NOVOSIBIRSK, March 6. /TASS/. The development of the Tomtorskoye rare earth metals deposit and the Popigayskoye deposit of impact diamonds will facilitate a new industrial district in the Arctic, similar to Norilsk, the Science in Siberia wrote referring to Academician Geologist Nikolay Pokhilenko.
The Norilsk Industrial District is a complex of settlements that has been formed as a single production cluster for extraction and production of non-ferrous and precious metals. Its center is Norilsk, where the population is 176,000 people.
"In case of a strategy to develop raw material base as the primary foundation for Russia's technological sovereignty, and the political will (at all levels) to implement this strategy, the Arctic could have a new industrial district similar to Norilsk. It could unite at least deposits of Tomtor and Popigai (huge reserves of impact diamonds, a natural nanostructured diamond material with unique technological features), delivery to the port of Khatanga with transshipment in Dudinka and further production in the Krasnoyarsk Region," the academician wrote.
The Institute of Chemistry and Chemical Technologies of the Krasnoyarsk Scientific Center (the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences) has developed methods to produce pure materials that can be scaled to an industrial level, he continued. "The energy could be supplied by two onshore nuclear power plant units, installed in Khatanga, with a capacity of 55 megawatts each, - this is what Rosatom says," the scientist added.
Earlier, in an interview with TASS, he said that appraisal of rare earth metal deposits in the Arctic could bring Russia to the first place in the world in terms of reserves. The United States may be interested in elements like niobium and neodymium, which are used in the steel industry and production of electric motors. As an example, the scientist quoted the Tomtorsky arrays of rare earth metals, located in Yakutia. According to him, only 40 of the 240 square kilometers of that deposit area have been studied. The scientist added that as for the Yakut reserves of rare metals for the steel industry, it could be relevant to extract expensive metal ferroniobium, which Russia currently buys from Brazil. In the ore of the promising Tomtorsky deposit, the content of niobium is several times higher than in Brazil.