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Canada’s new oil is battery power — but Trudeau must act now – by Joanna Kyriazis and Brendan Sweeney (Toronto Star – September 10, 2022)

https://www.thestar.com/

To realize this once in a generation opportunity — with up to 250,000 jobs to be had — the federal government must launch a national battery strategy dealing with everything from our raw materials to EV assembly

Batteries are evolving. No longer just something that needs changing in your TV remote, batteries are fast becoming the engines of the global economy. In a decade’s time, chances are it won’t be gas that powers your car — it will be a battery.

The battery is the most valuable part of an EV, and by 2030, the International Energy Agency predicts we could see a hundred times more EVs on the road than there were in 2020.

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The Race for US Lithium Hinges on a Fight Over a Nevada Mine – by Daniel Moore (Bloomberg News – September 5, 2022)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — The high-desert mountain pass overlooking alfalfa fields and RV parks doesn’t look like a battleground that will shape the country’s clean energy future.

But when the rock samples here are pulverized, pulled apart and mixed with chemicals, they yield a metal increasingly seen as white gold: lithium, a critical ingredient for batteries used in electric vehicles, solar energy storage, and consumer electronics.

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‘Treated as guinea pigs’: Ontario miners await apology after being forced to inhale McIntyre powder – by Naimul Karim (Financial Post – September 9, 2022)

https://financialpost.com/

Former miners were forced to inhale an aluminum powder in Ontario between 1943 and 1979 that is now linked with Parkinson’s disease

In the late 1970s, a 20-year-old Roger Genoe would try to sneak through the tunnels of an Ontario uranium mine to avoid a room where he and other workers were forced to inhale an aluminum powder that was supposed to be a preventive step against silicotic lung disease.

“They would catch you and send you back there. If you didn’t go you would get penalized,” Genoe, now 66, said on Thursday during a conference call by the New Solutions journal that featured former miners who were forced to inhale McIntyre powder in Ontario between 1943 and 1979, when authorities were trying to tackle the rise in cases of silicosis.

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U.S. step up Russian aluminium, nickel imports since Ukraine war – by Eric Onstad (Reuters – September 7, 2022)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON, Sept 6 (Reuters) – The European Union and United States have ramped up buying key industrial metals from Russia, data showed, despite logistical problems spurred by the war in Ukraine and tough talk about starving Moscow of foreign exchange revenue.

The metal shipments highlight the West’s difficulty in pressuring Russia’s economy, which has performed better than expected and seen its rouble currency surge as buoyant oil revenue has helped offset the impact of sanctions.

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Breaking through Trudeau’s obfuscation on LNG – by Derek H. Burney (National Post- August 30, 2022)

https://nationalpost.com/

So, let’s try to get some things straight. About the time Vladimir Putin chose to invade Ukraine, Canada decided to veto Énergie Saguenay’s proposed LNG export facility in Northern Quebec, a project intended to enable exports to Europe.

One month later, the natural resources minister Jonathan Wilkinson said, “Our European friends and allies need Canada and others to step up.” He added “They are telling us they need our help in getting out of Russian oil and gas in the short term.”

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The Drift: Temiskaming cobalt, nickel refinery will be an $800M venture – by Staff (Sudbury Mining Solutions Journal – September 9, 2022)

https://www.sudburyminingsolutions.com/

Facility will produce enough battery-grade material to support manufacturing of 250,000 electric cars a year

The price tag to build a Temiskaming battery materials industrial park will be in the neighbourhood of $720 million to $850 million.

Electra Battery Materials announced the results of a scoping study this week that crunched the economic numbers of the proposed development situated between the town of Cobalt and Temiskaming Shores. The property hosts the former Yukon refinery, which is being upgraded and expanded.

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Rio Tinto and Turquoise Hill get serious, ink biding takeover deal – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – September 6, 2022)

https://www.mining.com/

Rio Tinto (ASX, LON: RIO) has inked a definitive arrangement with Turquoise Hill Resources (TSX: TQR) to buy the 49% of the Canadian miner it doesn’t already own for $3.3 billion.

The global miner noted Turquoise Hill’s board had unanimously recommended the C$43 per share cash offer and said it would not increase bid despite pressure from minority shareholders.

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Ontario’s top auto sector minister heading to Korea, Japan to drum up more EV and battery investments – by Mehanaz Yakub (Electric Autonomy Canada – September 2, 2022)

https://electricautonomy.ca/

Vic Fedeli, Ontario’s minister of economic development, job creation and trade is heading to Asia next week to meet with several key global automakers and battery manufacturers, with a goal of further building the province’s evolving auto and electric vehicle sector.

