A Canadian cleantech company this month signed a 10-year agreement.
The agreement grants Arca Climate Technologies the right to evaluate ultramafic waste rock and mine tailings at the Turnagain Nickel Project in British Columbia with an aim remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Arca is an industrial mineralization company based out of Vancouver which leverages pre-existing infrastructure and alkaline waste to accelerate the natural process of carbon mineralization.
The company, founded on research from Dr. Greg Dipple at the University of British Columbia, is working with Giga Metals Corporation and the Mitsubishi Corporation on the Turnagain Project.
Nickel was identified as a “critical mineral” by the Canadian government in 2022, but its extraction isn’t exactly eco-friendly by default. That’s where Arca’s tech stack comes in to play.
Giga Metals estimates that approximately 1.3 billion tonnes of ultramafic material will be generated at the site once mining commences. Arca’s technologies activate minerals found in such rock, accelerating the natural geochemical process of carbon mineralization, which transforms atmospheric CO2 into stable solid mineral form.
“As Canada seeks to strengthen our economy and our position as a leading producer of critical minerals, Turnagain stands out as one of the largest undeveloped nickel resources in the country,” stated Paul Needham, chief executive officer of Arca.
Giga Metals has “been working with Arca Principals on carbon sequestration for more than a decade,” according to Scott Lendrum, chief executive officer of Giga Metals.
“We are pleased to formalize our arrangement,” Lendrum stated, “to allow both companies to focus on what they do best: produce nickel concentrate with high ESG credentials, and maximize the permanent sequestration of carbon dioxide by converting mine waste into reactive sequestration minerals.”
Working with Arca “allows us to evaluate emerging technologies that could enhance the environmental and conomic performance of the Turnagain Project while supporting innovation in the mining sector,” he added.
By “pairing critical minerals development with permanent carbon dioxide removal,” Needham suggests that “Giga Metals and Arca will demonstrate a new mining paradigm with enhanced project economics and broader societal benefit.”
It is estimated that the deployment of Arca technologies on site will create the lifetime potential to remove up to 220 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.