Every day we need more and more minerals

Every day we need more and more minerals

Technological changes to try to avoid climate change force us to use more and more minerals to build the enormous number of electric motors, batteries, etc... that will be needed in the next decades.

And this means finding new mines that provide a part of these materials, since another part will be obtained from the recovery of existing materials.

Searching for mining deposits is not something obvious or easy. Until now, the minerals that were closest to the surface have been found, but as the deposits become scarcer, it is necessary to look for them at greater depths and that is much more complex and laborious, in time and money.

Until now, mining companies analyzed the configuration of the land, and made prospections to determine with greater precision the richness of the possible mineral hidden under the surface of the earth, but that is changing with new technologies, and new companies that have been added. to these tasks.

I have seen the website of the Company Kobold Metals   https://www.koboldmetals.com/  which is one of the new ones in this field of mineral prospecting, and I found it very interesting            

This company makes extensive use of AI to analyze the multitude of existing information about the terrain and its geology, as well as using drones and helicopters that measure induced currents under the surface by means of a 35-meter coil, and thus detect possible existing minerals.

I have expressed it in a very simple way, but the process is very complicated and also requires additional of many hundreds samples from meters below ground.

The way this company operates is very curious and different, since they are not mineral extractors (they do not carry out mineral extraction mining work), but only mineral detectors.

Before starting to work, they obtain an extraction permit, and when they confirm the existence of useful mineral for their exploitation, they reach agreements with mining companies so that they carry out the work typical of mining, which is the extraction of the mineral.

Kobold is a technology company supported by Stanford University, and offers its services all around the world. It has received a few hundred million dollars of financing from institutional investors (among them Bill Gates), and it seems that it has very good business prospects for the next few years, as the mineral needs are only increasing.

I liked the idea of the Kobold people, because it is original and different, and I hope they do very well.