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Nevada Mining

Batteries and the new “lithium gold-rush” (CBC News – November 7, 2021)

https://www.cbsnews.com/

In the mountains of northern Nevada, the fuel of the future lies in the shadow of the past. Sixteen million years ago, the area now called Thacker Pass was the site of a giant volcanic eruption … and volcanologist Tom Benson has been searching the world for places just like it. He says an eruption here millions of years ago left behind the key to unlock the electric vehicle revolution.

It’s called lithium, the lightest solid element on that chart most of us only periodically remember from high school chemistry. Rechargeable lithium ion batteries are what power our cell phones, computers, even toothbrushes, and are now the fuel for all those electric vehicles starting to roll off the assembly line.

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COMMENTARY: Senator assures industry Nevada will remain a mining colony – by Hugh Jackson (Nevada Current – October 7, 2021)

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Harry Reid must be so proud. “Revision of our mining laws has been a regular topic for more than 100 years,” Reid wrote in 2009 when he was Senate Majority Leader. “During my time in Congress, I have fought against and defeated many ill-conceived reform efforts that would have hurt rural Nevada.”

Reid was being modest. He fought against and defeated every effort, no matter how ill- or well-conceived, to reform the antiquated 1872 Mining Law when he was in the Senate.

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Cassels Brock, Stikeman Elliott and Blakes advising on US$370 million mining deal – by Angelica Dino (Canadian Lawyer – September 22, 2021)

https://www.canadianlawyermag.com/

Deal involving Vancouver miner will consolidate one of the largest new gold districts in Nevada

To consolidate one of the largest new gold districts in Nevada, AngloGold Ashanti is buying out Vancouver-based Corvus Gold Inc. for a total transaction cost of US$370 million.

Acting for Corvus is Blakes Cassels & Graydon, Cassels Brock & Blackwell and Dorsey & Whitney. The Cassels Brock team includes Jen Hansen, Jeffrey Roy, Jackson Phillips, David Overall, Chris Norton and Chris Hersh. Stikeman Elliott is advising AngloGold.

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Tribes lose bid to block digging at lithium mine in Nevada – by Scott Sonner (Elko Daily – September 6, 2021)

https://elkodaily.com/

RENO (AP) — A federal judge has denied tribal leaders’ bid to temporarily block digging for an archaeological study required before construction can begin for a Nevada lithium mine on what they say is sacred land where their ancestors were massacred more than century ago.

U.S. District Judge Miranda Du refused three tribes’ request for a preliminary injunction blocking the trenching planned to collect samples near the Oregon state line at the site of the largest known lithium deposit in the United States.

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EDITORIAL: Environmentalists vs. electric vehicles (Las Vegas Review-Journal – August 15, 2021)

https://www.reviewjournal.com/

Despite their shrill alarmism over global warming, environmentalists are perhaps the biggest obstacles to increasing U.S. production of the minerals needed to make batteries for electric vehicles.

This month, President Joe Biden signed a symbolic executive order urging that half of new vehicles be electric by 2030. In announcing the move, the Biden administration lamented that China is in the pole position on EV manufacturing.
“China is increasingly cornering the global supply chain for electric vehicles and batteries with its fast-growing electric vehicle market,” a White House fact sheet stated.

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Barrick says Goldrush ‘world-class’ – by Adella Harding (Elko Daily Free Press – August 9, 2021)

https://elkodaily.com/

Along with announcing an increase in adjusted net income in the second quarter, Barrick Gold Corp. on Monday reported an updated feasibility study of the Goldrush exploration project in Nevada confirmed Goldrush is a world-class asset.

The company also reported that a record of decision on Goldrush from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management is now anticipated in the fourth quarter of next year.

Catherine Raw, chief operating officer for North America, said in a earnings webinar that the permitting for Goldrush has been a “long time coming” and takes in many issues but the “decline exploration allows us to ramp up quickly,” once there is a record of decision.

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The Untapped Potential of Nevada’s Cortez Trend (Investing News Network – July 13, 2021)

https://investingnews.com/

The Cortez trend is the lesser-known relative of the famous Carlin trend — the Nevada site home to the most productive accumulation of gold deposits in North America.

In the last quarter of a century, the Cortez trend has been a prolific and profitable site, but experts believe that the Cortez fault corridor could be older, larger and far more valuable than Carlin over the longer term.

And with Nevada continuing to be one of the best regions for gold mining, it’s no surprise why companies operating in this region present a desirable investment opportunity. In Q2 2020 alone, Barrick Gold’s (TSX:ABX,NYSE:GOLD) Carlin project was the largest global mining operation, producing 382 koz — a 105 percent increase over Q2 2019.

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How the ‘Greens’ Could Upend the Green Dream – by William F. Shughart II (Independent Institute – June 24, 2021)

https://www.independent.org/

There is growing concern among some commentators and experts that the United States has become “dangerously dependent” on imported minerals and metals and that such dependence is hampering the development of clean energy technologies. The concern is real.

But the reason the U.S. is dependent on foreign producers, many of them competitors and adversaries, is not that many of the world’s mines are owned or controlled by China and Russia but that government policies supported by radical “green” interest groups have blocked the development of adequate domestic supplies of these raw materials, which are essential to the green dream of a “net zero” fossil fuel future.

