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Nunavut port-road project needs full environmental assessment: NIRB – by Jane George (Nunatsiaq News – November 2, 2017)

http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/

CAMBRIDGE BAY—Western Nunavut’s Grays Bay road and port—a project which received robust support from the previous Nunavut government and Kitikmeot Inuit—will undergo a full environmental review, the Nunavut Impact Review Board said Oct. 31, in a screening decision.

“The board has indicated to the responsible minister(s) that the proposed project should undergo further assessment best facilitated through a full environmental review,” the NIRB said.

The NIRB’s screeing decision contained stern words about the project, which it says has “the potential to cause significant adverse effects on the ecosystem and may be a cause of significant public concern.” The NIRB cited many reasons for doing a full review, including the importance of allowing members of the public to provide comment.

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Uranium-endowed South Africa stands to benefit from ambitions to improve electricity access in Africa – by Dylan Slater (MiningWeekly.com – November 3, 2017)

http://www.miningweekly.com/

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – In tandem with growing ambitions to increase access to electricity for many African citizens who currently have limited or no access to electricity comes the call for new large-scale power stations to be built. This has prompted a keen interest in nuclear power stations and, consequently, a burgeoning demand for uranium as a fuel source.

Many commentators worldwide expect significant growth in the demand for uranium or any other atomic fuel that can be used to fuel a nuclear power station. This projected growth will, in turn, lead to the need for increased beneficiation and enrichment of such commodities.

South Africa has a long history of mining uranium, which, in the early days, was widely deemed a waste product. In fact, uranium mining in the country is synonymous with gold mining, as the minerals often occur in the same deposits.

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[OMA MEET THE MINERS] Industry Event Highlights How Mines Transform Lives (Ontario Mining Association – November 3, 2017)

http://www.oma.on.ca/en/index.asp

Every year for 39 years, mining industry leaders meet with provincial decision-makers at Queen’s Park for a full day of events focused on issues that matter to our industry and to the people of Ontario. “Meet the Miners” gives members of the Legislature and senior mining executives the opportunity to exchange ideas to continue strengthening Ontario’s mining sector, while delivering real benefits to the people in this province.

On November 1, 2017, the focus of “Meet the Miners” was on the mining sector’s exceptional potential to contribute to the economic development of Ontario, provided good policy and governance frameworks are in place.

“The history of Ontario demonstrates that mining can transform people’s lives and communities for the better,” noted OMA Chair Duncan Middlemiss. “As we seek to improve quality of life, while confronting global challenges like climate change, mining – and specifically, Ontario mining – is very much part of the solution.

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TRUMP WANTS TO SAVE BIG COAL WITH $11 BILLION ANNUAL BAILOUT – by Nicole Goodkind (Newsweek Magazine – November 2, 2017)

http://www.newsweek.com/

The Trump administration wants to force electricity customers to pay for a $10.6 billion annual bailout of the failing coal and nuclear industries through surcharges on their monthly energy bills.

The quietly announced proposal would require ratepayers to fully underwrite a new mandate that coal and nuclear plants hold a minimum of 90 days’ worth of fuel on-site under the false premise of providing security from power outages.

But critics say the subsidy is just a massive government-mandated transfer of wealth from consumers to coal and nuclear companies. “This is like changing the energy system from capitalism to communism—and the U.S. government wants to do it within the next two weeks,” said Michael Krancer, a principal at energy policy company Silent Majority Strategies.

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The Green Opportunity: Having our cake and eating it too – by Bjorn Lomborg (National Post – November 3, 2017)

http://nationalpost.com/

One can admit that cutting CO₂ has a cost, but argue the climate benefits are still worth it. But we need to be honest there’s a trade-off

The concept of trade-offs has become unfashionable. Politicians around the world like to pretend that their choices will bring us nothing but superlative benefits.

Nowhere is this whitewashing more pervasive or accepted than in climate change. There is a prevalent, comforting notion that we can have our cake and eat it too: that cutting carbon need not involve financial sacrifice.

We hear this rhetoric so often that we almost don’t notice it. In announcing plans to make the UK a global hub for “green finance,” the British minister of state for climate change and industry Claire Perry said, “The transition to a low carbon economy is a multi-billion pound investment opportunity.” Norway’s Prime Minister recently claimed climate change offers “an opportunity for development and growth.”

