Te in Europe (Zhou & Damm 2020, BGS 2022. For CRM resources, commodity-specific, selected data are listed in Table 1, based on national mineral deposit databases and on European and global demand data (Eilu et al. 2021 andreferences therein, andBGS, 2022;USGS 2022). ...
... This review is largely based on joint work between GEUS, GTK, NGU, SGU, MMR (Govt. Greenland), Reykjavik University, and the National Energy Authority of Iceland -people crucial in the work are the authors of the report by Eilu et al. (2021), and in a two-decade long work in the FODD Project. The opinions expressed here are those of this author. ...
Finland, Norway, Sweden, and the ice-free part of Greenland jointly contain a large resource base of an extensive set of mineral commodities essential and critical for the economy of both the Nordic countries and the entire Europe. For some commodities, the volume of known and assumed resources is significant even in the global scale. The main reason for the Nordic resource richness is the diversified geology covering nearly all major
orogenic events from the Palaeoarchaean to the Holocene. These events can be linked to nearly all post-Archaean major stages of supercontinent evolution of the Earth. In the Archaean, the relationship is with superplume(?), rifting, and Neoarchaean supercontinent evolution.
... Cobalt is a metal that only rarely forms deposits where it is the main commodity and is more typically extracted as a by-product metal in several different deposit types, including magmatic Ni-Cu deposits and VMS deposits. Possible resources of nearly 12 000 t cobalt metal have been identified in Norway distributed over mainly smaller deposits (Table 1; Fig. 4; Eilu et al. 2021). The only cobalt mine that has been in operation in Norway is at the Skuterud (Modum) Co-deposit. ...
... Possible niobium resources in Norway are estimated to 22 100 t, which represent relatively few deposits (Table 1; Fig. 11; Eilu et al. 2021). Focused mining of niobium in Norway has only been carried out in the Fen carbonatite in southern Norway. ...
... The possible resources of REE in Norway have been calculated to 611 300 t, of which most is present in the Neoproterozoic Fen Carbonatite complex (Table 1; Fig. 9; Eilu et al. 2021). The REE resources in Fen are mainly hosted by REE-fluorocarbonates associated with the "rødbergite", a hematite-rich, altered ferrocarbonatite (Dahlgren 1994(Dahlgren , 2015. ...
Europe is mainly relying on imports of critical raw materials (CRM) for its industry, not least the vital ones for emerging green energy technologies. Among the main metal and mineral producers in Europe today, the Nordic countries (here: Greenland, Norway, Sweden and Finland) share a diverse geology with various deposit types formed over a long geological time span. This has led to large near-future potential with regards to CRM production. Based on current knowledge and datasets, we assess the Nordic geological potential for the CRMs which are specifically relevant for green technologies, namely: cobalt, graphite, hafnium, lithium, niobium, platinum-group metals, rare earth elements, silicon, tantalum, titanium, and vanadium, describing the most important deposits, their setting and characteristics. Several Nordic CRM resources stand out in a European and even global context, such as the giant REE(-Nb-Ta-Hf) deposits in Greenland, while the REE-Nb-(Hf) deposits at Fen (Norway) and Norra Kärr (Sweden) are very significant for Europe; Finland has the only major cobalt production, while Norway has very significant graphite and titanium resources and production. Furthermore, Sweden, Finland and Greenland have very large vanadium resources. Additionally, we conclude that the Nordic research and exploration potential for most CRMs is large.
Final published version (March 2023) downloadable by Open access at:
https://doi.org/10.1144/SP526-2022-55
... Based on the many contractionary trends in resources policy in Greenland and internationally, it is difficult to predict in any sort of detail, what Greenland mineral exploration looks like in 10 − 20 years' time. Internationally, it is very likely that there will be a continued focus on critical minerals and both the EU (EU 2020; Goodenough et al. 2016), the Nordic countries (Eilu et al. 2021), and the USA (US Geological Survey 2017, 2021; Humphries 2019) continue their assessments that have been ongoing for several decades. We will probably see a trend with critical supply of commodities used in wind and solar energy production, energy transportation and storage. ...
Greenland has a long mining and mineral exploration history and offers interesting possibilities for investors. There is still optimism in the mineral business, but successful examples are surprisingly few in the new millennium. Based on numerous new tables compiling information on companies, periods, targets, licenses, and costs, this paper gives a description of the past and present activities, the exploration companies involved, their main targets, their limited financial power, and their continued need for and search of investors and large industrial partners. An analysis of the key drivers at different levels is presented: analogues with Canada and elsewhere, dedicated prospectors looking for profit, specific strategic projects, commodity prices, new research results, co-financing, strategies, and regulations by authorities in Greenland and Denmark. Changes in political agenda in Greenland, Denmark, and internationally have had a strong influence on exploration activities in Greenland compared to other countries with an exploration industry, in some cases creating good incentives for investors, in other cases being showstoppers for future exploration and mining. This paper provides, for the first time ever, a summary of the total costs for mineral exploration in Greenland and the total revenue for the governments, and compares these numbers with the public investments in research, data acquisition, and direct investments in national companies.
