 Ok, so we're about to begin our interview with George Demopoulos, the interviewer as usual will be William McRae, and we are currently at the Miguel Campus in Montreal, and it is November 12, 2015. So let's begin. So just to start off, could you please state your full name? George Demopoulos. And where were you born? Ok. What should make you what age? 64 I guess. 64. And as a child what did your parents do? Basically farmers, although my father worked for the railway company, you know as a public servant but in a village and at the same time he was a farmer. Ok. And as a child what did you do in Athens to pass time? No, I was born in Athens but I grew up in a village. Ok. Yes, just simply my birth place was in Athens but otherwise I grew up in a village about 130 km southwest of Athens by the sea. So you know I went to elementary school there and nearby high school in a town about 10 km from the village. I grew up until the age of 18 when I moved to Athens to pursue my university studies. Ok. And as a child what were your pastimes or were your go-to activities? Just getting together with other boys in the neighborhood playing soccer and swimming during the summer, fishing because our houses were by the sea. Yeah, things like that. No TV, no video games. Yeah. Imagination. Yeah, yeah a lot, a lot of imagination. But something that was very important in my upbringing is that my father, my parents also run a small general store and coffee shop and you know the elders of the village will come and have their coffee and play cards. So I will listen to stories from them. Ok. The other thing is that we had to buy a newspaper every day for our clientele and that newspaper became my window to the world. So I developed an interest about world things. Like I remember even the death of Madin Moroi or you know the assassination of the President Kennedy when other kids of my age didn't know or the political situation in Greece or in Africa. But I remember the liberation movement about all the new African countries that were born after the colonial rule. So that was through a newspaper that was arriving every morning that opened my eyes about the world. No journalists, I was just thirsty to learn what was happening beyond my immediate neighborhood and group of people that I was living with. Which can be quite isolated. Yeah, it was isolated. I mean it was a big event to go 10 km to the town. You would not go unless there was a reason. Bicycles were the favorite means of transportation. So 2-3 km distance from the house and back. And I remember little boy looking about 10 km horizon and I thought that was another country. That was the end of Greece you know. So you have such a limited idea of the world. But anyways I was growing up and I was 10 years old. You know that newspaper became really what opened my eyes. The gateway. The gateway. So tell me about Athens. You went to Athens when you were 18. 18, yeah. Persu Education. Exactly, yeah. In Greece there are national wide entrance exams to get to university. So I wrote those exams. But I had to prepare with some tutorials and so on. So I went to Athens for one year and then I was admitted to the National Technical University of Athens. That was the school of mining and metallurgical engineering. That happened in 1970. And I was for 5 years. It was a 5 years program. It follows the German Central European System. Engineering takes 5 years. Now with the European Union things have changed. And this is equivalent to the master's program. So yeah, I spent 5 years 1970-75 in the Polytechnic School of Athens. Any specific classes that you remember loving or at least being good at? To be honest with you, the first 2 years were not very... I was not paying that much attention to classes. I was just happy that I got into the university. I was a village boy, you know, moving to a big city. So many things. So I was not paying that much attention. But really end of second year, third year, the last 3 years. The subject about metallurgy attracted me more attention. I had more interest in chemical things. The chemistry side of things. So the processing of metals, the extraction of metals from minerals. And then making alloys like steel. Learning about this unique... The moment you add a little bit of carbon in iron, the properties change and you have different grades of steel. And still it's so important in modern society. And we had a good professor who was explaining those basics. I mean, there were more than one professor. And so the metallurgical side attracted me more. But still, you know, not really having yet settled into what exactly I want to do. Just I knew that I want to work more on the metallurgy side of things, as opposed to mining. I spent 2 summers working in another ground mine. Oh, because it was a mining and metallurgical engineer, right? So we had courses in mining. We had courses in metallurgy. We had practical exercises. You had to go... You had co-op work. Like co-op, there were obligatory... You learn to deal with people working with regular blue-collar workers, or the engineers, and you see the profession in action. And that was... No matter the technical side of things, that aspect of the social interaction with fellow workers, more senior or labor, etc. This is a great opportunity to learn as a young person. How was working in the mines? How was it? Did you like it, or did you realize that metallurgy is more my thing? No, I didn't mind working in the mines. It was a lot of fun. I mean, I was young and so I remember helping people with the support of the tunnels. But I remember I had long hair, not like right now. The workers always would joke with me, going cut your hair, etc. But I'm glad I had long hair and I enjoyed back then because now I don't have any. So