With a population of just 2,000, Ulefoss cannot look like a response to one of the current problems of Europe. But on the Southern Norwegian landscape, this dot is to directly velocate above the largest deposits of the rare earth elements of the continent.
Thesis hard-to-equer metals are important components of many modern technology and equipment, from fighter jets to electric vehicles, flat-screen TVs to digital cameras.
They are so important, in fact, that one of them has become a part of the European Union Law. And Becaus, right now, the European Union has no internal supply of its own, promises Ulefosss.
The hidden deposits are known as the Fen Complex, the surface is dull as about 100 meters (328 ft). Just below the school’s schools and houses. This is a difficult and potential controversial operation for the mining company rare Prithvi Norway (REN).
A resident said that to not be nominated, it has been said that three sites are searching for the municipal council as landfills are currently ponds for mines.
“For me, the existing ponds are almost sacred which are looking at the climate problems we have.
But Tor Aspen Simonsen, Rain’s community contact and a local Himola say the company has worked hard to address the concerns of the villagers.
“Many people are eager to new mining activity, hoping that this will bring back the job and bring people,” he said. “And we are working very closely to strengthen the price construction at the local level with the local business.”
So far, at least, the project has prevents such protests and attracting local government goods that often obstruct the initiative of the same infrastructure. The city’s past lends itself for this support.
Mining is a known quantity for ulefoss
Ulefoss is one of the oldest industrial communities in Europe, with iron mining history in the 1600s. The last pits closed in the 1960s, as small operations in Norway lost the ground for the forces of globalization and international trade.
“Ulafoss growing, many people will have new mining activity one day,” Simonsen said. “We don’t know now.”
But if Rain’s project proceeds according to the plan, that day may not be too far and the community may do the most important chapter of the community’s mining activity. The company says it has identified 9 million tonnes of rare earth oxide, which collects the world’s largest active mines in China and the United States.
The company expects to start operating on a full scale in 2030. But it can only remove the ear of these rare earth, which can do so without affecting or separating the village above.
To do this, Rain is planning to make what it says an ‘invisible mine’. About 4 km from the city center, it will dig a long, narrow diagonal tunnel directly into the heart of the fan deposit. Using automated drills, it wants the spacious, 300 meters of the 50 m section of the deposit.
This material wants to drop it directly into a crushed from the point of excavation. Once the pulsavar is made, that due to being built near the entrance of the tunnel, the separation will be sent back to the surface to the separation site to be separated.
How does underground mining affect the village?
Risk subsidy is accompanied by this approach. The newly created empty space below the ground may be geological instability, as the case was in Sweden’s Northi Town, Kiruna.
Kiruna iron ore mine has left the urban center with cracks and land deformation. Therefore in the early 2000s, it was decided that the city would need to be permanently moved, a process that is currently running. That experience has not been noted in Ulefoss.
Local resident Elli Landsal said, “There are some people who are sessions from other places. They are afraid that our house is about to fall into a big pit, or some is going to be destroyed.” “But I think now we have come to a place where more and more people are going from the negative side to the positive side.”
To avoid the same luck as Kiruna, Rain planned to return half of his waste materials to the holes left in the fen deposits, mixed with a binding agent to strengthen the rock.
An invisible mines can become a gamechagger for Europe
If the company manages to remove its ambitions, it will be a coup for the European Union as it currently runs to secure the internal supply of important materials, so it is used for renewable energy, aerospace and defense, which are most currently.
Therefore, supply chains are strongly under sugar control, which leaves the European Union which leaves the mercy of geopolitical stresses and with the future. This came into a rapid relief in April when Beijing imposed export control over rare earth elements and magnets.
Although Norway is not part of the European Union, it is a close aide with strong trading relations, and the newborn European rare earth supply chain will be the main goal to come out of Fen.
“We are far behind both in the European Union and in Norway,” said Tomas Norwol, State Secretary of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries of Norway. He highlights the importance of not having “lock out” of magnet supply chains. “Therefore it is important that we do it here with our resources.”
Fen’s new mine is still decades away from the dream of a third of Europe’s estimated demand for the company’s rare earth elements. But the company expects to start a small scale pilot operation next year. If all go to plan, it will become the first industrial source of rare earth elements in Europe.
Edited by: Tamsin Walker
