The expansion of the Vista coal mine, reportedly among the largest so-far undeveloped coal mines in the entire country and potentially one of the largest in North America.
The project just barely avoided a federal environmental assessment thanks to some last-minute tweaks to numbers (more on that later) — leading some to question Ottawa’s process for exempting coal mines from federal review.
Vista produces thermal coal — coal burned to produce electricity, as opposed to metallurgical coal, which is used in steel production.
And while coal-fired electricity is being phased out in Canada, the coal mined at Vista will be exported and burned elsewhere — so the phaseout doesn’t apply.