Consider, for starters, lithium, one of the metals used in the lithium-ion batteries that power electric vehicles. As I write, environmental groups are blocking the development of a new lithium mine in a remote part of Nevada, arguing, among other things, that the mine would harm the habitat of an endangered desert plant, Tiehm’s buckwheat.

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Amid plans to mine lithium in rural Nevada, Indigenous, rural communities at center of the energy transition – by Daniel Rothberg (Northern Nevada Business Weekly – June 22, 2021)

https://www.nnbw.com/

Maxine Redstar’s office on the Fort McDermitt Indian Reservation sits in a valley surrounded by mineral-rich mountain ranges that stretch past the Oregon border, only a few miles to the north.

It’s May, and after a short spurt of precipitation in an otherwise record dry year for Nevada, the valley has turned pastel-green with sagebrush dotting the land. Near the administration building and Redstar’s office, a sign is planted in the ground. It reads: “Keep Your Aboriginal Rights!!”

Redstar, as chairwoman of the Fort McDermitt Paiute Shoshone Tribe, is at the center of a fight over a planned lithium mine in Thacker Pass, “Peehee mu’huh” in Paiute. Part-administrator and part-spokesperson, her phone rings often, and documents are scattered across her desk.

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[Nevada Mining] One ore body, once divided – by Suzanne Featherston (Elko Daily Free Press – June 14, 2021)

https://elkodaily.com/

The gold mining operation at Carlin is the largest in the world, with a massive ore body that has yielded millions of ounces of gold over its more than 60-year history in northeastern Nevada.

Up until recent history, the Carlin Trend was mainly divided between two senior gold mining companies — Barrick Gold Corp. and Newmont Corp. On the surface, that meant fences separated properties. Underground, boundaries took the form of vertical walls.

Practically, neither company had a full understanding of how the ore body behaves from beginning to end. Sometimes the same geologic feature had different names depending on what side of the line it fell on.

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EDITORIAL: Green groups against renewable energy (Las Vegas Review-Journal – June 8, 2021)

https://www.reviewjournal.com/

It’s become apparent that radical environmentalists aren’t just waging war on fossil fuels, they’re against virtually any energy development at all. This deserves more attention, particularly given the rush by Democrats in Nevada and other states to impose renewable mandates.

Last week, the Biden administration announced it would seek to protect Tiehm’s buckwheat, a wildflower found only in a remote area of western Nevada, under the Endangered Species Act.

The decision came after the Center for Biological Diversity threatened the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management with legal action.

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America’s electric cars need lithium so badly it may wipe out this species – by Matt McFarland (CNN Business – May 10, 2021)

https://www.cnn.com/

Washington, DC (CNN)Fewer than 40 years after humans discovered Tiehm’s buckwheat, a Nevada plant with yellow flowers, they may drive it to extinction in pursuit of electric vehicles, a technology widely hailed as being environmentally friendly.

Environmentalists say the benefits of Tiehm’s buckwheat could be vast, but its full significance is unknown. What’s certain, they say, is that guarding Tiehm’s buckwheat is important for preserving biodiversity on Earth.

The flower is so newly discovered that it hasn’t been studied thoroughly, they say. But botanists say they’re impressed with Tiehm’s buckwheat’s ability to thrive where few species can — poor soil that’s full of boron and lithium.

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Sudbury mining supply group stakes its claim in Nevada – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – February 4, 2021)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

MineConnect to establish incubator space for Northern Ontario companies to dive into southwestern U.S.

The mining industry in northern Nevada will have access to Canada’s largest concentration of hard rock mining expertise when MineConnect, Sudbury’s mining supply and service organization, sets up shop in Elko later this year.

The Nevada Governor’s Office of Economic Development and the Northeastern Nevada Regional Development Authority announced the signing of a three-year partnership with MineConnect to establish a business incubator space this summer to support the state’s mining industry.

The move maintains the momentum in relationship building between the two mining jurisdictions and this country’s expanding investment in Nevada’s robust mining industry, ranging from equipment manufacturing to gold mining.

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Tesla aims to mine its own lithium after dropping M&A plan – by Yvonne Yue Li and David Stringer (Bloomberg News – September 28, 2020)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

Tesla Inc. secured its own lithium mining rights in Nevada after dropping a plan to buy a company there, according to people familiar with the matter.

The automaker held discussions in recent months with Cypress Development Corp., which is seeking to extract lithium from clay deposits in southwest Nevada, but the parties didn’t reach a deal, the people said, asking not to be named because the information isn’t public.

The electric carmaker, which has vowed to slash its battery costs by 50 per cent, instead focused on the plan that Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk outlined last week to dig for lithium on its own in the state.

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Newmont CEO Sees Gold ‘Elevated,’ But Will Keep Plans Grounded – by Steven Frank (Bloomberg News – September 16, 2020)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — The world’s biggest gold producer sees the price of the precious metal remaining “elevated” as governments continue pandemic stimulus spending, but don’t expect that to change Newmont Corp.’s focus on fiscal “discipline” any time soon.

Gold skyrocketed to record heights above $2,000 an ounce in August, helping lift miners’ cash flow, stock prices and likely the hopes of shareholders expecting higher returns. Spot gold has since dipped a bit, but the haven metal is still trading in record territory above $1,900.

“There are a lot of signals that point to gold staying at these elevated levels — with I think a lot of volatility around it — for some time to come,” Newmont Chief Executive Officer Tom Palmer said by phone.

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