Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Photo credit: Nvidia Corporation, under Creative Commons license

Electric carmaker Tesla is in talks with Giga Metals, a publicly-traded Canadian miner, about helping to develop a large mine that’ll provide low carbon nickel for Tesla batteries, as first reported by news agency Reuters. Tesla is apparently seeking to obtain nickel from sources where it can be mined more efficiently due to environmental pollution concerns, and Giga Metals may be one of such sources, with plans to turn waste from its carbon nickel mining operations into cement type rock by harnessing hydropower and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Giga refused to give comment specifically on a possible Tesla deal but clarified that it’s in talks with automakers regarding its ability to efficiently mine carbon nickel. 

“The cost of developing our project, excluding bringing hydroelectric power to the site, will be less than $1 billion.” Giga Metals’s President Martin Vydra said in a statement.

The demand for nickel is expected to surge globally in the coming years as individuals, governments, and corporations resort to using more electric vehicles in order to cut down on fossil fuel pollution. Currently, a problem lies in the case that most of the world’s new nickel will be mined in Indonesia and with a process that’ll involve disposing of mining waste into the ocean. This poses a significant concern for environmentalists. Along with its primary goal of reducing pollution from driving, Tesla is also seeking to reduce its own operational carbon footprint and is apparently looking towards obtaining nickel from Canada as a potential way to do that. According to Reuters, Canadian miner Giga Metals has also discussed possible deals with German automakers BMW and Mercedes.

Currently, Canada is a big producer of nickel, with 180,000 tonnes of it produced in the country last year. 

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