- Published: 02 November 2015
- Written by Kirill
It is time to talk about the people behind the scenes of rEVolution, who are working very hard to make the Green healthy future for your kids possible with the development of Clean Power and Lithium Technology at its foundation. Our CEO Gary Schellenberg has assembled unique and very deep technical team at ILC. I would like to start today with John Harrop - VP of Exploration of International Lithium Corp. He has picked all our projects on the three continents at the very dawn of the Lithium Race in 2008, now two of them have become J/Vs and financed by the giant from China Ganfeng Lithium, which is Strategic Partner of International Lithium and is holding 17.5% stake in ILC.
Apart from ILC John Harrop is VP of Exploration of our Precious and Energy Metals Royalty Holding Company TNR Gold and he has developed Shotgun Gold project in Alaska into almost 1 MOZ of Gold inferred resource project, waiting now for its turn to grow with the new strategic partner.
Now John is running our both exploration programs with Ganfeng Lithium in Ireland and Argentina with our COO Anthony Kovacs and preparing our Mavis Lake Lithium and Tantalum project for the new strategic partnership to take ILC to the next level. You can find his technical articles on the web and today I will present his latest thoughts about Green Metals.
Vice President of Exploration
Mr. Harrop has been involved in many aspects of gold and base metal exploration for 24 years. He has international field experience in North, Central and South America. He also has substantial experience developing and implementing new technology, such as GIS and 3D geophysics, which can provide competitive advantages to exploration teams.
International Lithium’s Search for Green Metals
John Harrop
VP Exploration
International Lithium Corp
What makes energy metals green? The first response that comes to mind is probably related to energy storage in electrically powered transportation. The lithium battery market has received significant attention driven by the goals of reducing carbon footprints and dependency on fossil fuels. But there is much more to the green energy metals picture. Studies in several countries have identified lists of metals needed to build a sustainable energy infrastructure – often aiming at specific 2050 targets (WWF 2011).
Some studies look in detail at construction requirements for these metals (JRC 2013). Having defined lists of strategic energy metals, some additional studies assess which of these metals are at risk of being in critical supply – and this risk assessment not only includes mine production and market risks, but increasingly important environmental and social factors (EU 2014).
Consumer and manufacturer demands for ethical accountability are becoming more visible. Companies like Apple are showing ethical leadership by publishing annual reports disclosing their sources of potentially controversial metals (such as Tantalum) and company wide ethical practices.
Exploration by International Lithium Corp (ILC) for pegmatites in Ireland and Canada benefits from the reputation of these countries to govern and maintain environmental and social ethical standards with active, enabled community participation. In addition, Ireland along with other European countries have expertise in multiple land use that enable protection of cultural, ecological and historical heritage beside agriculture and other natural resources such as forestry and mining. This is an important part of ILC’s strategy to develop genuinely green metals from rare metal pegmatites and other sources.
WWF 2011, The Energy Report 100% Renewable Energy By 2050. WWF with ECOFYS and OMA
JRC 2013, Critical Metals in the Path towards the Decarbonisation of the EU Energy Sector, published by Joint Research Centre Institute, EC
EC 2014, Report On Critical Raw Materials For The EU, Report of the ad hoc Working Group on defining critical raw materials, European Commision.
