Video: Fast-track mining permits to hit 2050 green targets, Quartermain urges

Urgent regulatory reforms are required to speed up mine permitting if the West is to meet its energy transition goals, Canadian Mining Hall of Fame inductee Robert Quartermain told The Northern Miner’s Energy Transition Metals Summit in Washington, D.C.

“If we are serious about a clean earth by 2050, we need new mines for energy transition metals, specifically copper and lithium,” he said on April 29. “This requires reducing the permitting timeline from 12-15 years to just five years to effect those changes now.”

Quartermain, a director of Dakota Gold (NYSE American: DC) and former executive chairman of Pretium Resources, now Newmont (TSX: NGT; NYSE: NEM), highlighted how in his experience at the Brucejack mine in British Columbia, Seabridge achieved production in just six years through concurrent permitting and collaboration with First Nations.

Quartermain has also been arguing that gold should be included on governments’ critical minerals lists given its growing uses in electronics.

The summit ran in coordination with Precious Metals Summit Conferences.

Watch the full discussion below.