https://www.yukon-news.com/
Last week, Part 1 of this column looked at the past and present of Yukon mining as well as two game changers that could be powerful tailwinds for the Yukon’s biggest private-sector industry: geopolitics and climate change.
Allies from Berlin to Washington are clamouring for secure supplies of critical minerals from locations that are secure, stable and blessed with high environmental and social standards such as the Yukon.
BHP (ASX: BHP) has joined billionaire Robert Friedland’s I-Pulse Inc. and Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a clean-tech venture backed by Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, to speed up technologies that can help the mining sector save on energy.
I-Pulse and Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV)-Europe launched earlier this year a company called I-Rox, a France-based firm focused on demonstrating a pulsed-power technology said to reduce the amount of energy needed to crush rocks.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/
Move to replace fossil fuel fleet with EVs is essential, but there are things to do first
With their futuristic designs and new technology, electric vehicles are the seductive consumer-friendly face of the energy transition.
As first incarnated by Tesla, the EV is increasingly seen as sleeker, slicker, faster and more stylish than traditional internal combustion engine cars and trucks that burn those dirty fossil fuels blamed for disrupting weather patterns and killing off species.
https://www.thesudburystar.com
Canada is home to 31 minerals that the government considers critical, including nickel
As the federal government prioritizes critical mineral extraction, local officials are emphasizing the need to take advantage of the opportunities available in Sudbury.
“Mining has always been one of Canada’s economic cornerstones,” said Sudbury MP Viviane Lapointe. “Today, this sector matters more than ever. There is a growing global appreciation that a cleaner, net-zero global economy cannot be achieved without mineral extraction, specifically, critical minerals, the building blocks for the future.”
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Ottawa is vowing to cut red tape in the mining sector in an attempt to move large resource projects along faster, after facing intense criticism that Canada risks being left behind in the global scramble to secure critical minerals.
In the federal government’s long-awaited critical minerals strategy, unveiled on Friday, Ottawa acknowledged that getting a Canadian mine for the minerals into production can take up to 25 years. That is far slower than other international mining jurisdictions that Canada competes against, such as Australia, in which projects are developed in a fraction of that time.
https://www.northernminer.com/
The federal government on Friday unveiled the details of its Critical Minerals Strategy, a plan first introduced in its April budget that earmarks almost $3.8 billion over eight years to further develop Canada’s place in the global critical minerals industry.
A significant portion of the total funding — $1.5 billion — is allocated over seven years for constructing infrastructure for critical minerals projects in remote areas, such as the Ring of Fire in northern Ontario. And $40 million is set aside to support northern regulatory processes in reviewing and permitting projects.
The isolated, nickel-rich Ring of Fire, located 550 kms northeast of Thunder Bay, is the centre-piece of Ontario’s Critical Mineral Strategy. Discovered in 2007, this developing mining camp is going to save southern Ontario’s auto sector.
Automobiles and associated parts are Ontario’s largest exports and second largest nationally, after the oil sector. Over the past century, hundreds of thousands of middle-class jobs and hundreds of billions of dollars in manufacturing activity have established the province as Canada’s economic powerhouse.
The move from gas powered engines to electric vehicles – one of the largest industrial transitions in North American history – must occur in record time if we are going to arrest climate change. However, this conversion cannot happen without an enormous increase in nickel, copper, lithium and other critical minerals that are used in the manufacturing of electric vehicles.
https://www.moosejawtoday.com/
WASHINGTON — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday that Canada will be “watching closely” as the United States responds to complaints from Europe about the North American protectionism built into President Joe Biden’s signature climate change initiative.
Biden received an earful from French President Emmanuel Macron about “super aggressive” climate incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act — incentives that favour manufacturers in Canada and Mexico, as well as the U.S.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
The Canadian government is proposing to toughen scrutiny of foreign takeovers, citing national security concerns, just weeks after its new Indo-Pacific policy identified China as an “increasingly disruptive” power.
“The world has vastly changed in the last few years,” Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne said as he unveiled a package of changes to the Investment Canada Act that he said represented the most significant update in more than a decade. “That’s why we must be prepared to face the challenges that could endanger our economic security and national security.”
https://www.thesudburystar.com/
Canada offers ‘stability, predictability and the rule of law,’ says Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne
The electric vehicle transition in North America kicked off nearly a decade ago with Tesla Inc. chief executive Elon Musk moving at breakneck speed, but now it’s shifting to a different phase: the slow and boring chapter in which automakers take months — or years even — to decide where to build their EV operations.
That may be a good thing for Canada as it seeks to grow its auto sector. “It’s clear that energy security, food security and supply chain resiliency is top of mind to leaders around the world,” Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne said at a press conference on Dec. 5 in Germany, where he was meeting with Volkswagen AG and other automakers. “Canada is in many respects the answer.”
After several years of deliberations, iron ore giant Vale SA is finally laying out a path for unlocking value from its nickel and copper business as demand for the so-called battery metals picks up.
The Rio de Janeiro-based firm will separate the base metal assets from its iron ore operations and unveil a strategic partner in the first half of next year, Chief Executive Officer Eduardo Bartolomeo and Chief Financial Officer Gustavo Pimenta said in an interview. An initial public offering is off the table for now.
(Bloomberg) — The world’s fastest-growing lithium producer is lobbying hard to gain access to President Joe Biden’s new electric vehicle tax credits, despite Argentina not meeting the requirement of being a US free-trade partner. So far, it’s being rebuffed.
Designed to end China’s overwhelming dominance of the critical metals sector and passed in August, Biden’s signature Inflation Reduction Act has been welcomed as a landmark climate law that will boost EV manufacture and uptake in the US. But to qualify for the credits, it requires 80% of the battery metals in each vehicle to be “extracted or processed” in the US or a country with US free-trade agreement by 2027.
https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/
PM: Creating secure battery minerals supply chains ensure Canada’s reliability as an international partner
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made no apologies for cracking down on Chinese investment in Canadian mining projects that produce the coveted critical minerals needed to power the clean energy economy.
In a Dec. 5 news conference showcasing Canada’s first full-scale electric vehicle plant at General Motor’s CAMI Assembly complex in Ingersoll, Trudeau emphasized the importance for Canada to have “control” of its own sources of critical minerals, like nickel and lithium, and the downstream processing facilities that produce the battery-ready material used in electric vehicle production.
The town of Tonopah, Nev., was born out of a silver rush. A frantic race to extract a natural resource created a town of more than 10,000 people — for a while. Today, Tonopah is home to a little over 2,000 people. But there’s a new mining boom in town.
You can see it when you check in at the old Mitzpah Hotel, all faded glory, ghost stories and tales about Wyatt Earp. Above the cash register, next to a chandelier, a screen advertises a lithium exploration company. And forty minutes outside of town, Silver Peak lithium mine is in the process of doubling production.
The first electric delivery vans rolled off the line Monday at a General Motors Co. plant in Ingersoll, Ont., that has been making gas-powered vehicles for more than three decades. The CAMI assembly plant was retooled to make the BrightDrop Zevo 600, making it Canada’s first full-scale electric-vehicle (EV) manufacturing facility.
GM received $259 million each from the Ontario and federal governments in April for the conversion and aims to manufacture about 50,000 EVs a year at the plant by 2025.
