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Fearing toxic waste, Greenland ended uranium mining. Now, they could be forced to restart – or pay $11bn

 Fearing toxic waste, Greenland ended uranium mining. Now, they could be
forced to restart – or pay $11bn. The island is being sued by a mining
company over its decision, and faces paying nine times its annual budget in
damages if it loses.

From the iceberg-filled bay, the mountains above the
town of Narsaq, in south-west Greenland, appear unremarkable. In the
September warmth, clumps of grass cling to the smooth, grey peaks shaped
over centuries by an enormous ice cap that lurks behind the fjords on the
horizon. Brightly coloured homes are scattered around the shoreline below,
home to a community of just over 1,300 people.

Were it not for a mining
outhouse on the edge of town, there would be little indication of the
potential riches in the rock. The range is home to one of the largest
undeveloped deposits of rare-earth minerals and uranium in the world: the
Kvanefjeld site, or Kuannersuit in Greenlandic. It contains high
concentrations of metals such as terbium and neodymium, which are used to
manufacture permanent magnets in wind turbines and electric cars. Every
major power in the world is scrambling to get access to these minerals for
carbon-free energy and transport.

A proposed open-pit mine would be worth
about $7.5bn (£6bn) if it went ahead, according to the site operator,
generating income for the island’s economy. But when the mining company
acquired the site in 2007, the impact of potentially radioactive waste
contaminating drinking water and nearby sheep farms alarmed local people.
They feared that the “tailings” – a slurry of ground-up waste from
mining – would be laced with radioactive waste and could contaminate
waterways or spread as dust in the air.

 Guardian 5th March 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/mar/05/greenland-mining-energy-transition-minerals-environmental-laws-uranium-rare-earth-toxic-waste-investor-state-dispute-settlement-isds-aoe

March 7, 2025 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | ARCTIC, Uranium