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‘Tragedy of pollution’: Award-winning article details how gov’t, miners wrought harm on Sudbury’s landscape – by Staff (Sudbury Star – July 26, 2019)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

A scholarly article exploring the “tragedy of pollution in Sudbury” has earned its authors an award from the Ontario Historical Society.

The 2018 Riddell Award, acknowledging the best work on a subject of Ontario history in a given year, was recently presented to Mark Kuhlberg and Scott Miller for their article Protection to Sulphite Smoke Tortfeasors: The Tragedy of Pollution in Sudbury, Ontario, the World’s Nickel Capital, 1884-1927, which appeared in The Canadian Historical Review in June 2018.

A tortfeasor, by the way, is someone who commits a wrongful act, in this case applied to the mining companies that spread harmful emissions, but only because, as the article contends, it was permitted by provincial lawmakers at the time.

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Canada announces $2M for research into carbon neutral mining at Gahcho Kue mine (CBC News North – July 23, 2019)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/

Project accelerates natural process that uses mine waste to trap greenhouse gases

The Canadian government is investing millions in a research project that has the potential to make some mining operations carbon neutral.

Greg Dipple, a professor of geology at the University of British Columbia, has been working with three other universities and three mining companies, among other groups, to use tailings from mining operations to strip carbon dioxide from the air and convert it to a stable mineral form, trapped in cement-like rock.

“It’s essentially the acceleration of a natural process called chemical weathering,” said Dipple. “The difference here is … we can do it in a timescale of minutes to hours to days to weeks rather than hundreds or millions of years.”

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The wildcat goldminers doomed by their toxic trade – by Tim Cocks and David Lewis (Reuters U.S. – July 24, 2019)

https://www.reuters.com/

High gold prices and cheap equipment are luring millions in Africa to informal mines that feed, and slowly poison, them

BAWDIE, Ghana – A few years after coming as a teenager to this Ghanaian town to prospect for gold, Yaw Ngoha had made enough cash to marry his sweetheart and build a house with a porch, to which he would later add a flat-screen TV and satellite dish.

So when a town elder invited a doctor to talk to miners about the hazards of wildcat mining, “nobody listened,” said the 36-year-old, sitting on a wooden bench on his porch in a lush banana grove. “We needed money.”

Since Ngoha started prospecting in the early 2000s, more and more people like him have helped Ghana grow into Africa’s biggest gold producer. Across the continent and beyond, millions have turned to the trade. Few are deterred by the risks.

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Rio Tinto to take iron ore crown as Vale struggles – by Peter Ker (Australian Financial Review – July 23, 2019)

https://www.afr.com/

Rio Tinto is on track to become the world’s biggest iron ore exporter in 2019 after trouble-prone Brazilian miner Vale revealed weaker-than-expected exports over the past three months.

The surprisingly weak performance from Vale came as African iron ore miner Kumba joined the industry trend for reduced export targets, and as Vale reiterated that it could be three years before it resumed shipping at full speed.

Vale was always expected to ship less iron ore this year after the catastrophic dam failures in January that killed hundreds of people and forced the company to halt about 90 million tonnes of annual production capacity.

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Rare Earths in the US-China Trade War – by Mercy A. Kuo (The Diplomat – July 23, 2019)

https://thediplomat.com/

Trans-Pacific View author Mercy Kuo regularly engages subject-matter experts, policy practitioners, and strategic thinkers across the globe for their diverse insights into U.S. Asia policy. This conversation with Ryan Castilloux – Managing Director of Adamas Intelligence, a Canadian independent research and advisory firm focused on strategic metals and minerals – is the 198th in “The Trans-Pacific View Insight Series.”

Explain the strategic importance of rare earth elements in U.S. commercial and military technology.

From a commercial standpoint, the rare earth lanthanum is used in the U.S. to produce fuel cracking catalysts that break down crude oil into lighter hydrocarbons like gasoline, diesel, and kerosene.

Similarly, neodymium, praseodymium, and dysprosium are used to produce high-strength permanent magnets that are critical enablers of electric vehicle traction motors, wind power generators, energy-efficient appliances, consumer electronics, and an ever-growing list of other modern technologies.

