A federal judge on Monday ordered regulators to reexamine a state permit allowing Lithium Americas Corp.’s Thacker Pass mine to produce and store mining waste on more than a thousand acres of public land.
Chief Judge Miranda M. Du, however, rejected opponents’ claims that the project would cause “unnecessary and undue degradation” to the environment or wildlife, meaning construction of the mine can continue.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/
‘If the water becomes contaminated by the mine, I don’t see how we can limit the damage’
Type the word “Nemaska” into a search engine and most results refer to Nemaska Lithium, the company that sought bankruptcy protection in 2019 before being partly bought out by the Quebec government’s investment agency. The episode resulted in tens of thousands of small investors losing significant savings.
However, Nemaska is above all a Cree community in the heart of the boreal forest, more than 1,500 kilometres from Montreal. They share their territory with a wide variety of species, and caribou herds have long visited the area, drawn by its abundance of lichen.
https://www.nationalobserver.com/
More than a billion tonnes of climate pollution pours out American tailpipes every year. For scale, that’s more than the combined emissions from the 100 least-polluting nations.
Ending this gargantuan climate pollution disaster will require a sharp increase in new lithium extraction to build the zero-emission alternatives — battery electric vehicles. A new report by the University of California, Davis and the Climate and Community Project (CCP) reveals just how much more lithium will be needed.
As Freddy Jolly’s pickup truck travels the dusty roads through the spruce forests outside Nemaska, Que., the one radio station fades in and out, and Jolly fills the gaps between country ballads with conversation. “There are fewer moose than before due to logging,” Jolly says as he scans the horizon.
This is Eeyou Istchee in northern Quebec, the traditional land of the James Bay Cree, with a surface area equivalent to two-thirds of France. The 65-year-old Cree hunter and trapper knows the land well and has agreed to take a visitor to see sites where lithium mines are under construction.
PERTH (miningweekly.com) – The joint venture (JV) partners of the North American Lithium (NAL) operation, in Quebec, are hoping to finalise offtake agreements over the project by the end of March this year.
Global lithium developer Piedmont Lithium president and CEO Keith Phillips told Mining Weekly Online that at 130 000 t/y, Piedmont would be the biggest buyer of NAL product, of which nearly half would be sold to third-party buyers.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Lithium Americas Corp. has landed a US$650-million financing with General Motors Co. that moves the Canadian lithium company closer to breaking ground on a massive lithium mine that should help alleviate a North American shortfall for the key battery metal.
Detroit-based GM is set to become the largest shareholder in Lithium Americas, with a stake of just under 10 per cent, and it will also be entitled to exclusive supplies of the lithium carbonate produced during the first 10 years of the mine’s operation.
https://www.afr.com/chanticleer/
Bullish new forecasts for lithium demand have coincided with setbacks to new supply projects. That’s ultimately good for prices, but not for the electric vehicle sector’s big ambitions.
It’s unlikely that many Australian investors are following the travels of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. But his current trip to South America underscores a new front in the global race for arguably the world’s hottest commodity: lithium.
Scholz signed an agreement with Argentina that is designed to help German industry secure lithium supplies from the South American giant. On Sunday, he was in Chile – the world’s second-largest supplier of lithium after Australia – seeking a similar deal.
Berlin trails global powers like China and the US in acquiring lithium, a key component in electric vehicle batteries. German Chancellor Scholz will address the issue on his trip to South America this weekend.
Roughly 57% of the world’s lithium deposits are found in Argentina, Bolivia and Chile. Because it’s used in electric vehicle battery production, the natural resource is highly sought-after. Globally, the Chinese have invested billions to ensure their place at the front of the line. The US, too, is in a better position than its European partners.
Albemarle Corp (ALB.N) on Tuesday called for lithium prices to remain high indefinitely in order to help the mining industry develop new sources of the electric vehicle (EV) battery metal and fuel the green energy transition.
The push for higher prices by the world’s largest lithium producer is likely to exacerbate the growing tension between EV manufacturers and mining companies that supply the materials crucial for the all-electric shift, with high metals prices threatening EV profitability.
Lithium giant Albemarle has raised its forecast for future lithium demand by more than 15 per cent and signalled it would expand its Australian mines to supply the lithium needed for the world to rapidly adopt electric vehicles.
But Mineral Resources swiftly provided a reminder on Wednesday that expanding mines in Western Australia is easier said than done, revealing that expansion of its Mt Marion lithium mine had been delayed by labour shortages and equipment delays, forcing a 17 per cent cut to this year’s export target.
https://www.northernminer.com/
Yellowknife was founded on gold mining, and now lithium holds the potential of opening a new chapter for the Far North’s second largest city. Just a short drive east of Yellowknife and off the paved, all-season highway the Ingraham Trail, Vancouver-based explorer Li-FT Power (CSE: LIFT) is preparing to turn its drills on 13 targets it calls the Yellowknife Lithium Project.
“When you talk about the potential, it’s just really easy to see because the pegmatites stick out of the ground and you can fly over them, they go for 1.8 km, and you just see almost 100% exposure,” Francis MacDonald, CEO Li-FT said in an interview with The Northern Miner.
Nevada and other states are poised to rake in huge benefits from a boom in lithium mining for batteries pushed by federal incentives as U.S. demand surges for electric vehicles (EVs).
Environmentalists, however, are warning amid investments from the Biden-backed Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) that a heavy-handed approach to lithium mining could bring many of the same problems associated with fossil fuel extraction.
In December 2022, Zimbabwe banned raw lithium ore exports to minimise the economic potential of artisanal mining and encourage investments in state-approved production facilities. Then in January 2023 another ban followed, according to the state-owned newspaper The Herald, this time for covering all base mineral ores.
“No lithium-bearing ores, or unbeneficiated lithium whatsoever, shall be exported from Zimbabwe to another country except under the written permission of the minister,” the country’s mining minister Winston Chitando said in December about the lithium export ban.
Zayn Kalyan is CEO of Infinity Stone Ventures
The Canadian Government announced the approval of Galaxy Lithium Canada’s James Bay Lithium Project in Quebec, a milestone in the development of domestic North American lithium production. The James Bay project is expected to produce approximately 5,480 tonnes of ore per day and employ 160 people on average once it’s in operation.
The approval is a significant win for the critical mineral mining industry in Canada and North America, and while clearly affirming the commitment of Canada to its climate change goals, it more importantly signals the critical nature of the energy transition in the fiscal and economic policies of western governments.
A new fund launched in November by the Business Development Bank of Canada to help foster the growth of homegrown climate technology has made its largest investment yet.
The Crown corporation’s investment arm, BDC Capital, along with Vancouver-based Evok Innovations, recently co-led a Series A2 financing round that raised US$50 million in investment capital for Summit Nanotech, a Calgary-based lithium technology company.
