Danish Parliament perhaps to lift 25 year ban on uranium mining
http://cphpost.dk/news/national/gove...ning-greenland
A majority of the Danish Parliament is now ready to lift its ban on the mining and export of uranium within the Kingdom of Denmark, if the Parliament of Greenland requests it. The ban came in the 80's when anti-nuclear sentiment was on its highest, and when Denmark also decided never have any nuclear power plants, and almost banned all research using any form of radioactive material. Currently, the lifting such a ban is part of the Greenlandic election talks and a majority to want to have them lifted might form this spring.
The ban on uranium mining has no effect on Denmark proper, but Greenland does have the fifth largest proven reserves of uranium, and would thus become one of the largest exporters of it on the world stage. Another advantage of the lift of this ban would be the mining of other Rare Earth Elements (REE), as they are often found in the same ground as uranium. The largest proven reserves of REEs in Greenland, are at Kvanefjeld where it is estimated that a mine there would be able to provide 43,000 tons a year for at least 100 years. For comparison, that is equivalent to around half of the Chinese production.
Greenland has been moving towards this for some time. For the last 5 years, Greenland has repeatedly asked for extended rights to mine its underground, but all of these request were simply ignored. A few months ago the Greenland parliament has relaxed its immigration laws to potentially get cheap labour from other countries, and allowed them to be paid much lower salaries than the rest of the Kingdom. They have also opened up for Chinese investments, although the Danish parliament might overturn this, as a majority is forming to establish a Danish run mining company, partially owned by the Danish state. Greenland might also have some of the largest offshore oil reserves left on the planet, although Greenland has already been granted full ownership and drilling rights to that. Currently there are no agreements in place that describes the distribution of the ownership of any REEs.
Greenland has previously had smaller scale mining of gold, iron, lead, zink, rubies, damonds and olivine. From the 1940's to 1960's one mine in Greenland provided all of the Earths natural cryolite, a mineral essential in aluminium mining. Only the cryolite mine produced any real profits.
This move might potentially shift power on the geopolitical scale of resource supply, and could potentially alleviate any potential problems that Europe will have of the supply of REEs for decades, and the export of uranium will be allowed as long as it only follows the conventions that the Kingdom of Denmark has joined.
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Originally Posted by Menelik_I