anyway, it was not... Nearby, at the mine, there was a mineral processing plant, a flotation plant. In flotation we use chemicals to separate one mineral from the other. So although it was not part of my... I was working in the underground mine, but I would go and watch what was happening. And the chemicals, even the smell of the chemicals attracted me more. So gradually, you know, I shifted into the metallurgical mineral processing plant beyond extracting metallurgy, what we call in our field. Okay. So after school, what would you consider to be your first job? Yeah, okay, so about a year before I graduated, summer 1974, I saw that there is this program EIST, which still exists, but it's not that well known in North America, but definitely it works in Europe, where students can find jobs to work in another country during the summer typically, like a co-op or internship. So I applied and I was chosen to go for a job in England. That was my first trip outside now, Greece. So summer 1974, I ended up in a suburb of Birmingham, who also was the Elkington copper refiners. Elkington was the first to develop copper refining using electrochemistry. And I enjoyed very much. That was really my brain wash to become a metallurgist. I loved so much the whole aspect of it. It was basically secondary copper that was fire refined and then electrode refined. So I would go into the plant, take samples, go into the analytical lab. I remember my hard time with English. I started learning English late and perhaps I never mastered English even now. But the bottom line is that, again, I found a job there, working environment, the metallurgical plant that gave me so much interest to work. So I go back to Greece after the summer experience. So I said, hmm, maybe it's not enough just to get my first degree in engineering. I want to do some research. I want to get a master's degree. And with another friend, fellow student, we applied. And we got to different universities in North America. And McGill was nice, kind. Thank you, McGill. And we got a scholarship. I got a scholarship and I came to do my master's here. Because I felt staying in Greece was for me to go to serve my military duty, because it's obligatory. It's one year. Back then it was two years and a half. It was 30 months back then. Now it's one year. But simply I felt that the first degree didn't satisfy my educational thirst. So I needed to learn a bit more. So I'll go for a year and a half to do my master's and come back. And that's how it started now. My life on the other side of the ocean. So talk to me about your first experience with Canada, with Montreal, with McGill. Yeah, so I arrived 40 years ago. Exactly 40 years ago. No, that was September 13, 1975. I arrived at the airport. And I came to McGill to this department. It was mining and metallurgical engineering. We're housing another building where mining is right now. There were a couple of friends that were together in Greece that were waiting for me. We shared the same apartment. It was a very modest scholarship. Something like a couple of thousand dollars to live for the whole year. But enough to support my studies and start my career here. I registered. I had a supervisor, a professor of this team. He was a hydro metallurgist. So Professor Williams, who was the chairman of the department, said, you go to work with this professor. You get the scholarship to work with that professor. So I started for a couple of months. I said hydro metallurgy. I don't know, I want to work with steel making. Like I said before, steel was much more magical as a material, as an alloy, etc. And I go to see Professor Williams and said, can I change supervisor, change project please? He said, yes, you can change project. But the scholarship does not follow you. You are on your own if you change project. So I said, no, no, no, it's fine. And I have all my respect and I'm thankful to Professor Distin as supervisor for how patient with me, coming from another country and so on, supported me. So I did my masters. And hydro metallurgy became the expertise. I became an expert in hydro metallurgy. And really I loved the whole thing to the extent that still I'm teaching hydro metallurgy 40 years after. Although at the beginning I had my doubts. And I'm very thankful to Professor Williams who insisted. George, you do this project or no project for you. Well hydro metallurgy, you had mentioned in the beginning you loved how the fact that you can add one chemical compound or one element and it can change. I mean that's a lot of hydro metallurgy. But I was thinking at that point about returning to Greece. And the industry, the metallurgical industry in Greece was more pyro metallurgical, high temperature furnaces, steel making. So I said, job opportunities for hydro metallurgy in Greece. So I had that narrow view. I've always coming back. Yeah, which kind of influenced a little bit my early thought. But that after starting working and enjoying and learning that part of metallurgical engineering, I liked so much that I never separated from it. So were there any drastic differences you noticed with the Canadian university versus a Greek university or even in the metallurgy departments? Or the things that they did fundamentally different? Big difference. The Greek university was very traditional. The professor was inaccessible. He had his circle of assistants. So and they were very strict and so on. Here I was shocked with how accessible the professors are. Like having coffee with your supervisor and calling first name your supervisor. It took me quite some time to be able to do that although my Canadian fellow students were doing this with their supervisors. So it was that openness, that accessibility, this encouragement. You know, the