Environmental Defence really doesn’t understand coal – (even though they use it)
Last week, the Toronto based anti-resource organization Environmental Defence attempted to debunk a Calgary Herald Op-ed from the Coal Association of Canada, and frankly— we have a few issues with it, so let’s dive in.
Claim 1: Metallurgical coal is not technically a mineral; therefore, it shouldn’t be designated as a critical mineral.
They’re correct: coal isn’t a mineral, and they provide a nifty definition to exclude it. But after this, the rest of the post really falls apart. Canada has 34 “critical minerals” on its official Critical Minerals list—and a lot of them aren’t minerals. Helium, for example, is a noble gas, potash and iron ore are rocks. Germanium doesn’t exist in any meaningful quantities as a mineral and is an elemental by-product of coal and copper production. Rare earth elements are also very much not minerals; they are elements, and the same goes for cobalt and others. And interestingly, fluorspar (a critical mineral on that list that is a mineral) has a few main industrial uses, one of which is as a flux in smelting steel made using steelmaking coal!
Claim 2: “Critical minerals, by definition, are scarce, hard to get at, and have applications that are also similarly specialized. Coal doesn’t meet this threshold.”
Firstly, and ironically, if scarcity is the test, iron ore is even further from qualifying than coal — iron ore is among the most abundant mined materials globally and in Canada, with the ‘high‑grade’ criticality created by processing, not by natural rarity. And they are both necessary to make steel so similarly specialised!
But it’s clear that Environmental Defence’s made-up definition is not even a consideration for admission into the critical club, and we know this because the Government of Canada literally defines it.
The Government of Canada explains it for us below:
What makes them critical
To be considered a critical mineral in Canada, a mineral must meet both of the following criteria:
• the supply chain is threatened
• there is a reasonable chance of the mineral being produced by Canada
It must also meet one of the following criteria:
• be essential to Canada’s economic or national security
• be required for the national transition to a sustainable low-carbon and digital economy
• position Canada as a sustainable and strategic partner within global supply chains
Steelmaking coal meets all of these requirements given its critical role in steel making. But we can dig deeper into this: “critical” doesn’t mean rare or tough to get at; it means “of great importance or necessity.” And steelmaking coal by definition passes this test. About 71% of global steel is made with it, and without steel, almost all industrial activities would grind to a halt. If this isn’t “critical,” we aren’t sure what is. Furthermore, Environmental Defence’s revised definition would mean other ‘minerals’ on the list should be excluded. Aluminium makes up approximately 8% of the earth’s crust, iron is 5.5%, 3 silicon is 28%, and magnesium is 2.3%. This puts all four comfortably in the top 10 most abundant elements in the crust—not exceedingly rare, but still critical. Just like steelmaking coal.
Claim 3: Canada has iron, which is the key ingredient needed to make steel without coal
This statement drives home the fact that it is likely the authors don’t understand how steel is made. Iron ore is indeed a key ingredient in steelmaking, and 90% of iron ore produced (like the stuff mined in Canada) ends up being made into steel using blast furnaces. Coke, made from steelmaking coal is the other major feedstock used in the blast furnace to smelt iron ore into iron. Most electric arc furnaces (EAF) around the world don’t smelt iron ore; they melt scrap steel. That is because iron ore must be reduced to ‘sponge iron’ before it can be fed into an EAF. The blast furnace – basic oxygen furnace is the dominant method for making steel and uses steelmaking coal because it is both a chemical reducing agent and a source of energy. Furthermore, coke (the feedstock steelmaking coal is turned into for steelmaking) has an additional benefit: it is strong (it supports itself and the iron ore in the furnace) and allows for a controlled reaction in the reduction process.
Direct reduced iron (DRI), melted in the EAF with scrap, is done without coal (generally reduced with natural gas), but it is a small portion of worldwide iron smelting. This is because this DRI-ready iron ore must have a very high Fe content, low levels of impurities, and be ground into uniform fine particles to facilitate the reduction process—all of which requires enormous amounts of energy and therefore costs money. This is the chief reason only about 5% of steel is made this way. All the inputs have increased energy requirements and costs and require a separate electric arc furnace to smelt the product produced by DRI. A blast furnace is a ‘one stop shop’ when it comes to converting iron ore to hot metal.
All in all, it is unclear what Environmental Defence is referencing when they say iron ore can replace steelmaking coal—particularly when steelmaking coal is the commodity that makes Canada’s iron ore usable.
