Canada s Digital Technology Supercluster announced in November that it had invested $5.6 million in a group of companies led by Vancouver's Ideon Technologies to pioneer muon tomography, the world's first Earth X-ray discovery platform. It means studying the path of subatomic particles emitted by cosmic rays, known as muons, in order to gain insight into the geology of the earth. We apologize, but this video didn't load.
You can see other videos from our team by tapping here. Try refreshing your browser, or Almost like Star Trek': New startup helps miners stare deep into the earth with cosmic rays If successful, Ideon says it can provide an image of the earth, up to one kilometres deep, that could be used to identify untapped metal and mineral deposits that are far below the surface. Gary Agnew, chief executive and co-founder of Ideon, said that it sounds far fetched but the science is decades of understanding.
The federal government launched a $950 million initiative in 2018 to promote Canadian industrial innovation, as part of a digital supercluster in British Columbia. After millennia of mining, humans have discovered all the obvious near-surface mineral and metal deposits, and now geologists have to look deep within the earth's surface. It sounds far fetched but the science has decades of understanding that it can be useful: instead of blindly drilling into the earth in search of ore deposits, mining companies can use its muon tomography to get a rough sense of the geologic densities in an area and more precisely choose where they drill. Mining companies still need to drill into the earth to remove core samples that confirm their geologic suspicions about an ore deposit. Agnew said his technology can reduce the amount of drilling, which means less expense, and also reduces emissions since drill rigs generally use diesel fuel.
Many mining companies, such as Teck Resources Ltd. and Barrick Gold Corp., have set a target of net zero emissions in the coming decades and will look to reduce reliance on diesel in the coming years. For example, Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. said diesel consumption represents the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, but much of it comes from large diesel mining haul trucks and other heavy machinery, not necessarily drill rigs for exploration. Mining companies spend billions of dollars a year on exploration, even though there are no precise estimates of emissions related to drilling. In 2021 global exploration budgets increased by 35 per cent to $11.2 billion, with $2.1 billion for exploration in Canada, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence, which tracks the mining industry's capital expenditures.
Agnew says about 55 per cent of the company's exploration budget is allocated for drilling. He said that amounts to about $6 billion or 40 million metres per year. Agnew said we can reduce the amount of drilling or increase the field of view. Ideon was founded in March 2020 — the week the world shut down as Agnew put it — and emerged from Vancouver-based Triumf, Canada's national particle accelerator lab, which counts a number of Canadian universities as partners. The idea took seed when a geologist in Saskatchewan asked Triumf if muon tomography could be used for mineral exploration. Scientists affiliated with the lab have been developing the technology ever since.
Agnew spent most of his career at Finning International Inc., the world's largest dealer of Caterpillar machinery, his co-founder Doug Schouten, who is also Ideon's chief technology officer, holds a PhD in subatomic physics from Simon Fraser University. The company believes that there is a need to help oil and gas companies with exploration, but its marketing casts the company as focused on the critical minerals supply chain and finding metals necessary for the energy transition. BHP Plc. Teck Resources and smaller junior exploration outfits have experimented with the technology or agreed to do so. Ideon received $3.7 million in digital supercluster investment while its client Fireweed Zinc Ltd., which is exploring a zinc-lead silver deposit in the Yukon, received $1.2 million. Dias Geophysical, a Saskatoon-based company that conducts magnetic gradient surveys, received the remaining $600,000 to help advance the technology further.
The company charges a monthly fee for its services, which can range from $50,000 to $100,000 depending on the size of the campaign, which can take weeks or months depending on the size of the deposit and the geology. The company has raised $3.1 million over the past 18 months, and its investors include The UBC Seed Fund, Mineral Financial out of London, The Sprout Fund in Edmonton, WUTIF Capital in Vancouver, Highstreet Ventures and Don Bell, co-founder of WestJet, according to Agnew.