United States Mining – Page 15

Gem Hunters Found the Lithium America Needs. Maine Won’t Let Them Dig It Up – by Alana Semuels and Kate Cough (Time Magazine/Maine Monitor – July 17, 2023)

July 17, 2023

The world’s richest known lithium deposit lies deep in the woods of western Maine, in a yawning, sparkling mouth of white and brown rocks that looks like a landslide carved into the side of Plumbago Mountain. Mary Freeman and her husband Gary found the deposit five years ago while hunting for tourmaline, a striking, multi-colored gemstone found in the region.

The Freemans make their living selling lab supplies through the Florida-based company they founded 40 years ago, Awareness Technology. But their true love is digging for gemstones, which has brought them for years to Mary’s home state of Maine, the site of some of the best tourmaline hunting in the world.

This time it’s different? The rush to mine Indigenous lands – by Mark Trahant (Alaska Beacon – July 13, 2023)

July 14, 2023

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The Aspen Institute: The mining industry has a long history of failing to respect community interests, breaking agreements, destroying sacred sites, and forcing displacements; Indigenous communities have been ‘disproportionately impacted’

WASHINGTON – This won’t be an easy conversation: Can tribal nations love mining? Or at least accept mining as a necessary step in the creation of a clean economy? And can governments and international mining companies figure out how to respect and work fairly with Indigenous communities?

The conversation is weighted by history. The mining industry, and governments, have to sell the idea that, this time it’s different. This time the industry will respect cultural and religious sites. This time the industry will clean up its own mess. This time it will reward tribal communities as owners instead of serving up resources as colonies. Why would anyone believe that? Why should a tribe expect this time to be different?

China launches Mineral War against USA by limiting exports of two products – by Girish Linganna (Northlines.com – July 12, 2023)

July 12, 2023

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China’s recent move to limit the export of two minerals crucial for semiconductors, solar panels, and missile systems serves as a significant reminder of its strong control over global mineral resources. This action also serves as a warning, indicating China’s readiness to utilize these resources as part of its growing competition and tensions with the United States.

China holds a significant position in the global supply chain for essential minerals used in electric vehicles (EVs) and renewable energy. Approximately two-thirds of the world’s lithium and cobalt, vital for EV batteries, undergo processing in China.

Tracing Mining’s Threat to U.S. Waters – by Jim Robbins (New York Times – July 11, 2023)

July 12, 2023

https://www.nytimes.com/

Environmental concerns are raised anew about potential contamination from Canadian open-pit mines flowing through the waterways into Montana’s lakes, harming fish.

PABLO, Mont. — In the mountain streams of southern British Columbia and northern Montana, a rugged part of the world, fish with misshapen skulls and twisted spines have been caught over the years.

Many scientists attribute the malformed creatures and declines in certain fish populations to five enormous open-pit coal mines that interrupt this wild landscape of dense forest flush with grizzly bears and wolves.

Coal miners would be protected from black lung disease under proposed silica rule – by Robert Benincasa (Georgia Public Broadcasting – July 5, 2023)

July 5, 2023

https://www.gpb.org/

The Labor Department is proposing a new rule limiting miners’ exposure to silica — a toxic dust created by cutting into rock that has been linked to a recent epidemic of severe black lung disease among coal miners.

“The purpose of this proposed rule is simple: prevent more miners from suffering from debilitating and deadly occupational illnesses by reducing their exposure to silica dust,” Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety and Health Chris Williamson said in a statement. The move comes after decades of regulatory inaction highlighted in an NPR/FRONTLINE investigation in 2018.

Lithium producers warn global supplies may not meet electric vehicle demand – by Ernest Scheyder (Reuters – June 22, 2023)

June 23, 2023

https://www.reuters.com/

LAS VEGAS, June 22 (Reuters) – Lithium producers are growing anxious that delays in mine permitting, staffing shortages and inflation may hinder their ability to supply enough of the battery metal to meet the world’s aggressive electrification timelines.

Once a niche metal used primarily in ceramics and pharmaceuticals, lithium is now one of the world’s most in-demand metals given aggressive EV plans from Stellantis (STLAM.MI), Ford (F.N) and other automakers.

USA plants continue to rely on foreign sources of uranium supply (World Nuclear News – June 15, 2023)

June 16, 2023

https://world-nuclear-news.org/

The EIA’s 2022 Uranium Marketing Annual Report, published on 13 June, provides detailed data on uranium marketing activities in the USA from 2017 to 2022, and summary data back to 2001.

The information is based on data collected through the EIA’s Uranium Marketing Annual Survey – known as Form EIA-858 – which collects data on contracts, deliveries, enrichment services purchased, inventories, use in fuel assemblies, feed deliveries to enrichers, and unfilled market requirements for the next 10 years.

Inside the race to remake lithium extraction for EV batteries – by Ernest Scheyder (Reuters – June 16, 2023)

June 16, 2023

https://www.reuters.com/

LAKE CHARLES, Louisiana, June 16 (Reuters) – The global battle to reshape the lithium industry is sucking in oil producers, tech startups and entrenched mining giants, each jockeying to be the first to reinvent how a metal key to the green energy transition is produced.

