Download Debating Nultolerance Greenland represents a new frontier for

Debating Nultolerance
Greenland represents a new frontier for global mining companies. The thawing of permafrost
and melting of ice caps are improving the accessibility of mineral deposits previously
considered too expensive to exploit. Abundant mineral deposits of rare earth elements (REE),
uranium, copper, and aluminium have attracted global investors and fuelled predictions of a
future race to secure extractive rights.
This increased commercial interest around Greenland’s resources is fuelling an on going debate
around the moratorium on mining radioactive elements, such as uranium. Parliamentary
Resolution (Folketingsbeslutning) nr. 103 af 29. marts 1985 formally excluded nuclear energy
from the national energy grid and in 1988 , the Joint Committee on Mining in Greenland
(Fællesrådet vedrørende mineralske råstoffer i Grønland) made a decision not to issue licences
for uranium exploration or mining.
Whether what is called the ‘zero tolerance’ policy was debated before or after the 1988
‘nuclear’ elections is unclear – the minutes from the Committee meeting remain classified to
this day. But it is clear that the zero tolerance policy, which has been in place for almost 25
years, has been smart policy. The debate now is how to accommodate uranium in the current
drive for utilising Greenland’s wealth of natural resources.
Zero tolerance has both commercial and political implications. Commercially, the pressure to
relax this policy is not so that companies can mine Greenland’s uranium per se, but mine its
REE. REE are metals that are increasingly being used for manufacturing electronic devises used
by the automotive, communications, and defence industries. China currently controls close to
97% of the world’s supply of these elements and pre-feasibility studies indicate that the
Kvenefjeld project in Southwest Greenland alone could potentially supply 20% of global rare
earth metals demand. The mining of REE in Greenland could be a significant game-changer for
international markets and begin to break the Chinese monopoly on these minerals. The
complication for Greenland is that large amounts of uranium are present along with REE. To
mine REE, uranium will also have to be extracted. If Inatsisartut decides to issue a mining
licence for REE, it will inevitably have to consider allowing uranium production as well.
Politically, the dilemma of relaxing the policy to allow uranium extraction in Greenland is the
fact that uranium is the main ingredient of the nuclear fuel cycle, which produces fuel for
nuclear reactors, but also for nuclear weapons. Presently, Greenland does not have the
required export controls or regulatory system to meet domestic and international obligations
regarding nuclear safety, security and safeguards.
In 2010 Inatsisartut began to relax its nultolerance policy by granting permission to two
companies to include radioactive elements in the exploration phase while they were
prospecting and exploring for REE. One suggestion to accommodate the debate has been to
relax the policy to allow for the mining of uranium as a by-product - if the revenues from
uranium are lower than the revenues from REE, it could be mined. This addresses the
commercial interests regarding REE, but not the complex domestic and international political
implications it necessarily involves.
Given the rising global demand for natural resources, Greenland will be under increasing
pressure to issue a mining licence for Kvanefjeld sooner rather than later. Inatsisartut will be
debating the zero tolerance policy in its spring 2013 session. Whether a by-product or not,
uranium mining still requires a specific regulatory body with international obligations that have
to be met both by Greenland and Denmark before a mining licence for Kvanefjeld is issued – a
process that will take years to put in place (global experience is a minimum of five
years).Greenland could choose not to export uranium, but then it would have to deal with
issues of long-term uranium storage – which also require domestic regulation. Given that the
security and non-proliferation implications of uranium mining fall within the constitutional
remit of Denmark’s foreign policy while Greenland has full authority for its natural resources
under the 2009 Act on Self-Government, Nuuk and Copenhagen have to work together today to
ensure a Kingdom-wide approach to uranium governance.
France Bourgouin and Cindy Vestergaard