The grey mountains of mine tailings from Thetford Mines have loomed over the region for generations, a legacy of Canada’s mining industry. Now, they may be the country’s single biggest carbon removal opportunity. Carbon Removal Canada, Frontier Climate, and the DuGrisAuVert Cooperative are launching the world’s first surficial mineralization hub at the site to prove it.
Beginning in the 1870s, the Thetford Mines region became the heart of an industry built on what some called “white gold.” Asbestos was hailed as a miracle fiber for its fireproof, indestructible nature, and at its peak in the 1950s, Canada was supplying 80% of the world’s production. But that durability created health concerns.
Demand collapsed. The mines closed in 2011. Canada banned production and use entirely in 2018.
What’s left behind is a local economic void and a staggering physical footprint: over 800 million tonnes of mine tailings are in the province. To put that in perspective, that’s enough waste rock to fill Montreal’s Olympic Stadium 240 times. Yet those same mountains may hold one of the most valuable carbon removal opportunities on the planet.
From Grey to Green
Local leaders in Thetford Mines are not waiting around. Les Appalaches Regional County Municipality has built a strategic plan called Du Gris au Vert (“From Grey to Green”) to transform the region’s industrial heritage into a new era of sustainable development. The plan calls for renewable energy investment, a connected innovation network built on local strengths, and a new economic chapter that honours the region’s history while building new pride in what comes next.
Surficial mineralization is a component of that strategy.
The Science, in Plain Language
The tailings left behind by asbestos mining are rich in magnesium-bearing minerals. When carbon dioxide in the air comes into contact with these minerals, a permanent chemical reaction occurs: the CO2 bonds to the rock and turns into a stable solid, locked away permanently. This process happens in nature on its own, but the right technology can accelerate it dramatically.
If the full potential of these tailings is realized, the benefits stack up fast:
- Hazard eliminated: The technology can neutralize the toxic asbestos fibers and could allow the land to be safely remediated for future use.
- Economic revival: New industrial activity would inject significant economic gains into a region that lost its anchor industry.
- Critical mineral recovery: Beyond carbon removal, the technologies can also extract critical minerals from the tailings, like magnesium, nickel, and cobalt, adding further economic upside.
- Carbon removed at scale: Mineralizing the tailings could remove hundreds of millions of tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere permanently.
Research suggests that commercial projects developed at this site could remove between 400 and 700 megatonnes of CO2, representing between $60 billion and $175 billion in potential value.
The World’s First Surficial Mineralization Hub
A request for proposals is now open to companies, startups, and research institutions ready to demonstrate their technologies or address key gaps in scientific knowledge at the site.
Successful applicants will be eligible for Frontier pre-purchases or R&D grants,
The hub will answer key scientific questions and speed up the time it takes to get a new demonstration project operational, while also creating a demand signal to help these projects reach commercial scale. The hub will host research, development, and demonstration projects at a site where common barriers for surficial mineralization have already been addressed: permitted land, established community relationships, mine tailings as accessible feedstock, and shared equipment for processing, measurement, and monitoring.
“Thetford Mines has carried the weight of Canada’s asbestos legacy for generations. Today, that same geology becomes the foundation for something the world has never seen. This centre will help prove that carbon removal is not a distant promise. Rather, it is happening now, in Canada, with the community behind it.”
– Na’im Merchant, Executive Director of Carbon Removal Canada.
That’s the story of Thetford Mines. A region that carried one of Canada’s most complicated industrial legacies is now positioned to lead, not just Canada but the world, in one of the most important climate technologies of our time.
The grey mountains are not going away anytime soon but what they mean for the future is changing entirely.