chairman of the department stopped me at the corridors and asked me, Oh, George, how is it going? And also I remember seeing, yeah. I mean, the chairman of the department that was no way that you can, as a simple student, go and talk to him in Greece. That he was so accessible that really made a big impression on me. And of course, you know, it was more about getting support to learn to do better. Like Professor Williams suggested me and a couple of other fellow students. He gave us support to travel all the way to Vancouver in 1977 to attend the conference of metallurgists there. That was a discovery trip for me because we drove four of us all the way from Montreal to Vancouver and back and between discovering the country, camping, all these things that were new for me. But he was that professor, Professor Williams, the chairman, who took a personal interest. He said, you know, you rent a car, you guys, and you know, we had a very simple, I mean, we didn't stay in hotels, etc. But that support. So that was the environment really that was so different, as opposed to where I came from. Not that I didn't get support in Greece, don't take me wrong. Simply, it was much more austere, much more traditional system than what I found here. Yeah. So did you ever, did you go after your, this was your master's at McGill? Did you ever go into industry or did you stay more in the academic? I stayed all the way academic. Was there a reason for that or? The reason, I like the research, doing research. But there also was a little bit of, you know, I had good time as a graduate student. That was the best time. I don't want to move into, you know, to start some kind of serious commitment. So, you know, being a graduate student still was, there was a commitment, you had to do your research, etc. Write a thesis at the end of the day, but it was not like working in industry and so on. So, but I liked research. So I was offered a scholarship to do my PhD and I continued with Professor Distin here at McGill. What was your thesis? About my first thesis, my master's thesis was about leaching of copper sulfide minerals. A subject that's still relevant today, it's amazing. There's a lot of hydro metallurgical process development for calcopyrite and still we haven't mastered that. I learn a lot about that and I'm proud that the external examiner of my master's thesis was Professor Birkin of Imperial College, one of the modern fathers of hydro metallurgy. He had written a textbook which I had the opportunity to read and it opened my eyes a lot about the chemistry of the hydro metallurgical processes. And therefore my PhD I work on solvent extraction of metals, you know, using organic solvents to separate again copper from other metals. And I don't remember now. I think it was Professor Habassi, the external examiner of my PhD thesis. So solvent extraction back then was like a revolution for hydro metallurgy, was something totally new. And here in Canada we had a leader in the field, Gordon Ritchie. He was with KANMET, Natural Resources Canada on Booth Street in Ottawa. So I wrote to him towards the end of my thesis and said, you know, I would like to come after my PhD to work with you in your lab. And he accepted, I received a visiting fellowship from the government of Canada. Because back then, yeah, I had just turned, I get my permanent residence visa around that time. So I moved to Ottawa and I worked as a post-doc for two years with Dr. Ritchie who really, he wrote a book about solvents extraction. He was the founder of the hydro metallurgy journal. Everybody in the world wants to publish in the journal. That was Gordon Ritchie's creation. He created the hydro metallurgy section of the Metallurgical Society. He created the annual meetings that we have as hydro metallurgy. So it was a very dynamic in the 70s and early 80s when I finished 81 my PhD was a very dynamic domain. I mean Canada and the research, the universities and government laboratories were really number one in the world. We had Professor Peters at UBC. We had companies like Sherrod, Gordon, Miranda, INCO, Falconbridge, you know, developing technologies. But the Sherrod name of course was a big to me because in my PhD not only I worked with solvents extraction but also with hydrogen reduction. It's a method to produce metal powders using hydrogen. And Sherrod Gordon has commercial, I mean they were pioneers in the late 50s with this kind of technology. So Canada was a very attractive country and place to do research in hydro metallurgy with many, many, many leaders. Which I'm afraid is not perhaps the case now. That's a different story. Yeah. Would you like to elaborate on that? Because it's not the first time it's been raised. Yeah. Well, start with government laboratories because we start with universities, right? Here I am a professor of hydro metallurgy. If I retire tomorrow, who knows if there will be someone else to continue teaching hydro metallurgy. This has not been secured yet. Of course there are other places like UBC that is doing very well. They have a critical mass. The industry has moved in thanks initially with Professor Peters. And then now Professor Dresger and other members of the group there are doing great. And there is a critical mass. Back then we had Professor Cooper at Queens. We had Professor Habassier at Laval University for example. But Laval does not have hydro metallurgy. It has mineral processing but does not have really hydro metallurgy. Will McGill have hydro metallurgy? Queens now has a professor, a young professor in hydro metallurgy. UFT has hydro metallurgy since the early 90s. Professor Papangelakis, who I'm proud to call myself his supervisor. So there is definitely a strong presence at the university level but apart from UBC there is