Excellent post Scarpa just shows what the hurdles needed to overcome to get these multi-faceted projects into production.
Below is the most recent update from Geomega and where they are currently focused on.
The fact that they still can't viably process ore from the existing deposit Montviel because of the huge amount of acid it would consume makes it unviable until they sort this problem out both projects will stay in the ground as there are plenty of others that don't have these problems.

Geomega to Centralize its Activities in St Hubert, Quebec; New R&D Funding for HCl recycling for REE and Sc extraction & Demo Plant Update

HCl recycling project funding from CRITM
The HCl recycling research project is expected to be completed over 24 months and will have important synergies with other projects of the Corporation. HCl is a strong leaching reagent that can be used to extract REE, Sc and other metals from various sources such as permanent magnets, monazite, bastnaesite and bauxite residues. Although it has many advantages, its cost compared to sulfuric acid can be prohibitive due to its high consumption by gangue minerals and other major elements (Fe, Al). This often results in important volumes of spent water and solid residues and solutions with only limited efficiency are available today to recycle HCl. The solution being developed by Innord is an alternative method which allows to regenerate HCl from an aqueous solution of metal chlorides without the need for high temperature treatments. The project will include testing the bench scale HCl recycling process on REE and Sc rich leaching solutions and provide a techno-economical evaluation of the process.

“The team is very excited to start working on this innovative solution. Geomega has worked with HCl as far back as 2013 while developing the Montviel flowsheet but the limitations of HCl recycling has always been a major challenge. The development of this process can open the door to new extraction methods of REE and Sc from various sources across Quebec.