Shares in Australian junior Piedmont Lithium (ASX: PLL) climbed almost 84% on Monday in Sydney after it confirmed it had signed a sales agreement with Tesla to supply the electric cars maker with high-purity lithium ore mineral for up to ten years.
Piedmont accidentally released the announcement last week, following the hyped “Tesla Battery Days”, but the Australian Stock Exchange said it would not publish it then.
“Certainly, electric vehicle manufactures cannot live up to their
professed good intentions of using “environmentally friendly”
nickel if that nickel comes from laterite deposits.”
Electric vehicles are only a small part of the world vehicle market, but this is expected to change. While there are several competing battery chemistries which are likely to be used in this emerging market, many of them contain significant amounts of nickel.
This is a problem, and to understand why it is a problem, we need to understand the basics of where nickel comes from. It gets a bit complicated.
Nickel is mined from two types of deposits — sulphide and laterite. Sulphide nickel occurs in hard rock that has formed from crystallization of magma with the proper conditions and chemistry.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Sarah Petrevan, policy director for the think tank Clean Energy
Canada, suggests that Canada could sell itself on ethical and
sustainable mining practices, which is a concern for some makers
of vehicles supposed to represent social responsibility. To get
to that point would likely require an expansive public-policy
tool kit – R&D, de-risking of capital, infrastructure in remote
areas – that governments have yet to formulate.
Suddenly, Canada has a foothold in one of the world’s fastest-growing and most pivotal clean-technology sectors.
Only days ago, being a player any time soon in making electric vehicles seemed preposterous. Ontario’s manufacturing heartland, despite its proud automaking history, had been passed over for new investments in the cars expected to take over global fleets.
https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/
Indigenous development group views Hardrock Project as stepping stone to create homegrown workforce, mine service hub
Hopes have been raised – and dashed – over the years in training Indigenous people to take part in mine development in the often-delayed Ring of Fire.
The lack of government, community, and industry coordination has consistently moved back the project completion goal posts, leaving many First Nations trainees with no jobs in the pipeline to graduate into.
Three northwestern Ontario First Nation communities appear to have hitched their collective wagons to more of a sure thing surrounding a shovel-ready, open-pit gold mine project south of Geraldton.
Northern Dynasty Minerals (TSX: NDM, NYSE: NAK) announced Wednesday that Tom Collier, CEO of its US-based subsidiary Pebble Limited Partnership, has submitted his resignation in light of comments made about elected and regulatory officials in Alaska in private conversations videotaped by an environmental activist group.
The announcement comes as doubts about the proposed Pebble copper-gold-molybdenum mine have steadily risen over recent months.
In September, short seller J Capital Research accused Northern Dynasty management of “gaslighting investors” and said the mine plan “is on its face absurd.”
As investor anticipation mounted for Tesla Inc.’s much-hyped, self-proclaimed Battery Day on Wednesday, Trent Mell was upset just thinking about it.
Mell, chief executive of Toronto-based First Cobalt Corp., has spent three years trying to secure a ground floor seat in the burgeoning electric vehicle industry.
In 2017, his company bought a long-forgotten refinery in small-town northern Ontario that could, if everything goes right, produce five per cent of the world’s battery grade cobalt, about 25,000 tons, by 2021. It would be the first, and only, refinery in North America producing battery-grade cobalt.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
This past weekend, I went moose hunting with First Nations youth in Treaty No. 9 territory. Every fall, if we are lucky enough, we head out on the land, where we learn our language and our traditions, and it reminds us who we are.
As we walked during the hunt, it was devastating to come across vast sections of land that were completely barren – clear-cut by forestry companies.
With us was Nishnawbe Aski Nation Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler who, until he lost cell service, took call after call on the COVID-19 crisis. The virus had made its way into four of NAN’s 49 First Nations communities – the most it has infiltrated since the pandemic began.
OTTAWA — Alberta Premier Jason Kenney criticized Thursday a recent decision by the federal government to launch environmental reviews of a pair of mining projects, saying it was yet another sign of jurisdictional overreach by Ottawa.
As part of a heated rebuke of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s throne speech on Wednesday, Kenney warned that the Liberal move to subject two coal mines to federal environment assessments was a “canary in the coal mine” that threatens to hamper investments in future natural resource projects.