In an interview with Electric Autonomy Canada, Fedeli says the trip will begin in South Korea, where he will meet with “several prospects” to help expand Ontario’s EV supply chain. Fedeli would not name who these prospects will be, but says that the government has been meeting with them for “some months” and they are companies they “hope to land” in Ontario soon.

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Pressure is on to start mining the deep sea. Is it worth it? – by Lisa Johnson (CBC News Climate – September 4, 2022)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/climate/

Vancouver-based The Metals Company wants to be 1st to mine sea floor for critical minerals

A battle is brewing over the future of the ocean floor that pits the fate of this little-known ecosystem against humanity’s demand for critical minerals — and a Vancouver company is leading the charge.

The Metals Company (TMC), formerly known as DeepGreen Metals, wants to mine potato-sized rocks known as polymetallic nodules, which contain metals in demand for electric vehicles, solar panels and more.

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What Do Electric Cars Really Cost? – by Bob Davis (Foreign Policy – September 4, 2022)

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Clean cars drive some very dirty businesses and grubby regimes. That’s the main takeaway from Henry Sanderson’s fine new book Volt Rush: The Winners and Losers in the Race to Go Green.

Among the winners he describes are copper miners exploiting child labor, nickel miners dumping tons of waste into the sea, corrupt businesspeople paying off venomous African politicians, and a host of Chinese billionaires. It’s a far cry from the sanitized vision sold to Tesla owners.

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Tesla looking at Sudbury for possible electric battery plant: Report – by Staff (Sudbury Star – September 5, 2022)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Tesla officials have scouted Sudbury as a possible home for a factory that would build electric batteries or battery materials, Electric Autonomy Canada reports. In an online story, Electric Autonomy Canada said Tesla went on a site-scouting expedition in Ontario and Quebec during a trip to visit Vale Canada last month.

“Multiple sources with knowledge of the matter, but not authorized to speak, told Electric Autonomy that, earlier (last) month, high-level Tesla employees visited Vale Canada operations in Sudbury, Ont., just ahead of the Mercedes-Volkswagen announcements (in August).

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Uranium Risks Becoming the Next Critical Minerals Crisis – by David Fickling (Washington Post/Bloomberg – September 5, 2022)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/

Faced with the most serious energy crisis since the 1970s, the world is turning back to one of the biggest beneficiaries of the 1973 oil embargo: nuclear power. That’s good news, but we should take care. This solution to 2022’s energy security problems risks creating its own energy security headache down the road.

That’s because uranium’s supply chain is as susceptible to geopolitical manipulation as those for natural gas, cobalt, and rare earths. If developed countries want to count on atomic energy as a reliable source of zero-carbon power in the 2030s and 2040s, they’re going to need to start locking down the mineral resources now.

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‘We don’t have enough’ lithium globally to meet EV targets, mining CEO says – by Akiko Fujita (Yahoo Finance – September 5, 2022)

https://finance.yahoo.com/

Climate provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act put the U.S. back on track toward significant emissions reductions, potentially reducing greenhouse gas output by 40% of 2005 levels.

But one miner warned that when it comes to the transportation sector, domestic resources for lithium, the most critical mineral used for electric vehicle production, may not be sufficient enough to meet some of the most ambitious targets. The Biden administration, for instance, aims to slash the sale of gas-powered vehicles to 50% of all new purchases by 2030.

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Is there a ‘business case’ for defending Canada? – by Kelly McParland (National Post – August 29, 2022)

https://nationalpost.com/

I generally try to avoid arguments about climate change, given that most people already know what they believe. It’s like views on abortion or Donald Trump: this late in the game you’re unlikely to be swayed by anything someone else has to say.

Yet it’s also hard to ignore when certain things happen, like, for instance, a raging fire burning down your house, or a heating bill that’s suddenly 10 times higher than it used to be. As far as the climate crusade goes, if you Google “China coal power generation,” what you get is this:

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Metal plants feeding Europe’s factories face an existential crisis – by Mark Burton, Daniel Hornak and Jack Farchy (Bloomberg News – September 2022)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — In the aluminum industry, closing a smelter is an agonizing decision. Once power is cut and the production “pots” settle back to room temperature, it can take many months and tens of millions of dollars to bring them back online.

Yet Norsk Hydro ASA is preparing this month to do exactly that at a huge plant in Slovakia. And it’s not the only one — European production has dropped to the lowest levels since the 1970s and industry insiders say the escalating energy crisis is now threatening to create an extinction event across large swathes of the region’s aluminum production.

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