Greater than a decade in the past, Canadian miners prospecting for diamonds in western Greenland noticed on the horizon an enormous white hump.
They referred to as it White Mountain and shortly found it was a deposit of anorthosite, a salt-and-pepper shade mineral utilized in paints, glass fibers, flame retardants and different industries. The identical mineral creates a ghostly glow on the moon’s floor.
The White Mountain deposit proved to be a number of miles lengthy and several other miles huge, and “solely God is aware of how deep it goes,” mentioned Bent Olsvig Jensen, the managing director of Lumina Sustainable Supplies, the corporate mining the realm.
Lumina is backed by European and Canadian buyers, however Mr. Jensen mentioned it wasn’t straightforward to show the deposit right into a mountain of money.
“You can not do exploration all yr spherical; you might be within the Arctic,” he defined.
He advised of fierce winds grounding helicopters and knocking out communications, pack ice blocking ships and temperatures dropping to such a dreadful low — generally minus 40 levels Fahrenheit — that the hydraulic fluid powering the corporate’s digging machines “turns into like butter.”
Sitting in Lumina’s humble places of work in Nuuk, Greenland’s capital, with moist snow flakes scissoring down exterior the home windows, Mr. Jensen introduced a dose of sobriety to all of the speak of Greenland because the land of incalculable mineral riches. He famous that although the island has dozens of exploratory initiatives, there are solely two energetic mines: his and a small gold operation.
The large semiautonomous island within the Arctic has seized the world’s consideration after President Trump insisted in January that the USA take it over. A part of the attraction is its uncommon earths minerals which can be important to high-tech industries and a supply of competitors internationally.
China dominates on the earth’s essential minerals, and has severely restricted the export of certain minerals to the USA. The Trump administration, decided to safe mineral belongings abroad, has turned to high-pressure techniques. The pure assets settlement that Ukraine was all set to signal with the administration till the talks spectacularly blew up on Friday was centered on essential minerals.
The European Union is simply as fixated. It not too long ago signed a strategic minerals cope with Rwanda, which is suspected of fomenting instability in mineral-rich Congo subsequent door.
It needs to be no shock, then, that Mr. Trump and his allies are enthusiastic about Greenland’s mineral scene. Vice President JD Vance has spoken of Greenland’s “unbelievable pure assets,” and Republican senators not too long ago held a listening to on “Greenland’s Geostrategic Importance,” highlighting its uncommon earths.
Tech giants like Invoice Gates and Jeff Bezos, together with some of Mr. Trump’s allies, together with Howard Lutnick, his commerce secretary, have invested in corporations prospecting right here. In response to a recent Danish study, 31 of 34 supplies outlined as essential by the European Union, like lithium and titanium, are discovered on the island.
However for each sq. on the periodic desk that Greenland can fill, there’s an excellent longer listing of challenges.
Apart from the intense climate, the island has fewer than 100 miles of roads, solely 56,000 residents (which implies a tiny labor pool) and some small ports.
Equally daunting for miners is Greenland’s environmentalist foyer. Many Greenlanders say they need more mining to change into economically and politically impartial of Denmark, which retains it afloat with a whole bunch of tens of millions of {dollars} in annual subsidies.
However Greenlanders have additionally expressed warning about any new heavy trade. They’re protecting of their atmosphere, which is being shaken up by local weather change: The Arctic is warming practically 4 occasions as quick as the remainder of the world, which is able to almost certainly make the mineral assets extra accessible.
The island’s governing political occasion swept into workplace 4 years in the past on an environmentalist platform and shut down one of the crucial promising mining initiatives. The subsequent elections are on March 11, and, together with independence from Denmark and nearer relations with the USA, safeguarding the atmosphere is on the prime of the agenda.
For a lot of Greenlanders, nature is part of their id and one thing they hook up with by way of fishing, looking, mountaineering and spending time outdoor.
“We’ve lived with nature for so long as we now have been right here, in sustainable methods,” mentioned Ellen Kristensen, an environmentalist in South Greenland.