... However, advanced As recovery could create a new source of As compounds, which will at least help to mitigate their critical supply risk. 31 Furthermore, considering the chemical similarity between As WTRs and As bound to Fe oxides in soils, advanced As recovery might also be applicable to remediate intense As soil contamination from industrial activities (e.g., gold mining 60 and wood preservation), 61 which could further lessen the supply risk of As compounds. ...
Iron (Fe)-based groundwater treatment removes carcinogenic arsenic (As) effectively but generates toxic As-rich Fe oxide water treatment residuals (As WTRs) that must be managed appropriately to prevent environmental contamination. In this study, we apply life cycle assessment (LCA) to compare the toxicity impacts of four common As WTR disposal strategies that have different infrastructure requirements and waste control: (i) landfilling, (ii) brick stabilization, (iii) mixture with organic waste, and (iv) open disposal. The As disposal toxicity impacts (functional unit = 1.0 kg As) are compared and benchmarked against impacts of current methods to produce marketable As compounds via As mining and concentrate processing. Landfilling had the lowest non-carcinogen toxicity (2.0 × 10-3 CTUh), carcinogen toxicity (3.8 × 10-5 CTUh), and ecotoxicity (4.6 × 103 CTUe) impacts of the four disposal strategies, with the largest toxicity source being As emission via sewer discharge of treated landfill leachate. Although landfilling had the lowest toxicity impacts, the stored toxicity of this strategy was substantial (ratio of stored toxicity/emitted As = 13), suggesting that landfill disposal simply converts direct As emissions to an impending As toxicity problem for future generations. The remaining disposal strategies, which are frequently practiced in low-income rural As-affected areas, performed poorly. These strategies yielded ∼3-10 times greater human toxicity and ecotoxicity impacts than landfilling. The significant drawbacks of each disposal strategy indicated by the LCA highlight the urgent need for new methods to recover As from WTRs and convert it into valuable As compounds. Such advanced As recovery technologies, which have not been documented previously, would decrease the stored As toxicity and As emissions from both WTR disposal and from mining As ore.
... Their character, economic potential, and possible contribution as supply to the battery production in EU is so far not well known although significant information exists for most of them in the form of scientific publications and exploration reports (e.g. Eilu et al., 2021;Hallberg & Reginiussen, 2020, Lauri et al., 2018. ...
The potential for battery metal production in Sweden is difficult to predict with the present geological knowledge. The Swedish bedrock are known to contain numerous occurrences of lithium, cobalt, nickel, manganese, vanadium, and graphite, but a waste majority of them have not been studied in any detail recently and data to estimate their potential is therefore limited. However, known alum shales and graphite schists probably constitute world class deposits of vanadium and graphite if extracted and processed in an economically feasible and environmentally responsible manner, while the potential to find significant manganese and cobalt deposits in Sweden is probably low. These metals, as well as vanadium, could rather be extracted from the waste material of active and historic mines. The geology of parts of Sweden also suggests that significant sulphidic nickel deposits might exist, as well as lithium-pegmatites similar to those in the same crustal domain in Finland.
[ENG]
The Duved Project for Local Communities 2. 0 aims to investigate models for how rural areas can be developed, and to some extent to stand as a model for future societies in broader perspectives. An ambitious, broad, and complex goal, to say the least. In this work, the project's work track digitalization has been confronted with and processed a wide range of issues, from a number of different perspectives. Central important lessons that have emerged in the work have repeatedly been about the importance of combining the specifics of the local situation with the larger, broader issues and processes that both contribute to, are involved in, and get their unique and specific form in the material reality that constitutes “the local”. But also in that such specificity has consequences: “resource systems” no longer become abstract concepts, or general replicable solutions, but questions about actual materials, people, works, processes, and so on.
When these become concrete, the “local” also turns out to be of varying size both as a result of prevailing structures and processes, and as a result of which scales are relevant to which issues. This report provides a series of deep-diving arguments for developing the challenges and opportunities of digitalization in a rural context, which consistently puts digitalization in a broader context in order to also have a deeper discussion about how a digitalization process can contribute to increased sustainability.
The report is in Swedish with an English summary
[SWE]
Duvedprojektet för lokalsamhällen 2.0 syftar till att undersöka modeller för hur landsbygden kan utvecklas, och i viss utsträckning stå som modell för framtida samhällen i bredare perspektiv. Ett minst sagt ambitiöst, brett,och komplext mål. I det arbetet har projektets arbetsspår digitalisering konfronterats med och bearbetat en stor spännvidd av frågor, utifrån ett antal olika perspektiv. Centrala viktiga lärdomar som vuxit fram i arbetet har återkommande handlat om vikten av att kombinera det specifika i den lokala situationen med de större, bredare frågorna och processerna som såväl bidrar till, involveras i, och får sin unika och specifika form i den materiella verklighet som utgör ”det lokala”. Men också i att sådan specificitet får följdverkningar: ”resurssystem” blir inte längre abstrakta begrepp, eller generella replikerbara lösningar, utan frågor om faktiska material, människor, arbeten, processer, och så vidare.