Claim 4: "Demand for coal is starting to diminish"
Coal demand is at an all-time high, up from 2023 and 2024, which were also an all-time highs. Wood Mackenzie also predicts seaborne coal demand, that’s what Canada sells, will grow 0.5% every year until 2050.
Claim 5: “There are better options for steelmaking: We can use hydrogen to process high-purity iron ore and forge this iron into steel in electric arc furnaces. This is a viable alternative that’s already used in regions with rich iron reserves and plentiful renewable energy.”
Hydrogen DRI isn’t really being used—at least not in the way Environmental Defence is claiming it is—and it could be argued that they are, at best, naively optimistic and, at worst, deceptive in what they are telling Canadians about green hydrogen steel.
Currently, green hydrogen DRI is exclusively being used in pilot operations and has produced thousands of tonnes of steel over the last half-decade—which is a fraction of the 1.9 billion tonnes of steel the world made last year alone. They also say that Stegra and Blastr will be operational next year, producing millions of tonnes of steel. This sounds good, but it isn’t quite true. Blastr hasn’t even started construction, so a 2026 date to produce their reduced iron pellets isn’t accurate, and the company has said construction would take three years. Stegra, the other hydrogen DRI project mentioned, is under construction, but has faced delays and significant cost overruns, prompting successive funding rounds — including a €1.4bn raise in 2026 — to secure completion. It is unlikely that it will be in production this year, and financial woes have plagued the project from the outset.7 It is also worth mentioning that Stegra is likely the most expensive steel project ever built.n Environmental Defence also glosses over the fact that Stegra, while it says it will produce 2.5mt per annum of steel, would only account for 0.13% of all world steel demand.
Claim 6: "Mining in those regions will be a disaster. Selenium will poison the water, making it dangerous for fish, agriculture, and people."
Making claims like these should come with a higher threshold of responsibility, but this isn’t anything new. For nearly a decade, Environmental Defence has told Canadians things like “Trans Mountain is a dangerous pipeline,” “Line 5 is dangerous,” and called on governments to manage phaseouts of oil and gas. Scaring Canadians out of economic development wouldn’t be unusual for them.
While selenium is an essential nutrient for life and is used regularly in the ranching and other livestock sectors (and in everyday uses such as prenatal vitamins and supplements), too much can have adverse effects particularly on fish and benthic invertebrates. This is why coal mining companies, as well as other mining companies extracting sulphide-bearing critical minerals, are required to manage it. It is unfortunate that Environmental Defence simply makes a blanket statement that it will harm people, without providing any evidence of it ever harming people in a mining environment or even explaining how they believe this will happen.
Modern mines are designed to incorporate selenium management, including modern mitigation and treatment practices, which can manage selenium well (Golder, 2020; McKenna & Gilron, 2022, 2021). The summary table below presents the magnitude of selenium removal at full-scale coal mining operations.
Summary of treatment methods employed at coal mines, and associated selenium reductions
Operation (Location) | Selenium Reductions (%) | Treatment Method(s) | Reference |
Conuma Brule Mine (Northeast BC) | removal up to 94% (with concentrations decreasing from ~200 μg/L to 20 μg/L). | In situ anaerobic bioreactor | Kona & Atuke, 2022; Miller et al., 2019 |
Simplot Smoky Canyon Mine (Idaho, USA) | removal of 91% of the influent total selenium load (Simplot 2021) | Water Treatment Plant [Reverse osmosis and flotation bioreactor (aeration reactor)] | |
Confidential (Southwestern USA) | % removal from ≥ ~85% to > 90% . | Selen-IXÔ, non-biological | Kratochvil et al., 2022 |
Trend Mine (Northeast BC) | reduce selenium up to 96.4% (with concentrations decreasing from 130 µg/L to 5 µg/L | ABMet |
Claim 7: “Maybe we need to slap a critical designation on clean water instead. It’s much more important than coal ever will be.”
This is where we agree—and it is also why Canada has 20 agencies that regulate water in some capacity. This includes the Canadian Water Agency. This is on top of provincial ministries and regulators that manage water and regulate natural resource projects. Much like the rest of the article, this statement is thick on theatrics and thin on facts.
n: Assumes 2.5 mt per year tonnage when compared to methane DRI-EAF, H2-DRI and BF-BOF, capex only, sources suggest opex is also higher on H2-DRI, various Sources: Sweden’s Stegra seeks to raise over $2.3 billion, daily DI reports, Stegra lands funding to complete world’s first major green-steel mill, S&P Global, DIW