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Congo’s Gecamines Accounts Missing $750 Million, Group Says – by William Clowes and Thomas Wilson (Bloomberg News – November 3, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Almost $750 million paid by international mining companies to the Democratic Republic of Congo’s state-owned miner over a three-year period are missing from the company’s accounts, the Carter Center said.

Royalties, signing bonuses and asset-sale proceeds due to Gecamines from more than 20 copper deals with partners between 2011 and 2014 can’t be reliably tracked to Gecamines’ accounts, the Atlanta-based advocacy group said in a report published Friday.

That’s almost two-thirds of the $1.1 billion in partnership revenue Gecamines should have received, according to the analysis based on a review of contracts, corporate records, public statements and more than 200 interviews.

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The German Auto Industry’s Darkest Secrets – by Melanie Bergermann, Simon Book, Alexander Busch and Martin Seiwert (Handelsblatt Global – November 3, 2017)

https://global.handelsblatt.com/

German consumers purchasing a new electric car may be buying a few extras they didn’t reckon with – such as child labor, corruption and police brutality.

The young man shyly moves his T-shirt down over his belly, hiding the scars from the operation and the exit holes. His fellow South Africans call Mzoxolo Magidiwana, 24, “dead man walking” because he will never recover from the injuries he suffered when police opened fire on him and his fellow workers five years ago. Bullets tore into his stomach and his right arm no longer has any strength; nor can he walk properly anymore.

Mr. Magidiwana was one of the leaders of the 3,000 miners who went on strike on August 12, 2012 to protest poor working conditions and low pay at the Marikana platinum mine some 100 kilometers from Johannesburg in South Africa.

The workers were being paid just €400 ($464) per month for back breaking work. Below ground, they had to contend with constant accidents and dust that made them ill. Above ground, they were breathing the toxic fumes coming out of the platinum smelter.

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BHP to step up copper exploration, expansions to meet electric vehicles sector’s rising demand – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – November 1, 2017)

http://www.mining.com/

World’s biggest miner getting ready to provide enough copper for the booming electric cars industry.

World number one mining company BHP (ASX, NYSE: BHP) (LON:BLT) plans to step up copper exploration and expansions as it wants to be ready to meet electric vehicles sector’s rising demand for copper.

“We want more copper resources in our portfolio. And we believe the most valuable pathway to achieving this is through exploration, the drill bit,” Danny Malchuk, president of operations at BHP’s Minerals Americas, said at Bloomberg’s LME Week forum on Wednesday.

Unlike most miners, which slashed exploration budgets during the downturn that ended last year, BHP has kept its copper exploration budget steady at an average of $60 million annually over the last four-to-five years out of its overall budget for exploration of around $1 billion, Reuters reports.

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Zinc mine in St. Lawrence County to reopen after being closed for decade – by Susan Mende (Watertown Daily Times – November 2, 2017)

http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/

FOWLER — After sitting idle for nearly a decade, the former St. Lawrence Zinc Co. mine is being refurbished and is expected to start extracting zinc early next year.

Titan Mining Corp., Toronto, recently secured the remaining $50 million needed to get the mine operating by selling 35.75 million stock shares at a price of $1.40 a share on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

Keith A. Boyle, Titan’s chief operating officer, said the financing was the last major hurdle. The mine will be called Empire State Mines and will operate as a subsidiary of Titan. “That was the final piece,” Mr. Boyle said Wednesday. “We are off and running. There’s nothing left to do on the financial side.”

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The View from the Goldcorp Chairman’s Office – by Tommy Humphreys (CEO.ca – Novmeber 2, 2017)

https://ceo.ca/

Ian Telfer’s office at Goldcorp looks nothing like the rest of the company’s double story headquarters atop Park Place, a pink marble tower that is one of Vancouver’s largest skyscrapers.

The Goldcorp chairman’s corner suite overlooks a spectacular view, like an eagle’s nest atop the city. The walls are painted dark, giving the impression of a chic hotel lounge more than a workspace. Warm paintings of local landmarks decorate them. Ian Telfer, a trim, dapper figure and a giant of the gold business, is seated behind the desk. He shrugs his shoulders, nonchalantly, and tells me he bought the paintings from a local artist he found in a coffee shop.

I used to work in the building myself, as a summer student for RBC Dominion Securities. During a 2006 building renovation, there was a lot of buzz about the new tenant taking over the penthouse suite. That tenant was Goldcorp. Ian Telfer and Frank Giustra’s Wheaton River Minerals had successfully navigated the gold boom of the early 2000s and acquired Goldcorp to become Canada’s second largest producer. It was the talk of the town then and still is today.

