Excerpt from nbcnews.com
He’s looking for the key minerals — cobalt, copper and nickel — that go into the batteries that can power clean energy technologies, particularly the incoming demand from electric vehicles. That is why in August he watched as a helicopter flew past with a massive metal detector swinging beneath it, scanning a vast section of this remote Canadian wilderness.
The device, akin to a giant dream catcher at 115 feet across and weighing 1,700 pounds, peered a third of a mile into the earth by using an electromagnetic current. The data it collects is key to trying to speed up what has traditionally been the slow, painstaking process of mineral discovery.
“The problem we’re trying to solve is global climate change, and to do it we have to electrify everything,” said House, CEO of KoBold Metals, the company he co-founded to hunt for the crucial minerals. “The problem is we don’t have enough metal to build all those electric vehicles, so we need to find a lot more.”