A fleet of direct lithium extraction (DLE) technologies are on the verge of tapping salty brine deposits across Europe, Asia, North America and elsewhere that the U.S. Geological Survey estimates are filled with roughly 70% of the world’s reserves of the metal.

Florida’s fertilizer industry funds research that prompts phosphorus-friendly laws – by Fernando Figueroa and Serra Sowers (Miami Herald – June 15, 2023)

June 15, 2023

https://www.miamiherald.com/

When The Mosaic Co. wanted to study using phosphogypsum — a waste byproduct of the phosphate industry now heaped into small mountains — in road construction, it turned to the Sustainable Materials Management Research Laboratory at the University of Florida’s College of Engineering.

Environmental engineering professor Timothy Townsend works in Florida and around the world on sustainable solid and hazardous waste management. Mosaic, a Tampa-based Fortune 500 company that mines phosphate for fertilizer, has sponsored roughly $500,000 in research funding for his lab over the past three years for projects that seek to find beneficial uses for phosphogypsum.

Feds are raising awareness about black lung disease in Wyoming coal miners – by Caitlan Tan (Wyoming Public Radio – June 14, 2023)

June 15, 2023

https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/

According to the Northwest Community Action Programs (NOWCAP) Black Lung Clinic, more people in Wyoming likely have black lung disease than is actually reported, and a federal event this week is trying to raise awareness.

Black lung disease comes from inhaling coal dust. It is incurable, as it chars the lungs – making breathing extremely difficult. It is a progressive disease, meaning it gets worse with time. Often, miners will not realize they have the disease until retiring from the mines.

US Permitting pandemic plagues Alaska (North of 60 Mining News – June 2, 2023)

June 8, 2023

https://www.miningnewsnorth.com/

Alaska’s unparalleled potential to be a major domestic supplier of the minerals and metals critical to the clean energy transition attracted some of North America’s top commodities investors and analysts to Anchorage for the second annual Alaska Sustainable Energy conference. The 49th State’s rich mineral resources, however, may remain on lockdown due to a “permitting pandemic” that plagues not only Alaska but the entire United States.

“Our country is suffering from a permitting pandemic – it leads to paralysis, lack of economic resolve, and a great deal of pain,” S&P Global Vice Chairman Daniel Yergin, a highly respected authority on international energy and geoeconomics, said during a keynote address.

Massive rare earth discoveries could mean a new mining rush in the Mountain West – by Will Walkey (Jackson Hole Community Radio/Wyoming Public Media – June 1, 2023)

June 2, 2023

https://891khol.org/

Down a bumpy dirt road next to a small meandering creek in southeast Wyoming lies the site of a potentially massive rare earth mineral mine. These elements are used in many emerging technologies, including cell phones and solar panels, and they’re a growing part of the future of extractive industry in the Mountain West.

But mining them here and in other places around the region is sure to have big impacts on nearby communities and the environment. This site in the Laramie Mountains is remote. Just a couple of ranches are visible below, and the desolate hillsides contain cacti, animal droppings, shrubs and rocks. A few wooden stakes remain from previous surveys of the land.

Federal court allows international mining giant to oppose tribes in Oak Flat lawsuit – by Debra Utacia Krol (Arizona Republic – May 31, 2023)

June 2, 2023

https://www.azcentral.com/

The U.S. District Court in Arizona granted mining giant Resolution Copper permission on Monday to join the U.S. government as a defendant in a lawsuit brought by grassroots group Apache Stronghold.

The Native organization has been fighting to prevent Resolution from building a huge copper mining operation that would obliterate Oak Flat, one of the Apaches peoples’ most sacred sites. Oak Flat, or Chi’chil Biłdagoteel, “the place where the Emory oak grows,” is also culturally important to other Southwestern tribes, and is one of Arizona’s remaining riparian zones and a popular site for recreational users.

Coal firms owned by family of West Virginia governor sued over unpaid penalties – by John Raby and Denise Lavoie (Associated Press – May 31, 2023)

June 2, 2023

https://apnews.com/

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Thirteen coal companies owned by the family of West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice are being sued over unpaid penalties for previous mining law violations that the federal government says pose health and safety risks or threaten environmental harm.

Justice, who was not named in the lawsuit, accused the Biden administration of retaliation. A Republican two-term governor, Justice announced in April that he is running for Democrat Joe Manchin’s U.S. Senate seat in 2024. He will face current U.S. Rep. Alex Mooney in the GOP primary.

Decarbonization ambitions ignite debate over mining, permitting – by Robert Zullo (Iowa Capital Dispatch – May 31,2023)

June 1, 2023

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The decarbonized, electrified future envisioned by the Biden administration, state governments, automakers, utility companies and corporate sustainability goals depends to a huge degree on minerals and metals.

Lots more lithium will be needed for car and truck batteries, as well as the big banks of batteries that are increasingly popping onto the electric grid to balance the intermittency of wind and solar power. Those batteries, as well as wind turbines and solar panels, also need copper, cobalt,, nickel, zinc and “rare earth” elements used in electric car motors and other clean technologies, among other materials.