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Sudbury mining research centre gets $40M boost from federal government

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Sudbury -

Help will soon be on the way to help further Canadian mining innovation.

Tuesday afternoon at Glencore, the federal government announced $40 million for the Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation (CEMI)'s Mining Innovation Commercialization Accelerator (MICA) Network.

It's just a small portion of the $112 million price tag that also includes private investment.

"This is a very substantial announcement for Greater Sudbury and northern Ontario," said Nickel Belt MPP and Parliamentary Secretary for Natural Resources Marc Serré.

"It has a national implication when you talk about sustainable mining, when you look at greenhouse gas emissions, when you look at energy costs -- and when you look at making mines safer."

Stakeholders will be using the network to accelerate development and commercialization of innovation technologies, to make it more productive and more sustainable.

It's expected the funds will help to support the creation of 900 new jobs, 12 new businesses and 30 new products.

Kevin McAuley works at Glencore and sits on the board at CEMI, which first applied for the grant in 2018.

"It'll allow us to provide funding to the small companies that need that incentive to help them develop that technology a little bit further," said McAuley. "A big part of what the mining companies do, by all of us coming together and committing to the fact that we will buy this."

Frontier Lithium is also a sponsor in the endeavour. Its president, Trevor Walker, said this is a good day for his industry and sustainability.

"It's not just about research, but ultimately commercialization so that's really checking all of the right boxes," said Walker.

"You know for a small company like us, it can have a big impact. It can take things that are just an idea and you can actually get a chance to test them out, do the R and D and prove it," said Todd Pratt of FVT Research.

MICA will be headquartered in Sudbury and operate throughout the country. The initiative is expected to extend the operational lives of existing mines while reducing the time it takes to bring new mineral deposits into production.

It'll also mobilize investments of at least $100 million from the private sector, expanding membership to more than 350 Canadian businesses and organizations.

The announcement comes just before a pending election call, but Serré said it has been in the works for some time.

"So these types of projects take a long time," he said. "We were hoping to do an announcement in 2019 two years after it started -- so this is just a process that takes a while."

He said nickel will be needed in the new green economic recovery as the country switches to things like electrical vehicles and solar panels.

Those on hand said this is just the beginning of what the industry will need to do to maintain a leading role in the world. Climate change is impacting the planet fast, so they also must act. 

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