The 55th national meeting of the Canadian Mineral Processors was held in Ottawa during the week of 16-19 January 2023. A total of 514 delegates attended.

The audience was well-engaged with the papers and enjoyed a spirited question period.

A very interesting, insightful review of the critical metals (nickel and lithium) for the Electric Vehicle (EV) market was presented by Johnna Muinonen, President at Dumont Nickel. She presented the view that demand for these metals would tighten significantly in the medium term due to the extra resources needed to manufacture all the new EV batteries. At the same time I mentioned that extra electric power would have to be generated to charge these cars, and that in these times that would amount to new nuclear power stations, a topic that most people find frightening. Canada has plenty of uranium; it would be a matter of convincing the public that this could be safely done. Additionally, the study of, design and construction (as well as permitting) of a new nickel mine would take 10-15 years. So the period 2023-2038 will see some interesting times.

Congratulations to the organising committee and the presenting authors for a worthy mineral processing conference.