Sudbury was definitely going to be "nuked" by the Russians. At least that was our conclusion back in 1976 when I worked at CVRD Inco's Clarabell Mill for a year.
During one graveyard shift, a group of us were talking about
Cold War politics and atomic bombs. We all agreed that if there
ever was a nuclear war between the Americans and Russians then
there must have been one Soviet "nuke" with our community's
name stenciled on it. We all laughed a little nervously, but
there was also some pride in knowing Sudbury was important
enough to get blown-up in the first round of missiles.
Access to strategic materials has always affected the destinies
of nations. The Romans conquered Britain in AD 43 to control
valuable tin deposits in Cornwall. Combining tin with copper
produces bronze, a more valuable and militarily important
alloy. Ancient Chinese metallurgical expertise with iron and
steel allowed the Middle Kingdom to become a dominate military
and economic force during the prosperous Han dynasty.
There has always been a largely ignored umbilical cord link
between Sudbury's strategic nickel mines and the U.S.
military-industrial complex. Originally, it was American money
and entrepreneurs who built the Sudbury mines and smelters.
However, when the Sudbury deposits were first discovered during
the building of the Canadian National Railway, the metal
everyone was interested in was copper. When it was realized
that there were significant quantities of this "useless" metal
called nickel in the ore, the entire enterprise was almost
abandoned.
Then two important events occurred: first, an economical way of
separating the nickel from the copper was found and more
importantly the discovery that adding nickel to steel greatly
increased their combined strength. Further tests in Washington,
D.C., in 1890 confirmed that nickel-steel alloys were the best
material to use for armor plate - a metallurgical equivalent to
the atomic bomb.
The age of the dreadnaughts had arrived and these advanced
ships were clad in nickel-steel. As Europe and America rebuilt
their navy, the demand for nickel skyrocketed and the Sudbury
mines exploded with activity. During the First World War,
Sudbury was the key source of this strategic metal.
The Second World War was a mechanized war that utilized more
technically advanced equipment than ever before in order to
win. Thousands of pounds of nickel were used in the mighty
flying B-29 Superfortresses, while the war in the Pacific was
primarily an amphibious battle requiring rugged engines with
many nickel alloy parts able to withstand the corrosive effects
of salt water.
Nickel-hardened armor plate for tanks, nickel alloys for
anti-aircraft guns and ordnance, and even lightweight and tough
portable bridges used in the invasion of Germany all required
this essential metal. In total, the Inco mines supplied an
astonishing 95 percent of the Allies needs for this vital metal
and played a significant role in the final victory.
"Given the chance, Hitler would willingly have traded the whole
Silesian basin, and thrown in Hermann Goering and Dr. Goebbels
to boot, for a year's possession of the Sudbury Basin,"
Maclean's journalist James H. Gray aptly wrote in an Oct. 1,
1947 article about Sudbury.
After the war, there was a small decline in nickel use but the
expanding North American economy, the rebuilding of
war-shattered Europe, the Korean War and the start of the cold
war continued to put pressure on this vital commodity.
A 1954 U.S. Department of Defense report stated that nickel
was, "the closest to being a true 'war metal.' It deserves
first priority among materials receiving conservation
attention."
During the 1950s, the U.S. government gave Falconbridge a $40
million subsidy to help develop their nickel mines and ensure
diversity of supply from then predominant supplier
International Nickel.
Before the Thompson, Man., nickel deposits were discovered in
1956, the only other major reserves of this metal outside of
the Sudbury Basin were in the Soviet Union and Cuba. Fidel
Castro nationalized previously-owned American nickel mines
during the Cuban revolution of 1959.  From the early 1950s
to the early 1970s, chronic nickel shortages plagued industrial
and military production. The 1969 Sudbury Basin strikes, during
the Vietnam War, paralyzed industrial production in
Britain.
The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 signaled the end of the
Cold War and caused the former Soviet Union to flood the world
with cheap nickel and significantly reduced capital investment
in new mines.
Global military expenditures declined, further exasperating the
oversupply of nickel. The metal hit its lowest level ever, if
you factor in inflation, in October and December of 1998 when
the London Metal Exchange (LME) price for nickel dipped to 1.76
a pound (US).
In 2003, the invasion of Iraq in March and the unexpected Inco
strike from June to August caused the nickel glut to finally
disappear. Four years later, the American wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan are consuming billions of dollars worth of military
hardware that cannot be build without vast quantities of
nickel. The announcement to increase troop deployments in Iraq
will only require more weapons production. In 2007, the
American military budget will equal the weapons expenditures of
all other countries in the world combined.
In an aggressive speech at the Munich Conference on Security
Policy in early February, Russian President Putin blasted the
United States for inflaming global tensions with the Iraq war
and the inclusion of former Soviet satellite nations in NATO.
Russia is increasing military expenditures - financed by
enormous revenues from oil and gas - in order to reassert that
country's former global influence. It is the world's largest
producer of natural gas and number two in oil production.
Russia also has no problems using its new status as an energy
superpower to bully neighbouring Ukraine and Belarus over the
price of gas and most of Europe is worried about their over
dependence on that country's oil and gas supplies.
Many political pundits and policy analysts feel we are entering
a new cold war and strategic resources will be one of the key
sources of conflict.
Iran's insistence on developing an atomic bomb is further
fueling a volatile region and starting an "arms race"
throughout the Middle East, while the Japanese have quietly
expanded their navy and are building one of East Asia's biggest
and most advanced fleet of submarines.
For the past decade China has seen double-digit defence growth
and the recent decision to shoot down its own satellite may
start an arms race in space. Many feel official Chinese
statistics on military purchases are significantly understated
and they are also rapidly expanding their navel capacities. In
addition, China has been circling resource rich African and
Latin American countries like a hungry shark buying and
investing in resource projects and elbowing out American
competitors.
The metallic "Achilles heel" for any military and navel
production has always been nickel. There are currently no
nickel mines in the United States while China does have some
domestic production.
Jack Lifton, in a column on resources investor.com recently
wrote, "An economic war has already begun over the control of
the supply of industrially necessary metals and materials with
which to establish or maintain a high standard of living. This
war is between the United States and the PRC…." (People's
Republic of China)
In reference to the current shortages of nickel, CVRD boss
Roger Agnelli said in Rio de Janeiro last month, "Mines coming
on line are merely replacing old mines that are winding down.
Even with new mines, overall production won't rise much." The
LME cash price of nickel reached another new record on Monday,
hitting $19.44 a pound or $42,865 a metric tonne.
Sudbury still contains the largest source of this strategic
metal - depending on how you define the Norilsk, Russia
deposits - in the world. Many geologists have felt that Russian
nickel statistics from Norilsk have always been inflated.
Consistent discoveries throughout the Basin over the past
decade, the current frenzy of exploration activities - one of
the "hottest" regions in North America - and the possibility
that Xstrata's Nickel Rim South development may become one of
the richest mines in Canadian history all indicate an enormous
resource yet to be tapped.
We seem to be going back to the future.
Stan Sudol is a Toronto-based communications consultant and policy analyst who writes extensively about mining issues.[email protected]