no critical mass in other areas. So there is always the element of risk if there will be continuation. That's the university situation. Now we come to government laboratories. Kermit is not there anymore. I mean it is there. And actually I'm proud that another graduate of mine, Janis Zink, a woman. She is leading the metallurgy group and the environmental group at Kermit in Ottawa. But the reality is that it's not the Kermit of the 70s and the 80s. It's not. It's not the Kermit of John Deutre Jacques or Gordon Ritchie. You know, these names were known to everyone around the world that will read about hydro metallurgy. So government laboratories, there were provincial government laboratories that do not exist in Ontario, Quebec. They do not exist anymore. So the government withdraws from research. We had companies, corporate. We had here in Montreal we were lucky. Noranda Technology Center was a flagship. I did for 25 years I was working with them. I owe so much the support I received because as a professor if you are isolated in your lab or in your classroom you don't have a lot of influence, a lot of potential. You need that back and forth with industry to work so you need to get support from them but also to train good students that they will hire and also work on projects of interest to them. So the companies INCO, the Sheridan Park, big laboratories worldwide known and other companies. I mean, I mentioned Sheridan before, Cominco, Falcom, but just in Noranda Technology Center that I know so much even they demolished, there was a modern building and they demolished even the building to build the condo or apartments. The Canadian leadership of Canadian corporations like Noranda, INCO, whatever, it's gone. There's no leadership, there's no ownership. No, if they exist they're all owned by outside companies now. Yes. Like Vale. It's Vale and Falco Bridge now it's, it was Extrata and now it's Glencore. I mean, Canadian electrolytic zinc outside Montreal. You know they have a couple of years with their present contract. Will Extrata continue supporting them or they will pull the plug? You know the decisions are taken outside the country. There is no as far I'm concerned strong leadership, national leadership when it comes to matters of R&D for the mineral metal sector. Maybe the mining, they create the mining innovation council but that stops mining. But we have to add value to our minerals, not just raw material, commodity. I was going to say it's funny because they go hand in hand, I mean mining and metallurgy. That was the winning formula before, like INCO had the mines but also they had the smelters and they developed technologies, the carbonyl process you know and other companies to produce high purity nickel powder. You know you can use it even for batteries and so on. But there is no such vision anymore. There is no. The government is more or less out. There is no private corporate. But we have one winning sector here, engineering companies, Hatch. Hatch, I'm proud to associate myself with Jerry Hatch and I owe a lot to him because it was thanks to a gift that he gave to McGill University that I was hired 1987. Otherwise I would not have been a professor. I mentioned before about professors of hydrometallurgy. Without that private gift from Jerry Hatch, I would not be here talking to you today. So Jerry Hatch went out, he started in the 50s with a company of five engineers and he built 10,000 person company, global engineering powerhouse. We have Essence, we have BAA, we have METCAM, we have many other engineering firms. That part of the industry is doing well and we still have a big name for our graduates to find jobs and so on. But the research side suffers. You had mentioned universities and government, so you had mentioned that government does not seem to push or try to develop R&D in general, but also create leaders like you had mentioned in NutriZac or Fadi Abash, any of these big names. So you had mentioned the government, do you think it's also just an interesting, like in schools are there less people who decide to take hydrometallurgy or specialized in metallurgy? That's a myth. If you have professors teaching hydrometallurgy and doing research in hydrometallurgy, students will come to you, especially when the projects are supported from industry. And these graduates with a master's or PhD, or even with a bachelor's degree, they will find jobs, meaningful jobs, good jobs, they will make a contribution. But when you see less and less from the industry side, therefore the students will not show interest. I know that there is a competition, like in my department, I live this here, I'm the chair of the department now. We are materials engineers, we are not metallurgical engineers. We are unique, we start with mineral processing. The students learn from minerals all the way to electronic materials and biomaterials, like, you know, hip replacement materials, you know, not just metals like titanium, but also materials like fluoroapatite or artificial bone, etc. All kinds of overseas is going on. So a student, obviously, he's overwhelmed now where I'm going to meet actually the undergraduate students today at 5.30 to hear the reviews about our program and so on. But yeah, they're overwhelmed from mineral processing all the way to advanced materials. So, yeah, the reality is that still more jobs exist in the traditional fields. You know, the mineral processing remains strong, but the metallurgical jobs, they're less and less. I mean, we don't have still companies anymore. I mean, the Dofasco and Stelco, etc., they're under other hands, or Ipsco, whatever was the name of the company, Saskatchewan, Regina, now it's Russian owners. Nothing against international ownership, it's a global game, I mean, trade