Eco-miners to the rescue

Robert Friedland, the founder of Toronto-listed Ivanhoe Mines, told delegates at the Mines Money conference in Hong Kong on Tuesday that a greater adoption of clean technologies would be extremely positive for metals such as copper, palladium and platinum.

Metal miners, he said, should be seen as the solution rather than the problem. “If you want to clean a gasoline engine in a car you need palladium, if you want to clean a diesel engine in a boat or a ship you need platinum and if you want a hydrogen fuel cell automobile that has no pollution at all you need even more platinum,” he said. “If you don’t want...