"Last week, President Donald Trump announced that he had established a framework surrounding a deal over Greenland's future, one that guarantees the U.S. will be "involved" in the island's mineral rights. But despite easing tensions with NATO countries after months of increasingly hostile rhetoric over ownership of the Denmark-administered territory, Trump's shrinking pool of friends in Europe could foil his plan to extract the valuable minerals hidden under the ice."
"That's one of three crucial obstacles the U.S. would likely have to overcome to gain access to Greenland's resource wealth, according to Wood Mackenzie, an energy and mining research firm. Greenland ranks eighth in the world for rare earth reserves, essential materials to developing advanced electronics, electric cars and high-performance magnets. That wealth has made it a tantalizing target for a U.S. administration eager to diversify supply chains away from China, which is currently the dominant supplier behind several key minerals."
"Arctic extremes would be a brutal adversary to any large-scale mining operation. Greenland's vast ice sheet limits exploration to the island's coastal fringes. But even there, freezing temperatures and minimal winter daylight make industrial operations nearly impossible. Equipment must endure subzero storage, while fuel and workers face remote transport via inadequate ports and nonexistent roads, WoodMac's analysts wrote. Even if a suitable site is found and manned, deposits lie under ice sheets up to a mile thick."
Greenland holds significant rare earth reserves, ranking eighth globally and supplying essential materials for electronics, electric vehicles and high-performance magnets. The U.S. has established a framework ensuring American involvement in Greenland's mineral rights as part of efforts to diversify supply chains away from China. China currently dominates supply of several key minerals and controls most global processing capacity. Large-scale mining faces severe Arctic logistical challenges: coastal-limited exploration, freezing temperatures, minimal winter daylight, subzero equipment demands, remote transport via inadequate ports and nonexistent roads, and deposits buried beneath ice up to a mile thick. European political resistance could further impede U.S. access.
Read at Fortune
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]