and so on. But a country should reinvest some of the revenue, profits, whatever we generate into R&D and into training HQP, we say, highly qualified personnel. People who will become leaders tomorrow and will generate wealth. So, we need to invest more on the human knowledge capital. I don't know. Right now, we're in a transition period. There is less research than necessary. The R&D spending by Canadian mining companies is down. And they include usually as research exploration, trying to find new ore bodies, etc. Well, this is not research. Of course, without the ore bodies, you cannot have a mine. I agree with you. But research is to go beyond to optimize the process, to reduce the energy that you use, to reduce the environmental footprint, to make new products, add value, generate more jobs that will be exportable. People would like to buy your product, not just your raw material, not just tonnage of coal and unprocessed oil or unprocessed copper ore or whatever. Anyway, that's a challenge. Yeah, for sure. Thanks. So, speaking of research and lab work, you told me a bit about your research, what maybe what stands out throughout your career, what you're proudest of, and hydrometallurgy especially. Well, I'm proud of the people that did their postgraduate degrees with me for masters and PhD. Many of them, they are successful in their careers. Senior positions and so on. So, number one, it's people. And people have to realize that the universities are for producing, you know, like NSERC, the natural sciences and geniuses, highly qualified people, people with qualifications. So, that's our product and I'm proud of the people who have worked with me over the years. We have done, as far as I'm concerned, good work in the area of different hydrometallurgical unit operations, autoclave processing of ores and concentrates, solvent extraction, and precipitation crystallization processes. And I can mention our work on arsenic immobilization, stabilization, which relates to crystallization that started 20, 25 years ago. And now it's a commercial reality in Chile. And it was a PhD student of mine that persuaded his company, Kodalko, the number one copper company to go that way. And I have to say something here about, you know, Canadian companies in the field. It's thanks to Canadian companies that I did this research. Because to do research, you need to have master students, PhD students, who you have to pay them to support them. The money comes from companies plus the government. So, we get grants and we pay the students and they work on a project. So, I was fortunate to get support from Canadian companies and the Canadian government for that research. I will go to conferences, present this. People will have nice things to say, but always questionable. You know, they will question if this is practical, this way, etc. This is on arsenic. On arsenic, yeah, they work on arsenic for many years. And it was only, and even the Chileans that they have a big problem with arsenic, back to 96, 97, they gave me a contract. So, a postdoc of mine goes down to Chile. He runs experiments. We demonstrate you can make, corrodyte the particular form of stable arsenic that can solve the problem of pollution. But I don't know if it works. There was skeptical. But 10 years later, a PhD graduate of mine from Chile, he was hired by the same company and he was told, deal with the arsenic problem. So, he did what he learned here and eventually there was a process that they piloted and they installed and it works. Just the lesson is that I was fortunate to get support from Canadian companies, but we don't have any application of this yet in Canada. I hope one day it will be. But or something else. But the bottom line is that this was a very rewarding work with the people that they did the work, the companies that they helped. And eventually to see also in Japan there is interest. I have been invited a few times. They have developed a variation of this corrodyte process. They are in China. They are interested in their other countries. But things are moving a little bit slowly because I have to say that when it comes to environmental technologies, the mining companies, they are not proactive. They are reactive always. It is only when they don't have a right choice. As a non-metal artist, could you tell me a bit more about the work on arsenic chemistry and maybe in layman's terms and its environmental side to it? Or how it works. To describe a little bit more of this process. Yeah, in the process you worked on. Okay, so when you process let's say copper concentrates or gold ore that contains arsenic, that arsenic is mobilized as we say. It's released. It's not anymore in a mineral solid form. So either we'll go into an exhaust gas if you use a furnace and you collect it as a dust. Or we'll go into a waste water stream if it's a hydro metallurgical type of plant. So now you have two types of waste. One is dust that's, you know, it's arsenic trioxide. It's the form of that dust which was used as poison during the Roman times and during the Burgias papacy. You know, if you had seen the series, the Burgias on TV, that white powder that kills you and so on. So you have this type of either in a liquid form or in dust. The dust form what they were doing, they will stockpile in underground tunnels for example in a dry area. They will contain water because immediately arsenic will go into water. And we have a bad legacy right now in Canada. And the Yellow Knife area, Northwestern Territories, there was a gold mine and a smelter, a roaster. And they have 250,000 tons of this dust stored in underground tunnels. The company went bankrupt about 15 years ago. Royal Oak I think was the name. And who inherited all this mesh? The federal government which means