It is just farmland …

… is what ScandiVanadium’s chairman Brandon Munro is supposed to have said during an interview. I am not quite sure how this should be interpreted. Did he mean that it is easier to open a mine in farmland areas as compared to populated areas? Or did he mean that farmland is much less valuable than a Vanadium mine? It would be interesting to ask him directly what exactly he meant with this statement. In any case – his observation is quite correct, because large parts of Österlen and eastern Skåne are actually farmland.

The area around Lybymosse, where ScandiVanadium will make their first exploratory drill holes

Last week I happened to pass by Lybymosse, where ScandiVanadium has been granted access by Hörby commune and is planning their first exploratory drill holes. I wrote about the Lybymosse project in my last blog, where I also included pictures with the position of the drill cores on a geological map.

The area around Lybymosse is mainly farmland, some parts are woodlands and a smaller part is occupied by a peatbog. It is hard to imagine how this area will look like once ScandiVanadium open their Vanadium mine here and start developing “Europe’s Premier Vanadium Project”. ScandiVanadium‘s idea is, as those reading my blog know by now, to mine Vanadium, a metal to be used in so-called Vanadium-Redox-Flow-Batteries (VRFBs), which allow long-term storage of solar and wind energy. By providing access to new Vanadium resources, ScandiVanadium‘s vision is to support the move from fossil to green technologies. I like this vision, but I doubt that digging up new metals and minerals, which in itself are ‘fossils’ and not endless resources, will help us achieve the leap into a sustainable world.

View on the Lybymosse peatbog

While ScandiVanadium may think that farmland is less valuable than a Vanadium mine, I see farmland, woodlands and peatlands as important for a healthy and sustainable planet, for food production and biodiversity.

Mines instead of farmland, mining waste instead of woodlands and polluted groundwater for generations to come. How does such a picture compare to the food strategy of the Swedish Government, which states that Sweden has to become much more self-reliant and that Sweden should increase the production of food in a sustainable way (En livsmedelsstrategi för Sverige – Regeringen.se)?

Skåne and Österlen are among the regions in Sweden that host Sweden’s best agricultural land areas. 50% of all the food produced in Sweden comes from Skåne. If Sweden really wants to become more self-reliant in terms of food production, then opening Vanadium mines in one of the best farmland areas is not the best way to go.