Canada has announced a 6.4 billion Canadian dollar ($4.6 billion) package of critical mineral projects to challenge China’s overwhelming dominance in the critical mineral supply chain. The announcement came on Friday at the close of the G7 Energy and Environment Ministers’ meeting in Toronto. “This first round of G7 Alliance projects sends the world a very clear signal: we are serious about reducing market concentration and dependencies, safeguarding national security and sovereignty, mobilizing capital, and driving investments in sustainable critical minerals projects,” Energy and Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson said. He confirmed that Ottawa had invoked the Defence Production Act to officially designate critical minerals as…
Author: TJ Markle
A drill echoes through narrow tunnels deep within the mountain where miner Hugo Flores bores into rock in search of one of Earth’s most toxic elements. Buried in red stripes of minerals illuminated by his headlamp is mercury. Here in the pine-covered mountains known as the Sierra Gorda – one of the most biodiverse stretches of Mexico – a “mercury boom” is underway. Soaring international gold prices are driving up the price of mercury, a toxic metal key in illegal gold mining, to all-time highs. While the demand triggers a mining rush in central Mexico, sustaining thousands of miners and…
In the context of growing demand for metals and minerals, deep-sea mining has gathered attention for its promises of allowing access to mineral deposits of the seabed. Deep-sea mining is currently in the exploration phase, with its impacts yet to be fully understood, but its consequence on climate, biodiversity and human rights could be catastrophic and likely to be irreversible. Deep-Sea Mining Deep-Sea Mining (DSM) is a proposed commercial industry that includes the exploitation (mining) of mineral deposits and metals from the deep-seabed (UNEP, 2024). While remaining widely unknown, parts of the ocean floor are known to be rich of…
A new report from Dalhousie University shows flaws in the environmental review process for mining operations in Canada, with researchers finding that data for 20 per cent of the projects they reviewed was incomplete or missing entirely from public records. The report collected all available environmental impact assessments on mining projects dating back to 1974 – that’s 266 assessments on 227 projects over 50 years. However, researchers ran into problems. Some provinces, such as British Columbia, had a fully digitized and accessible system; the records for other jurisdictions were much harder to access or simply not available. Without complete data…
Move would set price floors, long-term sales to help Canadian companies compete with China Canada is officially designating certain critical minerals as a national security priority under the Defence Production Act, a move that would allow the federal government to support the mining industry by guaranteeing it a buyer and a minimum price. The move was announced at a G7 energy and environment meeting in Toronto on Friday, where countries discussed countering China’s overwhelming dominance of critical mineral production. Those minerals are essential for modern technologies like electric vehicles and clean energy, and Western nations have been growing increasingly anxious over China’s…
Joe Pizarchik, who led the federal Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement from 2009 to 2017, says Alabama’s move in the wake of a fatal 2024 home explosion increases risks to residents living atop “gassy” coal mines. Joe Pizarchik knows mining. For nearly a decade, he served as the Senate-confirmed head of the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE), the federal agency charged with regulating the surface impacts of underground coal mining across the country. Before that, Pizarchik served in his home state of Pennsylvania in its Department of Environmental Protection, first as assistant director of the…
West Africa-focused Kodal Minerals (LON: KOD) says operations at its Bougouni lithium mine in southern Mali remain unaffected despite escalating security tensions near the capital, Bamako. The London-listed company said activities at Bougouni, located about 180 km from Bamako, continue as normal. Over the weekend, al Qaeda-linked militants advanced toward the capital, cutting off key roads, ambushing military patrols and attacking tanker trucks. The Malian military junta and its Russian partners are struggling to contain the insurgents, who control large parts of the Sahel region. As the situation worsens, the United Kingdom, the United States and Germany have urged their citizens to…
Glencore is planning to wind down its Horne Smelter — Canada’s largest copper-metal producing plant — citing steep environmental upgrades and operational costs, Reuters reported on Monday. The Swiss commodities giant currently operates the Horne and the Canadian Copper Refinery (CCR), both located in the province of Quebec. The Horne smelter processes concentrates to make copper anode, which is then turned into cathode by CCR. While no production figures have been published for these assets, industry sources cited by Reuters have pegged their annual output at more than 300,000 tonnes. Much of the copper metal production goes to the US, a net importer. A…
In April 1998, a young geologist and his team set out from the village of Moribadou and trekked for six hours through the Guinea Highlands, a densely forested plateau that spreads across four countries in West Africa. “It was extremely difficult,” said Sidiki Koné. “In front was forest. It was forest to the left and forest to the right. Behind it was the same thing. And I said ‘how is this work possible?’” Koné was mapping and drilling for his employer Rio Tinto Group, one of the largest mining companies. It had recently confirmed the presence of vast quantities of…
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — An appeal hearing opened Monday in South Africa on whether a subsidiary of British-based mining company Anglo American PLC was responsible for lead poisoning over decades that affected around 140,000 people in Zambia. The class action by women and children asks South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal to overturn a judgment by a lower court that dismissed their case against Anglo American South Africa. They allege that a mine in the Zambian city of Kabwe — which Anglo American South Africa was involved with from 1925 to 1974 — “poisoned generations of local people,” according to a…