(Bloomberg) — The UK announced a funding package to support nuclear power generated by small modular reactors in a bid to boost energy security while lowering the nation’s reliance on fossil fuels.
The government will provide grants totaling £157 million ($205 million) for companies to accelerate their nuclear business in the UK, as well as develop new reactors, it said on Tuesday with the launch of a competition.
Because wind turbine blades are very difficult to recycle, the waste stream created by the retired blades is a mounting problem. By 2050, there will be 43 million tons of blade waste produced every year — the equivalent of 215,000 locomotives.
The speed by which wind farms are being constructed across the U.S. is going faster than a spring wind in Casper. In about 20 years, the wind turbines put into operation today will be nearing the end of their lifespan. The ones built 20 years ago are nearing it now.
Since the blades are very difficult to recycle, the waste stream created by the retired blades is a mounting problem. According to a 2017 study published in the scientific journal Waste Management, the world’s wind industry will be producing 43 million tons of blade waste annually by 2050.
LONDON, July 18 (Reuters) – Copper’s electrical conductivity makes it a core component of the green energy transition, whether it be in the form of solar panels, electric vehicles or wind turbines. As far as analysts at Citi are concerned, all this makes copper “THE bullish energy transition trade within commodities.” (“Commodities Strategy”, July 17, 2023)
Except no-one appears to have told the fund community, which continues to give Doctor Copper a wide berth. Copper’s bull narrative of looming supply shortfall as investment in new mine capacity fails to match the green demand booster has been put on hold.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Canada will continue to lag the United States significantly in government incentives for low-carbon sectors that both countries are courting, even after new policies promised in Ottawa’s most recent budget, according to new research to be released on Tuesday.
The findings are in an update of an influential report earlier this year by the think tanks Clean Prosperity and The Transition Accelerator, which contributed to the budget’s focus on responding to hundreds of billions of dollars in green subsidies introduced by Washington through last year’s Inflation Reduction Act. A copy of the new version was provided in advance to The Globe and Mail.
The mining industry does not talk enough about tires. Or, more specifically, ELT — end of life tires. A 2020 study in Australia came up with some surprising numbers on the country’s off-the-road tire (OTR) industry. In 2019, the Australian mining industry generated a staggering 68,100 tonnes of used tires.
Of that number 93% or 63,300 tonnes were disposed of onsite – either piled up or buried. A further 3% were sent to landfill (2,000t) while just 1% (700t) were recycled, with the remainder stockpiled or used in civil engineering.
Thailand has long been an auto hub, attracting global giants like Toyota Motor Corp. and Ford Motor Co. and earning the moniker of the Detroit of Asia. Now, as the pivot to electric vehicles gathers pace, the country is determined to keep its grip on the economically crucial industry.
The nation has already attracted 75 billion baht ($2.2 billion) from the EV industry, led by a slew of Chinese investments from BYD Co., Great Wall Motor Co. and SAIC Motor Corp. Changan Auto Co. and GAC Aion New Energy Automobile Co. are set to soon finalize their investment plans, and Chery Automobile Co. is also in talks.
https://www.northernminer.com/
About a decade ago, private equity (PE) funds began to take an interest in the mining sector. At the time, financing was hard to come by, and the growth of private equity beyond the few players already established in the space promised a potential lifeline for the industry.
U.K.-based Appian Capital Advisory, founded in 2012, was one of the first of that wave of PE entrants, raising US$400 million for its first fund in 2014. But far from being mining’s saviour, the amount of private equity investment in mining has since fizzled, Scherb told The Northern Miner in early July.
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.
https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/
Northern Graphite signs land deal for Baie Comeau port property
An Ottawa-based graphite company, with a deposit between North Bay and Ottawa, is purchasing land on the St. Lawrence River to build a battery anode manufacturing plant. Northern Graphite, which holds with Bissett Creek deposit located off Highway 17, signed a letter of intent with the city of Baie Comeau, Que. to purchase a 300-acre brownfield property for US$1.2 million.
Subject to securing financing and government approvals, the company wants to build a hub processing capable of processing 200,000 tonnes a year for its three graphite properties in Ontario, Quebec and Namibia. The intent is to supply anode material to lithium-ion battery manufacturing plants throughout North America.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/
Summit 14 mine project promises new jobs and taxes. But some fear water contamination, climate impacts
The long black streaks in the hills along Highway 40 outside Grande Cache, Alta., are a clear sign of the rich coal seams that run through the eastern slopes of the Rockies there.
The community, about 430 kilometres northwest of Edmonton, was established in the 1960s to serve the mine that still pulls coal out of the ground outside town. The volatile coal industry has fuelled the local economy from the beginning.
‘We haven’t been able to agree yet’
Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault says the lack of progress in mining projects in the mineral-rich Ring of Fire region in Northern Ontario can likely be attributed to a lack of discussions with Indigenous nations.
Both the federal government and province of Ontario believe the Ring of Fire, located about 500 kilometres from Thunder Bay, has the potential to produce minerals — such as nickel and copper — currently in high demand as countries look to accelerate the shift away from fossil fuels.
B2Gold Corp said it would consider further opportunities to acquire gold assets to accelerate growth even after its recent purchase of Sabina Gold, which gave it its first project in home country Canada.
B2Gold’s C$1.1 billion ($832.1 million) acquisition of Sabina Gold, completed in April, included Sabina’s untapped mineral-heavy Back River Gold district in Nunavut, Canada, which is expected to start production in 2025.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/
Other countries are going further, calling for end of fossil fuel era
Canada’s environment minister hopes the next international climate summit will commit to phasing out unabated fossil fuels — oil and gas projects that don’t rely on technology to capture their emissions. Steven Guilbeault outlined his expectations for the next COP28 while meeting with fellow international ministers from Europe, Mexico, India, Japan, China and other countries.
One of those expectations is the eventual elimination of fossil fuel projects that lack a mechanism to prevent carbon emissions from escaping into the atmosphere. Carbon capture, yet to be proven at scale, has been proposed as a way for the oil and gas industry to continue production without changing the planet’s climate.
One of the world’s largest chromium deposits gives the Western Alliance a tremendous advantage
Regular readers will recall that from time to time I inveigh in this space against the uncompetitive economic performance of this country as we slip steadily down the list of the world’s most prosperous per capita incomes and we suffer every year from negative capital flows: more Canadian capital invested outside Canada than Canada attracts from foreigners.
The present federal government seems to wish to discourage our primary industry sector, that is all natural resources, though particularly the oil and gas industries. What the world envies about and most needs from Canada is that it is a treasure house of almost all forms of energy, forest products, base and precious metals and non-tropical agriculture.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/
Sask. chief delivering message Friday in Washington to senior White House, corporate officials
Some are calling it Saskatchewan’s third “gold rush” — the frenzy to stake claims for lithium and other critical minerals. First Nations say they were pushed to the sidelines during previous waves of development and that won’t happen again. They’re set to deliver that message to a powerful international audience on Friday.
“We are willing partners, willing to do business. We aren’t the boogeyman,” Thunderchild First Nation Chief Delbert Wapass said. “But we won’t sit back. This new gold rush will not happen without us.”
