The United States of America and China, the two largest economies on the planet, just signed-up to the Paris climate agreement. You can remain skeptical about the causality between greenhouse gas emissions and global warming, but nobody can deny the big expansion of world economies in clean renewable energies. The technical need is obvious! Social awareness is rising! Political willingness is present! And Québec can and must position itself in this emerging market!

In November 2015, at the Québec Mines congress, a session was organized by NRC focusing on commodities for the battery manufacturing supply chain. It was a wake-up call, Quebec has tremendous potential to become a supply leader in this market. Subsequently, during an informal discussion with Mr. Patrick Houle, Nord-du-Québec regional geologist for MERN, a strategy was initiated to stimulate interest and awareness of this segment of the mineral industry.

IOS has a long tradition of exploration for exotic commodities, as well as good business relations with AEMQ and MERN. This prompted IOS to organize TWO sessions on mineral commodities related to energy storage. Both conferences, held at Xplor 2016 on October 6th and Québec Mines 2016 in November 23-24, will deal with different perspectives related to these commodities.

Xplor 2016, the Québec Mineral Exploration Association has organized a session on the theme "High tech substances and future markets - Projects in Québec" (http://www.aemq.org/en/XPLOR/PROGRAMMATION_6OCT2016). The session is offered by focused promoters who are currently developing advanced projects in energy-related metals or minerals: Focus Graphite, Némaska Lithium, Matamec Exploration, MDM (Crevier Minerals) and Vanadium Corp Resources. These projects all share difficulties in developing their metallurgical processes as well as building on emerging technologies. They are more than simple mining projects! Speakers will present the difficulties they have had to overcome, and how they differ from conventional mining projects. We are also pleased to have Mr. Jacques Bonneau as a keynote speaker. Mr. Bonneau will share his rich experience in successful projects development: Alumica, Dolobec, Sequoïa (Niobec), Lab Chrysotile, Mazarin, etc.

Québec Mines 2016, the annual convention of the Québec department of Energy and Natural Resources, is organizing a complete "Symposium on energy innovation minerals" (http://mern.gouv.qc.ca/wp-content/uploads/programme_conferences_preliminaire_QM2016-fr.pdf). The symposium includes four sessions and more than 20 talks, dedicated to lithium, vanadium, graphite and rare-earths. Similar themes as Xplor-2016 will be included but from a different stand-point. These non-promotional talks will be given by specialists on technical or scientific aspects related to these commodities, including the Québec potential, metallogeny and ore genesis, extractive metallurgy, markets, conventional and energy-related applications. Speakers include some internationally renowned specialists from industry, government, research institutes and universities.

Working together to put Québec on the renewable energy map!