RONTO (miningweekly.com) – Among the many challenges facing as many as 20 mining companies holding claims in the Ring of Fire (RoF) mineral region of Northern Ontario, the most significant might be the limited infrastructure.
However, besides having to deal with exploration, project planning, First Nations negotiations and local capacity building, project proponents were under mounting pressure from stricter legislation, environmental lobby groups and locals to include renewable-energy sources in their future project plans.
Ontario government RoF Secretariat senior policy adviser Blaine Bouchard on Thursday told delegates at the Renewables and Mining Summit and Exhibition, in Toronto, that the nine-member group of Matawa group First Nations, who inhabit the province’s Far North, had made it clear in multilateral discussions that current diesel-based electricity generation was prohibitive of economic development and posed serious environmental impacts.
The First Nations living in the remote region were completely dependent on diesel electricity generation for their energy needs, owing to the province’s energy grid only reaching as far north as the Dryden region.
Mining sector expansion was the main driver of growth in electricity demand in the area, through the expansion of existing mines and the development of new mines in the RoF, as well as growth in the industries and communities that support the mining sector.
Existing customers currently fully utilised the capacity of the electricity transmission system serving the area.
Bouchard said the province had committed to developing infrastructure such as electricity, broadband Internet, and transport in the Far North, and funding was indeed already flowing for a feasibility study looking into the best energy strategy for the region.
He referred to the North of Dryden draft regional resources plan, which was completed by the Ontario Power Authority in August 2013, which contemplated two potential scenarios.
Bouchard said the report proposed to either build a new transmission line north of Dryden to Pickle Lake, near to the RoF area, or to upgrade existing lines from Dryden to Ear Falls, and then on to Red Lake.
REGIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE
The RoF, in the McFaulds Lake area of the James Bay Lowlands – about 553 km north-east of Thunder Bay – has attracted much attention over the past couple of years, with exploration drills turning for minerals, including chrome, nickel, copper and platinum-group metals. It included the largest deposit of chromite ever discovered in North America, which is a critical ingredient in stainless steel.
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