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Battery Technology Innovation/Electric Vehicles

The electric vehicle revolution is running out of steam – by The Editorial Board (Financial Times – April 10, 2024)

https://www.ft.com/

Governments need to work with carmakers to reduce the obstacles to adoption

Thousands of imported vehicles, many of them electric cars made in China, are clogging up European ports. Along with falling sales at Tesla and BYD, the world’s two biggest sellers of battery-powered vehicles, it is a sign of trouble for the crucial shift towards green transport in the 21st century.

It was not supposed to be like this. Elon Musk made Tesla the world’s most valuable carmaker and one of the “magnificent seven” US tech groups by outflanking incumbents in luxury EVs. BYD is among the companies that transformed the Chinese market by making low-priced EVs with official backing, and are now expanding overseas.

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Violent clashes in New Caledonia as nickel pact exacerbates tensions – by Patrick Decloitre (Radio New Zealand – April 10, 2024)

https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/

Fresh clashes erupted on Tuesday in the suburbs of Nouméa between security forces and pro-independence protesters who opposed a nickel pact, offering French assistance to salvage the industry. The clashes, involving firearms, teargas and stone-throwing, went on for most of Tuesday, blocking access roads to the capital Nouméa, as well as the small towns of Saint-Louis and Mont-Dore.

For most of Tuesday, traffic on the Route Provinciale 1 (RP1) was alternatively opened and closed several times, including when a squadron of French gendarmes intervened to secure the area with long-range shot teargas.

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US must boost Africa ties to secure key minerals, report says – by Felix Njini (Reuters – April 9, 2024)

https://www.reuters.com/

JOHANNESBURG/WASHINGTON, April 9 (Reuters) – The U.S. must boost commercial ties with African countries to curb reliance on China for supplies of critical minerals, a Washington-based think tank said on Tuesday.

“U.S. economic and national security depend on securing a reliable supply of critical minerals, including from Africa,” the United States Institute of Peace said in a report.

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Queen’s Park and Ottawa caught off guard by Ford’s delay of EV manufacturing in Ontario – by Robert Benzie and Tonda MacCharles (Toronto Star – April 6, 2024)

https://www.thestar.com/

Ford Canada announced Thursday that it would postpone all electric vehicle production at its Oakville assembly plant by two years until 2027 due to softening demand.

Queen’s Park and Ottawa, which have jointly pledged billions in electric vehicle manufacturing subsidies, were jolted by Ford Canada’s move to delay domestic EV production. Ford Canada announced Thursday it would postpone all electric vehicle production at its Oakville assembly plant by two years until 2027 due to softening demand.

That move came in the wake of the provincial and federal governments ponying up $295 million each in 2020 to boost EV production there. Neither the Prime Minister’s Office nor the federal industry department officials were given any advance warning of the car company’s decision, with officials learning of it in the news.

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Mining billionaire Forrest urges China to demand greener nickel – by Joe Leahy, Nic Fildes and A. Anantha Lakshmi (Financial Times – April 7, 2024)

https://www.ft.com/

Australian magnate points finger at ‘irresponsible’ standards for processing in Indonesia

Australian mining billionaire Andrew Forrest has called on China to demand higher environmental standards from its global supply chain, particularly its companies conducting nickel processing in Indonesia, an industry he accused of “complete environmental irresponsibility”.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Forrest — the chair and largest shareholder of Fortescue Metals Group — said electric vehicle manufacturers should be wary of Indonesian nickel, which he said was being extracted at immense cost to the environment.

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It is time for a new look at Windy Craggy – by Bruce Downing and Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse (North of 60 Mining News – September 26, 2020)

https://www.miningnewsnorth.com/

N’tsi Tatay, more widely known as the Windy Craggy Project, is one of North America’s largest resources of cobalt with excellent copper, zinc, gold, and silver grades hosted in an Upper Triassic Besshi-style volcanogenic massive sulphide.

It is located in the northwestern corner of British Columbia within a regional scale volcano-sedimentary basin, termed Alta Basin, which is a mineralized belt that has the potential for future discoveries. Other known sulphide prospects occur within 15 kilometers (nine miles) of N’tsi Tatay.

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US, EU Are Set to Miss Critical Minerals Agreement This Week – by Alberto Nardelli, Jorge Valero and Eric Martin (Bloomberg News/MSN.com – April 3, 2024)

https://www.msn.com/

(Bloomberg) — A US and European Union push to reach an accord on fostering critical mineral supply chains is set to miss another target this week, according to people familiar with the discussions.

The final draft statement for a high-level trade and technology meeting in Leuven, Belgium, on Thursday falls short of a deal, instead it says the transatlantic allies “are advancing negotiations toward a critical minerals agreement,” according to a document seen by Bloomberg. An earlier version of the statement left open the door to an “agreement in principle.”

