MONTREAL — In Quebec's Laurentians region, a few kilometres from a wildlife reserve and just outside the town of Duhamel, lies a source of one of the world’s most sought after minerals for manufacturing electric vehicle batteries: graphite.
“They were telling us it was an ecological project for making electric batteries but now we have serious doubts,” said Saint-Hilaire, co-spokesperson for environmental activist group Coalition Québécoise des Lacs Incompatibles Avec L'Activité Minière. Responding to concerns, the company says it will be conducting feasibility and metallurgical studies over the next five years and will be subject to a review by Quebec's environment consultations office, known as the BAPE. It says it plans to begin construction by 2027.
Jean-François Boulanger, mineral engineering professor at Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue, says that the type of purified graphite Lomiko Metals plans to produce is indeed used for batteries; non-purified graphite can be used for a host of other applications, he said, including in steel production.