Making mining ‘cool’ to attract new talent

If you ask Rob McEwen, chairman and chief owner of McEwen Mining (TSX: MUX; NYSE: MUX), what needs to happen for the industry to attract young people and present a career in mining as ‘cool’, the answer is pretty simple. 

“We need the public to start doing the math,” McEwen said at the Northern Miner’s Q4 Global Mining Symposium this week. “We have to calculate how much metal is needed to build the electric vehicles and wind turbines and solar cells that are required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limit temperature increases to 1.5 degrees [Celsius].”

The industry has to “make that link for people because we’re not going to get there without a lot of metals.” 

McEwen was part of a panel entitled Making Mining Cool for the Next Generation and was joined by panellists Erin Bobicki, an associate professor of mineral processing at the University of Alberta’s Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, and Siri Genik, principal and founder of Bridge, a consultancy that provides advice on Environmental, Social, and Governance and risk management strategies. 

Reflecting on the increasing adoption of electric vehicles and autonomous equipment in the mining industry, Bridges’ Genik pointed out that not only are these technologies making the industry safer and more sustainable, but they can be “operated remotely by people sitting in offices in Toronto or Vancouver or wherever … what other industry is as cool as that?”

The University of Alberta’s Bobicki views working in the industry as an opportunity to make a big difference in the world. “How do we extract critical metals more efficiently? How do we use less water and energy? How do we reduce our impact on the environment?” 

This opportunity to make a big difference “is only going to get larger as we move towards electrification and decarbonisation and so this is a fascinating time to be working in the industry,” she said. 

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