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That’s no moon: Before these NASA astronauts went to space, they went to Sudbury – by Claude Sharma (TVO – The Agenda – July 22, 2019)

https://www.tvo.org/

In the 1970s, the agency sent astronauts to northeastern Ontario to prepare for their trips to the moon — and helped drive the region’s scientific aspirations

SUDBURY — In 1971, astronauts John Young and Charles Duke loaded up with equipment —backpacks, radios, cameras — and walked along rocky ledges, communicating their movements as if to a home base.

Later that year, they’d do the same thing nearly 385,000 kilometres away as astronauts on the Apollo 16 moon mission. On this day, though, they were in the Sudbury Basin, practising for the real thing.

“Once they did their traverse, we would go over what they saw,” remembers Don Phipps, a local geologist who helped facilitate the training. “One of the objects of this visit is that when they got on the moon, they could report back with some kind of knowledge of what they saw on the ground.”

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BHP makes $400 million climate-change emissions pledge – by Barbara Lewis (Reuters U.S. – July 23, 2019)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – Leading resources company BHP (BHP.AX)(BHPB.L) will invest $400 million over five years to reduce emissions, it said on Tuesday, becoming the first miner to pledge to tackle pollution caused when customers use its products.

BHP is the world’s biggest listed miner and biggest coking coal producer. Combined with iron ore, also mined by BHP, coking coal is used to make steel, producing millions of tonnes of CO2.

CEO Andrew Mackenzie said BHP would develop technology to curb emissions both inside and outside the company. From next year it will set a medium-term, science-based decarbonisation target, he said in a speech at an event organised by the Financial Times.

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Nemaska announces potential massive equity investment to save lithium project in Quebec – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post – July 23, 2019)

https://business.financialpost.com/

London-based Pallinghurst Group, betting on ‘an electric vehicle revolution,’ has proposed a deal that could make it Nemaska’s largest shareholder

After months of funding uncertainty, Nemaska Lithium Inc. on Friday announced a tentative agreement to secure as much as $600 million to build its proposed hard rock lithium mine and electrochemical plant in Quebec.

The project, which could create a new supply of the lithium needed for batteries in electric vehicles, has drawn international attention from battery makers and investments from Japan’s Softbank Group Corp. and from Investissement Quebec.

But cost overruns and shifting evaluations about lithium demand have combined to push Nemaska’s stock price down more than 80 per cent from its peak less than two years ago.

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Barrick Gold sweetens offer, Acacia agrees to takeover deal in Tanzania – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – July 20, 2019)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Barrick Gold Corp. and Acacia Mining PLC have reached agreement on terms of a takeover deal that could put an end to a geopolitical quagmire that has engulfed both companies for more than two years.

On Friday, Barrick announced plans to acquire the 36.1 per cent of Acacia it doesn’t already own for US$428-million by paying 0.168 of its own stock for each Acacia share.

In 2017, the Tanzanian government accused London-based Acacia of US$200-billion in tax fraud and banned it from exporting gold and copper concentrate. The development crippled production at two of its three mines in the East African country. Tanzania has refused, for the most part, to even engage with Acacia in talks to end the dispute.

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Canada mine waste prompts calls for better water protection (Associated Press – July 22, 2019)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/

KALISPELL, Mont. — Towns, tribes and politicians in U.S. states bordering British Columbia are seeking better oversight and stricter regulations to protect them from hazardous pollution that flow downstream from coal mines in the Canadian province.

Leaders in Libby, Troy and Eureka, towns along the Kootenai River, wrote in separate letters to Montana Gov. Steve Bullock saying their livelihoods depend on the region’s rivers and lakes. But those waterways that support diverse wildlife and recreational interests are being compromised by contaminants from British Columbia coal mines, they said.

They and tribal leaders in Montana and Idaho want state and federal officials to fund better long-term water quality monitoring and to adopt a strict water quality standard for selenium.

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South African Court Blocks Zambia’s Plans to Sell Vedanta Mines – by Felix Njini (Bloomberg News – July 23, 2019)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

A South African court ordered Zambia to halt plans to liquidate and sell copper mines controlled by Indian billionaire Anil Agarwal pending arbitration in a dispute that’s rattled investors. The Zambian government said it would appeal the ruling.

