In Greenland, 200 Companies Have Mining Licenses; 2 Mines Exist. Good Luck W. Your Big Plan, President Fuckstick
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“I’m skeptical, borderline cynical, that [the framework is] going to make any difference,” said Michael Jardine, managing director of Skylark Minerals. The Australia-based company recently ended a two-decade-old plan to develop a zinc mine in Greenland, a decision that Jardine attributed to high costs associated with energy, transportation, labor, and local political uncertainty. While more than 200 mining companies have exploration licenses in Greenland, only two mines are currently active.
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According to many scientists who have conducted research on the island, those harsh realities are becoming more intense as the Arctic warms faster than any other place on Earth. For example, an increasing number of rain-on-snow events, combined with warmer air, is triggering so-called slush avalanches. Due to their mass, the long distances they can flow, and their difficulty to forecast, these avalanches threaten people, equipment, and roads.
Rapid thawing of permafrost is undermining the stability of hillsides, leading to rockslides. In 2017, a massive landslide in Greenland’s Karrat Fjord set off a tsunami that wiped out 45 structures in a tiny fishing village and killed four people. And at least 21 wildfires have burned Greenland’s tundra since 2008, darkening glaciers with soot and accelerating a meltdown that is being further exacerbated by algal blooms on the ice shelf, which are in turn fed by mineral dust liberated by high winds. Historically, wildfires have been rare in Greenland; scientists attribute their apparent uptick to the Arctic’s rising temperatures, drier summers, and an increase in plant life as permafrost melts. The 60 to 70 glacial lakes that are locked below Greenland’s ice appear to be stable for now, but scientists are concerned that this may change as melting overwhelms them with runoff. In 2014, the weight of 90 million cubic meters of glacial runoff — equivalent to nine hours of water pouring over Niagara Falls — created a crater 85 meters deep over a two-square-kilometer area in a remote area of northern Greenland.
“Greenland is a very unstable environment,” said geomorphologist Paul Bierman, author of When the Ice Is Gone, a book that describes the geological and geopolitical history of the island and how climate change will shape its future. “Everything close to the shoreline will be vulnerable to permafrost thaw, rockslides, avalanches, and the tsunamis they could trigger.”
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https://e360.yale.edu/features/greenland-critical-minerals