the Canadian citizens. To clean this legacy waste and the government has a technical panel, a committee, experts. They looked in different options but it's in such bad shape those underground tunnels that they cannot send workers to remove the dust out to process it. And they are talking more than one billion dollars to rehabilitate and stabilize. And this is only one example of a waste form of arsenic that has been badly managed. Now if this dust is accessible, I can take it and process it in tanks with acid and some addition of iron. And we make then from the arsenic a synthetic mineral called scorodite. That's a compound that contains iron and arsenic and oxygen. And what can that be used for? Nothing. It's just not... That's stable though. It's not like the arsenic trioxide, the oxide of arsenic that's very soluble. That one is stable. Now when I say stable, don't take me wrong. Nothing is stable 100%. I mean it's earth, it's a dynamic system. Things change. I mean just we want to make sure that the weathering of that mineral, the gradual release of arsenic will be below a threshold that will pose any risk. And we do all the studies and not ask hundreds of people. There are a lot of papers about the arsenic and that you can maintain very low concentration. It's funny because drinking water always mentions arsenic on the label and they say arsenic zero. Of course nobody will drink water with arsenic but I don't know why they have always the arsenic mentioned there. But if you had paid attention. So that's what we do. We can take that dash, we put an acid solution with some iron. It's like a chemical process and we precipitate, we make that powder particles of that synthetic mineral. Then we can dispose in a land field which is properly engineered. There's a certain way to place toxic waste. Although it's not any more hazardous and toxic like the acid oxide because it has very low solubility. But nevertheless we want to be extra careful. So we're going to enclose in some kind of insulating burial site. And if it comes in contact with water. If it comes in contact with water then some arsenic will be released. That will be below the level for example below 0.5 or 1 part per million. Which when it's diluted in water then you go below the 50 parts per billion and so on. You are safe, you don't have to worry. So that's one way about the dash. Or there are other forms. You may have an acid waste stream already containing arsenic. That's the situation for example in Chile. And you can precipitate that arsenic again by controlling the chemistry of the solution of the acid and the iron and the arsenic and the temperature to form that synthetic mineral. So the idea is let's return arsenic back to nature as a mineral. Because scorodite exists in nature. Therefore that's the approach we took. But there are more. We have developed even a second level of protection. Now this scorodite mineral material we are going to encapsulate into an inert matrix. That will be totally protective. So it will be another layer of protection. I mean research keeps bringing new ideas. But eventually if research is not applied. But I hope one day all these ideas will be useful. But in the process we train people. And these people learn and they go and they work for companies. And they solve other problems that companies have. So they have that knowledge and that methodical approach and technical expertise and so on. So did they apply it in Chile? Yes since 2012. Now here's a big question. But again no wrong answer to this. In your opinion because of this project that we're doing. Are there any events, people, inventions, disasters, anything whatsoever. That you believe must be mentioned when talking about the history of the natural resources in Canada. You caught me there with him. And I mean maybe nothing comes to mind. But it could be one person specifically you think really changed metallurgy. Or it could be like I mentioned earlier maybe a disaster or a problem that needed to be solved. And was or wasn't but changed everybody's perspective for the best afterwards. Well I will mention Jerry Hatch because he was nice to me. But honestly he saw the importance of being you know using when we design a metallurgical complex. You know a furnace etc. That we use sound engineering principles. And we design processes that they are efficient and so on. So it was like a paradigm shift. You know himself he was a practicing consultant engineer. He built the company and so on. That was big and still we benefit because like I said thousands of people are employed and Canada is known for that. Well there was of course the acid rain problem. Back in the 70s that we had in Sudbury right. All the SO2 releases to the smelting which was solved by you know having acid plants built and so on. I was just talking about that the other day with a colleague. And how growing up when I first started going to school and he's a bit older and when he was going to school. No no. We would both hear about acid rain and it being an issue and we were actually wondering what happened. Is it completely solved or? Well it is. We don't have a problem anymore. I mean it was the Americans with the coal burning power plants. They continue for some time after the Sudbury smelters and so on and Noranda in Northern Quebec. They install acid plants that they were a bit late coming in. But from what I understand yeah this has been solved. There is another problem the acid mine drainage problem. And the industry changed the terminology to acid the rock drainage. Again not to give a bad perspective to mining. But basically what it is it's you know when you excavate you open a mine and you take out the valuable ore. At the same time you take out some waste rock. That you dump it. You