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Proponents see northern Ontario’s Ring of Fire opposition melting like ice roads – Colin McCelland (Northern Miner – April 4, 2024)

https://www.northernminer.com/

Construction timelines remain fuzzy but proponents are still optimistic two and half years into studying roads to serve the Ring of Fire critical minerals region in northern Ontario.

Three all-season roads totalling 362 km are planned for the area 540 km northeast of Thunder Bay. The main highway would start at the end of a forestry road north of Aroland First Nation and the village of Nakina and head to the Ring of Fire. One branch would run to the Marten Falls First Nation to the east while another would connect to the Webequie First Nation to the west.

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Renard Diamond Mine to Be Repurposed for Lithium – by Leah Meirovich (Rapaport Magazine – April 4, 2024)

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Winsome Resources has signed an agreement to acquire the Renard diamond mine and its infrastructure, with plans to convert it into a processing facility for its Adina Lithium project. Subject to approval by a Quebec Court, Winsome will pay Renard owner Stornoway Diamonds a total of CAD 52 million ($38.5 million) in cash, shares in the company, or a combination of both, it said Wednesday.

The lithium miner will have until September 30 to gain approval, with the option to extend to February 28, 2025. Winsome will not assume any of Stornoway’s financial obligations other than mine rehabilitation, it noted. Stornoway will keep any remaining diamond inventory and equipment directly associated with diamond mining.

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Energy transition: The benefit and risk behind metals and minerals dominance in Canada – by Jon Wojnicki and Dr. Lance Mortlock (Canadian Mining Journal – April 3, 2024)

https://www.canadianminingjournal.com/

The demand for critical metals and minerals is advancing dramatically as energy transition gathers momentum globally. Rare metals and minerals are essential to many clean energy technologies, including wind turbines, electricity transmission, and electric vehicles (EVs).

But when comparing fossil fuel-based resources such as hydrocarbons with the metals and minerals needed to meet emerging needs to build renewable power generation assets and energy storage devices, the numbers are staggering. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), it takes six times the mineral inputs of a conventional car to power an EV and nine times more for a wind plant than its gas-fired counterpart.

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OPINION: A critical push to speed up mine approvals – The Editorial Board (Globe and Mail – April 4, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Canada’s quest for critical minerals has led to an astonishing promise: The federal government says it can slash the time it takes a proposed mine to get through the regulatory review process from 12 to 15 years – to just five.

Without access to a supply of pixie dust or a time machine, this commitment will demand a phenomenal amount of goodwill and co-operation from industry, First Nations and the provinces and territories.

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Russia’s Nornickel: Some EU clients refuse to buy products made of Russian metal (Reuters – March 30, 2024)

https://www.reuters.com/

MOSCOW, March 29 (Reuters) – Russia’s Nornickel, the world’s largest palladium producer and a major producer of high-grade nickel, said on Friday that some clients in the European Union had refused to buy products made with Russian metals.

Although Nornickel itself and its metals is not a target of Western sanctions some consumers are voluntarily shunning deals for its metals and of products made from Russian raw materials, said Anton Berlin, vice president for sales.

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Canada needs to act with a sense of urgency on critical minerals – by Abbas Ali Khan (Canadian Mining Journal – April 2, 2024)

https://www.canadianminingjournal.com/

What will it take for Canada to reach its ambitious critical minerals goals? I was asked that question in Houston at a conference attended by lawyers from across the world on the future of energy.

My answer was that Canada’s preliminary steps towards a viable strategy will require much more significant involvement by the government, including financial support, streamlining approval processes, and removing regulatory barriers, if meaningful progress is to be made.

The following three areas that need prompt attention:

-Reducing overregulation.
-Far greater investment by all levels of government.
-Responding to geopolitical tensions and protectionism.

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Indonesia vows to speed up nickel output despite global glut – by A. Anantha Lakshmi (Australian Financial Review – Apr 1, 2024)

https://www.afr.com/

Jakarta | Indonesia will press on with plans to expand nickel output despite a supply glut that is forcing rivals to shut down mines, as the world’s top producer aims to keep prices low and protect long-term demand for the metal crucial to electric car batteries, a senior government official has said.

The country’s production capacity for battery-grade nickel was expected to quadruple to 1 million tonnes by 2030, said Septian Hario Seto, the deputy co-ordinating minister for investment and mining. Capacity for nickel pig iron, which is used to make stainless steel, was projected to expand by up to 15 per cent in three years from the current 1.9 million tonnes, he added.

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How Gulf states are putting their money into mining – by Harry Dempsey and Chloe Cornish (Financial Times – March 31, 2024)

https://www.ft.com/

Hungry to diversify their economies beyond fossil fuels, Middle Eastern powers are investing in the resources needed to produce clean energy

In the summer of 2023, Rothschild bankers working for Zambia’s government were close to finalising a shortlist of buyers for a prized copper mine.

Mopani, a troubled but rare asset formerly owned by resources giant Glencore, had drawn offers worth hundreds of millions of dollars from big names in the mining world eager to gain access to a metal that is crucial to clean energy technologies of the future.

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