The premier’s comments after years of frustration among some Western leaders over the Liberal government’s Impact Assessment Act, which was introduced under Bill C-69.
When the Superstack was constructed in 1972, it was the tallest structure in Canada – and the tallest smokestack in the world. At 1,250 feet, it’s visible from every vantage point in the area. It can be seen from the bustling streets of downtown to the quiet cul-de-sacs of residential neighborhoods. It looms large in the distance from highways that feed into a city that is home to one of the largest mining complexes in the world.
Built by Canadian company Inco before it was purchased by Vale, the Superstack has long stood as a reminder of the environmental devastation that mining wrought here. But this year the chimney is being fully decommissioned.
Residents of Sudbury harbor mixed feelings about the Superstack. Some see it as a memorial to their rise as a center of nickel and copper mining globally. Others see it simply as a familiar landmark that signals they are home. Gisele Lavigne lives in the Copper Cliff neighborhood at the Superstack’s base.
A new program aims to boost the number of Indigenous workers in northern Ontario’s mining and construction sectors.
Minodahmun Development LP announced the launch of its new Readiness and Essential Skills for Employment Training (RESET) program on Wednesday.
The program will let members of Aroland, Animbiigoo Zaagi’igan Anishinaabek and Ginoogaming First Nations to prepare for mining and construction developments in the Municipality of Greenstone and the Ring of Fire.
https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/
Vancouver cobalt hunter dusting off northeastern projects to evaluate gemstone potential
One of northeastern Ontario largest landholders of prospective cobalt properties has been transfixed by the discovery of diamonds.
Vancouver’s Cruz Cobalt has emerged from a period of inactivity to announce that the resurgence in diamond exploration near its five properties near Cobalt has swayed them to start searching for these gemstones.
In a recent release, the company said it’s onboard with the “renewed chase” to find the source of the historic Nipissing Yellow Diamond.
Nunavut wants to see commitment to respect previous agreements with Inuit
The Nunavut government has made a submission to federal reviewers now looking at the proposed sale of TMAC Resources Inc. to the Chinese-owned Shandong Gold Mining Co. Ltd.
But, speaking on Tuesday in the Nunavut legislature, Economic Development Minister David Akeeagok would not say whether the Government of Nunavut supported the proposed sale in its submission to the federal reviewers.
In response to questions from Gjoa Haven MLA Tony Akoak, he said he did not want to comment more because the federal government is still in the middle of its review process.
Canada’s First Cobalt, which owns North America’s only permitted cobalt refinery, is confident that cobalt will continue to play an essential role in batteries, despite Tesla CEO Elon Musk predicting a future with no graphite and no cobalt.
Responding to Musk’s comments at the Tesla Battery Day on Tuesday, First Cobalt president and CEO Trent Mell said that cobalt would not be taken out of batteries anytime soon.
“Despite years of trying to remove cobalt from batteries, it has proven to be a formidable challenge, owing to its importance in keeping batteries safe and extending the life of cells,” he said.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/
Elizabeth Quinlan wants to hear from people who lived through the 3-month strike
A professor of social studies in Saskatchewan is putting a call-out for stories from people who remember the Inco strike of 1958.
The strike involved 17,000 workers who were part of Mine Mill — then, one of the largest unions in Canada — who were pitted against Inco, a powerful company supplying 90 per cent of the world’s nickel.
Elizabeth Quinlan from the University of Saskatchewan is writing a book about the historic event and is looking for anyone who has memories of being affected by the strike.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Gold’s price tumbled Wednesday and there may be more to come. The decline, which saw gold’s spot price slide 2.2 per cent to US$1,866.60 an ounce, was part of a broad retreat across markets. The S&P 500 index of big U.S. stocks declined by 2.4 per cent while, in Toronto, the S&P/TSX Composite slipped 2 per cent.
Investors are growing worried about the lack of progress on more fiscal stimulus from Washington as well as the growing threat of a new wave of coronavirus cases in many developed economies. All those factors are likely to weigh on global growth in the months ahead.
Gold’s fall is likely to renew doubts about whether it is the best haven for anxious investors, given the current state of the economy.