know nearby. And that rock because it's iron sulfide starts reacting with the elements. And releasing acid you know. So you have acid release and heavy metals and pollution and there is a big problem. But it didn't meant which I don't remember mine effluent neutral discharge something like this. And so the industry has worked a lot on that. For me you know the technological aspects were of interest like this solvent extraction you know. Good enriches work. Because it was not only practical that they develop processes that they are used worldwide. But also was the knowledge the books the scientific journal the scientific meetings. But you said disaster. Yeah I mean if there might not be just another angle to. This disaster is when you hear in the news you know some tailings pond that breaks and then release the waste. And I was once expert. And I had visited Guyana. There was a gold mine operated by Canadian company that the tailings pond with a lot of cyanide. There was a bridge that was not properly. There was a fight between it was the engineering front who built it or the operating company responsible. The bottom line is that all this cyanide laden waste dumped into the river. Luckily you know there's a dilution effect and cyanide does not last long. It's there's natural degradation. But those things give a very bad publicity. But I think the company starts response to this thing just we need to be more proactive. And be more you know go for a better technologies and develop technology and commercialize technologies. Not just look around and use technology. No let's make also let's innovate innovation. It's a problem in Canada especially in our field. Thank you. I'll finish with a few more social questions. One one that's I find quite important about women and you've worked more in the academic world. We see the graduates who eventually end up working for the company. Yeah exactly. So this is where it starts. But throughout your career have you how present or absent have women been. So I mean it might be drastically different from back then to today. But if it is isn't how has that changed. You know I come from Greece and it's interesting that their women are leaders in engineering. You know there is more than 50% of the incoming class are women. Really. And here in North America engineering is not appealing at all to female students. No it's like 20% or something. Yeah 20%. Yeah maybe we get 25%. And we have a problem. It is true that we have a problem. We need to increase the number of women. I'm proud to say that you know in general I get more than 25% of my graduate students being women in my group. And there are some women out there working that I remember how I recruited them and now you know they work in big companies and so on. And how they started their career you know uncertain if they would be welcome or not. So we need to do more. We need to have more role models. By the way last August when the conference of metallurgists in Toronto and we had the symposium devoted to the memory of Lucy Rosato. With the women of impact. And of course we had you know Mary Wells the president who organized that. There was a great initiative and Indira Samarasakara who was one of the keynote speakers and other accomplished women. But on the hydro metallurgist side we had organized a symposium called Lucy Rosato. Lucy Rosato that I had the good fortune to work with her for 25 years. She was my age but unfortunately she passed away 7-8 years ago. She rose to become CEO of a company. And she hired women. The technical superiority than being a woman. You know a woman lining the roster section you know. And it's great. We need more. We need more and we need maybe scholarships to some affirmative action you know. Or NSERC at certain point in the past they had the program about women faculty awards. So a university to hire a woman as professor. The governor will pay for 10 years part of the salary. To be you know more yeah we need to do that. To attract you know the young girls and boys of course I mean science. In general we have a problem attracting people to science. Right now our universities and engineering schools my department for sure. We are full house you know sold out you know from an admission point of view. Because we attract international students. International students. Very known for that. I mean if you were at the convocation two days ago with convocation the fall convocation. And you will see the faces of the graduates that working by and graduating. Even medicine engineering and other you know fields. It's those who have international connection. So we need to make science and engineering more attractive to young people. But also reward them right. Reward them. You know with good meaningful jobs and so on. Of course everything goes back you know what is the corporate leadership and the government vision and all this. But we need. And we need to work on things that they will mobilize their imagination. For example myself despite the fact that I'm late in my career. Now I'm working on energy projects. Lithium ion batteries for electrical cars and photovoltaic materials. And you say how you go from hydro metallurgy to this. And that's what I'm doing I show to my students that the processes used to make the materials for those advanced technologies. They have a lot of similarity with hydro metallurgical processes. Just you know we need to pay attention to some other properties and so on. I'm not saying it's straightforward but things like that definitely attract attention. Young people say you know oh you know you hear Elon Musk. You hear Tesla the electric car you know. Can we create a little bit of baskin can we create a little bit of more dynamic innovation. We had Blackberry I mean such a big