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Short-term plan needed to address mining-related job losses in Northern Manitoba, says NDP (Thompson Citizen – November 2, 2017)

http://www.thompsoncitizen.net/

Manitoba’s NDP party says Premier Brian Pallister’s Progressive Conservative government is not doing enough to mitigate the economic effects that will be felt as up to 1,500 jobs are lost in Flin Flon and Thompson in the next year or so.

A briefing note sent to Growth, Enterprise and Trade Minister Blaine Pedersen last May, which was obtained by the NDP through a freedom-of-information request, said those job losses could represent $100 million in lost income and an overall loss of $300 million to the Northern Manitoba economy. Flin Flon MLA Tom Lindsey told the Nickel Belt News that the province is not doing enough in the short term to limit the damage those jobs losses will cause.

“We need to start addressing some of these issues right now,” said Lindsey, noting that the Look North task force’s report is more focused on long-term solutions. “The long-term vision is good but what do we do now that will try and keep those jobs, those workers, in the communities in the north so that Flin Flon and Thompson can survive?”

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How Trump saved freedom and democracy from the Climate Industrial Complex – by Peter Foster (Financial Post – November 3, 2017)

http://business.financialpost.com/

Donald Trump as saviour not just of American democracy but global freedom? One can imagine tall foreheads exploding everywhere at such a thought. Although he doesn’t express it quite that strongly, this is one inevitable conclusion from Rupert Darwall’s tremendous new book, Green Tyranny: Exposing the Totalitarian Roots of the Climate Industrial Complex.

That’s because Trump, by abandoning the Paris climate agreement, and reversing his predecessor’s attempts to bypass Congress on environmental matters, has heaved a mighty wrench into the European-based thrust to impose global bureaucratic “governance” under the pretext of saving the world from climate catastrophe.

Beyond all the blather about Trump’s presidency representing the triumph of redneck ignorance and deplorable racism — and whatever Trump’s personal shortcomings — Darwall notes that one of the main reasons for his victory was that the American left had abandoned working people in pursuit of identity politics and radical environmentalism.

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Victor’s closing sad, but inevitable: Mayor Black – by Len Gillis(Timmins Daily Press – November 3, 2017)

http://www.timminspress.com/

ATTAWAPISKAT – Feeling disappointed but not completely surprised is the reaction from Timmins Mayor Steve Black on the announcement that De Beers Canada is shutting down its Victor diamond mine near Attawapiskat.

De Beers chief executive officer Kim Truter made the announcement at a news conference in Timmins Wednesday afternoon. He said the economics of the mine would soon be no longer sustainable and the plan is to cease operations in the first quarter of 2019.

“The Victor shutdown news didn’t necessarily catch us off guard,” said Black. “It’s something we have been discussing with the mine for the last couple of years with their timelines and whatnot.”

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Northern urban centres see net job losses – by Antonella Artuso (Timmins Daily Press – November 3, 2017)

http://www.timminspress.com/

TIMMINS – Northern Ontario has not shared in the province’s job growth since the 2008 recession, a new report says. In fact, the Fraser Institute report says almost all the job growth in Ontario over the past nine years has been confined to the Toronto and Ottawa areas.

The study finds that 11 of the province’s 23 urban areas actually experienced net job losses from 2008 to 2016. including every major city in Northern Ontario.

Uneven Recovery, by Steve Lafleur and Ben Eisen, reports that while huge swaths of the province have lost jobs since the recession, their economic pain is hidden in Ontario-wide statistics because of the over-sized impact of the City of Toronto.

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Former Kazakhstan uranium czar blames imprisonment on sale of Clinton-linked Canadian company to Russians – by Tom Blackwell (National Post – November 2, 2017)

http://nationalpost.com/

Mukhtar Dzhakishev is by all accounts in miserable shape. Languishing in a “harsh” Kazakhstan prison colony that was once part of Stalin’s gulag system, he suffers from hypertension, hardened arteries and kidney disease likely triggered by a severe beating.

“His life is constantly at risk,” one human-rights group warned in September, as it urged the international community to advocate on Dzakishev’s behalf.

Largely unable to communicate with the outside world, the former head of Kazakhstan’s state uranium conglomerate has made one thing clear: he blames his arrest and 14-year prison term at least in part on a Canadian company’s corporate dealings.

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