The Zambian government must immediately cease efforts aimed at winding up Vedanta Resources Ltd.’s Konkola Copper Mines unit, Johannesburg High Court Judge Leicester Adams said.

The court also ruled the state breached its shareholder obligations, and continues to do so. The South African court has no jurisdiction in Zambia and the ruling isn’t enforceable in the nation, Zambian Mines Minister Richard Musukwa said in comments broadcast on Facebook.

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Boom possible: Demand for electric vehicles bodes well for nickel … and for Greater Sudbury – by Darren MacDonald (Sudbury Northern Life – July 23, 2019)

https://www.sudbury.com/

Car companies ramping up EV battery production across the globe

While nickel analysts expect the price of nickel to dip again despite the impressive gains it has made in recent weeks, demand for the metal is bright thanks to the increasing demand for electric vehicles.

Nickel was trading at US $6.40 on Monday afternoon on the London Metals Exchange (LME), down from last week’s high of US $6.85, but still up more than 20 per cent in the last two weeks.

Commonwealth Bank commodities analyst Vivek Dhar told the Financial Review that the reasons some have given for the recent surge – falling LME stockpiles and an impending export ban in Indonesia – are not new revelations, and are factors traders have known for a long time.

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New Brunswick: Latest Sisson Mine approval leaves First Nations, conservation groups uneasy – by Logan Perley (CBC News New Brunswick – July 22, 2019)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/

Tailings pond for proposed mine north of Fredericton requires damming two fish-bearing brooks

For two years, Nick Polchies of Woodstock First Nation and his dog Arizona have been waking up in the woods, on land that someday — and for centuries to come — could be a toxic tailings pond.

Polchies initially went to the site, about 80 kilometres northwest of Fredericton, to help the Wolastoqi grandmothers already camping out there to protest the proposed Sisson Mine.

Northcliff Resources Ltd., a Vancouver-based company, says its open-pit tungsten and molybdenum mine would create 500 jobs during construction and 300 jobs for the 27 years it is expected to operate.

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Aluminum producers in Canada cash in on U.S. tariff exemption – by Pratima Desai and Nichola Saminather (Reuters Canada – July 23, 2019)

https://ca.reuters.com/

LONDON/TORONTO (Reuters) – Canada’s exemption from U.S. tariffs on imports of aluminum metal has boosted earnings at the Canadian operations of companies such as Rio Tinto and Alcoa, but has not cut costs for U.S. consumers.

In May, the United States lifted the Section 232 tariff of 10% imposed on Canadian imports of aluminum, a vital ingredient for auto makers, drinks firms and military equipment companies.

Aluminum costs for U.S. consumers are the benchmark price on the London Metal Exchange at around $1,810 a tonne plus the physical market premium, around $400 a tonne. Analysts say $192 of the premium is the tariff non-exempt producers pay.

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One day longer 10 years later – by Darren MacDonald (Sudbury Northern Life – July 22, 2019)

https://www.sudbury.com/

In July, 2009, more than 3,000 Steelworkers walked off the job in Sudbury after failing to strike a deal with Inco’s new owner, the Brazilian mining giant Vale. A decade later, we look back at how it all started and what it all meant

In the months leading to the strike at Vale in 2009, a major confrontation seemed both impossible and inevitable. There was talk almost immediately in the mining industry that, having purchased Inco in 2006, the only way the deal made sense for the Brazilian multinational was to undo the benefits package the Steelworkers had fought for in collective bargaining that ensured retirees a guaranteed income.

Defined benefits, as it was known, protected workers from inflation, from the ups and downs of markets. The nickel bonus, too, which saw workers paid more when nickel prices were high, was also a major obstacle in Vale’s view of things, as were restrictions on using contractors. For the company, these sorts of benefits represented unacceptable long-term costs and risks that threatened the viability of their Canadian purchase.

Anyone who has ever been in a union can tell you that heading into negotiations for a new contract, improvements are the goal, and concessions are the red line that can’t be crossed. For a union such as the United Steelworkers of America, headed by Sudbury’s own Leo Gerard, such concessions were unthinkable.

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