När dessa blir konkreta, visar sig också ”det lokala” vara av varierande storlek både som resultat av rådande strukturer och processer, och som resultat av vilka skalor som är relevanta för vilka frågor. Den här rapporten för en serie djupdykande resonemang för att utveckla utmaningar och möjligheter med digitalisering i en landsbygdskontext, som konsekvent sätter digitalisering i en bredare kontext för att på så sätt också föra en djupare diskussion om hur en digitaliseringsprocess kan bidra till ökad hållbarhet.
The presence of cobalt (Co) in sulphide deposits or sulphide-bearing iron oxide deposits in and around the Palaeoproterozoic Bergslagen ore province, south central Sweden, led to focused mining and extraction of this metal, particularly during the nineteenth century. Today, Co is considered a critical metal in the EU and among the more sought-after raw materials, not least due to its use in batteries for the rapidly increasing production of electric vehicles. Here we report new observations and data on Co concentrations in variably mineralised and not necessarily statistically representative samples from a suite of mainly skarn-hosted, at least locally, sulphide-dominated mineralisations from Bergslagen. While several localities that exhibit substantial Co concentrations represent deposits previously known to carry this metal (generally in a field/district or specifically in a mine), the majority are from mines or prospects in which the presence of Co have been hitherto unknown. Several of them share the enrichment of, e.g., Co and Cu, but the overall picture is one of more complex interrelations between the variable metal endowments in the known occurrences of Co in this province. While representing a modest dataset, our new observations complement previously available information on the occurrence of Co in Bergslagen and highlights both the need for, and potential of, new and more detailed studies on the distribution, mineralogy and origin of Co as well as other critical or near-critical metals in this and other ore provinces in Sweden.
The Nordic countries form a large resource base of an extensive set of mineral commodities critical for the economy of Europe. The main reason for the Nordic resource richness is the diversified geology covering nearly all major orogenic events from the Palaeoarchaean to the Cenozoic.
This study is aimed at substantiating the prospects of the Pitkäranta Mining District for indium, assessing its resources and elucidating the mineralogical and geochemical features of the distribution of indium in ores. The skarn deposits genetically related to the Salmi anorthosite-rapakivi granite batholith of Early Riphean age were studied. The deposits were divided into two groups, depending on the degree of the greisen alteration of skarns: 1) Sn-Zn-Cu-Fe deposits (the Old Ore Field, Kitelä, Hopunlampi, Heposelkä and Kulismajoki) with little or no greisenization and 2) Be-Sn-Zn deposits with fluorite and magnetite (the New Ore Field, Lupikko, Uksa and Ristiniemi) with well-defined greisenization. Deposits of group 1 are located in the external zone of the Salmi Batholith with a steeply plunging roof (Kitelä), and deposits of group 2 commonly lie above LiF granite domes unexposed by erosion, and are spatially associated with the dykes of these granites and stockscheiders. The distribution of In and associated elements in skarn ores and major ore minerals (sphalerite, chalcopyrite, magnetite and cassiterite) were studied by ICP MS, LA ICP MS and electron probe microanalysis. A total of over 200 samples were analyzed. The results obtained show that In is closely associated geochemically with Zn and Cd, less closely with Cu, Bi and Te is not associated practically with Mo, W, As, Sn and Ag. The content of In in ores from various mines varies from <1 ppm to 0.33 %, and the average In content is 66 ppm. These variations are mainly due to different sphalerite contents in ores and the degree of manifestation of propylitic and greisen alteration of ore-bearing skarns. The main indium-bearing mineral is sphalerite (average In content is 1927 ppm). Other high-In minerals (stannoidite and mawsonite) are uncommon (<0.01 %) and, therefore, do not markedly affect the In balance in ore. The same applies with rare exception to roquesite, the only indium's mineral known here. In-richest (up to 1.5 %) sphalerites with 3–6 % Fe, up to 300–400 ppm Mn and 0.1–0.2 % Co were identified in ore mineral associations of propylitized skarns, which contain no or small amounts of chalcopyrite. Sphalerite-chalcopyrite association is characteristic of roquesite. It occurs mainly in low-tin aposkarn greisens with abundant arsenopyrite-löllingite-sphalerite mineralization. The formation of roquesite seems to have been supported by indium, which was released upon the decomposition of its solid solutions in chalcopyrite and sphalerite and upon the hydrothermal-temperature effect of the late intrusion phases of the Salmi Batholith, LiF granites, on ores. The indium distribution pattern in sphalerite, which is also rich Cd, Ag and Au, shows that roquesite-free propylitized skarns with Sn-Zn-Fe mineralization have the greatest potential for indium and these metals in the zones where the roof of the Salmi Batholith plunges steeply (40–50°) and LiF granites do not occur (Kitelä, Kulismajoki and Hopunlampi deposits). Predicted indium resources in the sphalerite ores of the Pitkäranta Mining District are estimated at 1585–2536 t (as shown by various calculations), cadmium resources at 18424 t, silver resources at 226 t and gold resources at 2 t.