Not removed from her neighborhood is the small gold mine. Amaroq Minerals, which is backed by Icelandic, Canadian and different Western buyers, extracted its first gold in November. Its chief government, Eldur Olafsson, says the remoteness of his mine means the corporate must be self-sufficient in power, provides and transportation — nearly all the things.
“Working in Greenland is not like the rest,” he mentioned.
The Danes, who’ve managed Greenland for greater than 300 years, have had blended success. Danish engineers found an enormous provide of cryolite within the late 18th century. Cryolite was once a element of aluminum manufacturing, and Danish operators mined it till the Nineteen Eighties, when artificial options grew to become extensively out there.
The Danes made billions, and lots of Greenlanders say they had been exploited. The identical complaints have been lodged towards a big coal mine that Denmark developed final century, although it closed within the Seventies.
Greenland is plagued by shuttered initiatives and deserted websites. A ruby mine close to the east coast closed in 2022 amid hovering money owed. Across the similar time, Greenland’s authorities formally abandoned its oil ambitions, citing the dearth of business viability and the unacceptable environmental dangers.
Even the seek for diamonds has but to result in a commercially viable mine.
Nowadays, a lot of the curiosity lies in uncommon earths, however a giant uncommon earth mine in southern Greenland stays a cautionary story.
Vitality Transition Minerals, an Australian mining enterprise with a large funding from a Chinese language firm, claims its web site in Greenland has one of many world’s largest deposits of uncommon earth oxides. The corporate spent greater than $100 million creating it, solely to have Greenland’s governing occasion, Inuit Ataqatigiit, which had campaigned on killing the mission, do precisely that.
The opposition was strongest in Narsaq, the city closest to the positioning, the place residents feared radioactive contamination. Uranium is commonly present in deposits of uncommon earth minerals, and the priority was that the mine may ship poisonous mud floating over the neighborhood.
Among the many residents main the protests was Ms. Kristensen, whose husband is a sheep farmer. “No one desires to purchase meat from sheep grazing subsequent to a uranium mine,” she mentioned.
Like many others, she marched by way of Narsaq’s snowy streets carrying brilliant yellow indicators that mentioned in Greenlandic language, “Urani? Naamik,” which implies: “Uranium? No.”
The mining company says that its operations are safe and that it has accomplished copious environmental research proving so. It’s preventing the choice, and the dispute is tied up in arbitration and court docket instances.
China has invested in different joint ventures in Greenland, however none have panned out, both due to stalled manufacturing or heavy monetary burdens. Nonetheless, China’s chief, Xi Jinping, has pushed to increase cooperation with Denmark within the Arctic, selling his nation as a polar energy.
China has constructed analysis stations and icebreakers to stamp its presence at every finish of the earth, and it has proposed a “Silk Road on Ice” — an internet of transport routes and investments that may embed China within the Arctic.
A part of the explanation Mr. Trump is so covetous of Greenland is he desires to field out China. He mentioned that China has “boats in all places.”
One Greenlander working to assist Mr. Trump is Jørgen Boassen, a bricklayer who says he has adopted American politics since he was a youngster and was immediately drawn to Mr. Trump. Mr. Boassen campaigned door to door for him in the USA final election and was invited to inauguration actions.
Mr. Trump, Mr. Boassen says, is “a person value betting on.”
In January, Mr. Boassen helped set up a go to by Donald Trump Jr. to Nuuk. The youthful Trump insisted it was a non-public journey, and it appears he didn’t do a lot moreover sightseeing for a number of hours and internet hosting a dinner for Trump supporters and a few individuals off the street.
Just a few weeks later, Mr. Boassen guided round Tom Dans, an adviser on Arctic affairs to Mr. Trump throughout his first time period. Mr. Dans mentioned he had come to discover funding alternatives and join with entrepreneurs.
Mr. Dans mentioned Greenland’s minerals scene was “very thrilling.” However he cautioned, “There’s no fast buck.”