success story. And we didn't follow up because of course you cannot expect only one. You need hundreds of small medium sized companies coming up with innovation including the mineral metallurgical world. The new technologies will be created by those companies and then the big companies will choose some of those technologies. Will choose some of those technologies to implement and so on. Well there is an interest more and that includes more women now and that's the environmental sciences. Environmental green you know. Yeah that type of engineering. So who knows maybe that's going to really explode in the next few years. I mean everybody loves like you mentioned Tesla and Elon Musk right a lot of people now see him. Yeah he can walk on water. Exactly so maybe there's a door open there. One last question before the last closing question. If you believe there's a disconnect between the natural resource world and the general population. If you believe there is one and if so why. I guess I mean we saw what happened with the Keystone XL pipeline. You know usually the natural resources industry isn't the news for bad reasons because of some environmental issue. It's unfortunate. It's unavoidable that you know when you have millions of tons of material you know moved to recover some valuable metal etc. That you are going to cause some disturbance. But so incidents where you know accidents happen and publicity you know oil spill whatever and you had birds or you had fish or something. That makes you know the public to be to question you know to be the disconnect. But on the other hand our economy is based a lot on natural resources jobs and so on. So just we need to keep working to find that synergy that golden balance to get the jobs to get the money the wealth out of our resources while be leaders implementing green technologies and one going together with the other. Because I remember 10 years ago or 15 years ago you know with oil development etc. You know or CO2 etc. A sequestration was kind of you know something that nobody was interested. And then suddenly when the industry realized in the government that we need to do something they invest a lot of money but they were expecting within 3-4 years to have a technology that works. And now I hear despite all this investment with CO2 sequestration in Alberta or Saskatchewan we haven't seen yet this really to make any impact on how much CO2 we continue releasing global warming. Well you need to work for 10-15 years. What you were doing 10 years ago? Why you were not investing in research? You industry leaders and you government leaders we have a very narrow view. So if we start realizing this with what we learn from our experience and investing in our natural resources but at the same time investing in R&D that the environmental technologies will protect our water our air you know our fish whatever our soil our communities it's a win-win situation. We cannot live without materials you know materials come from earth. I mean we have synthetic materials but still there are the first ingredients come you know you cannot imagine them. Yeah but we have to return them back you know at the end the life cycle of the material the recycling etc that minimizes the impact. Inevitably there will be impact but we are smart we can figure it out if we try to you know to think beyond the corporate and narrow interest. Just a last question and that is if you were speaking of someone much younger like a student for example what would be the one piece of advice or life lesson you could give them looking at their perhaps their future career? Pursuit you know as career something that you like you must find an interest even if it's not popular even if it's not you know the job of whatever does not look around the corner. Don't think short just be honest hard working learn whatever you choose to learn be good with that keep your eyes open learn from others and ask the questions and you will succeed. I mean it's I hate when I see people thinking oh how much money I'm gonna make when I finish with my bachelor's degree when I'm 23 years old. Well yeah some of them they will be very successful and by the age of 30 they will have paid the mortgage of their house etc. Okay that's great but you must like what you do if that's what you like great but don't short circuit yourself and your dreams by by choosing to do something that you don't like because it's it's it's you have a career in front of you like myself I come to work and I like it. You know I'm 64 we said at the beginning and I was asked to be chair of the department I said but the university at the same time gives an incentive program says oh people like me I can work away with one full year salary as bonus. But to their head I said choose can you be the chair of the department for the next three years why because I like what I'm doing and as long as I'm healthy of course. So you must like what you do if you don't like today you came with him from Ottawa. Of course you know and etc etc but but you must like what you do if you don't like what you do it's a long life it's a long life. And then it does have to be work always relate but but somehow the work should bring satisfaction and you start with learning now and ask the questions now that you are a student now that. And that's it. Well thank you. Thank you. I want to thank the Museum of Science and the Metsoc my friend. Some Marcus and all the other guys who will initiate this project it's great we need simply to bring this message to the young people like your last question. And there's a lot of interesting stuff you know so many innovative ideas and so many things to learn and to do. In mining and materials and in metallurgical processes and so on. So thank you and good luck. Thank you.