Free Republic

The Biden administration Friday rolled out three decisions aimed at greatly restricting oil and gas drilling, as well as mining activities needed for renewable energy, on public land. The decisions include shutting down the Ambler Access Road project, which would have opened up part of Alaska to mining needed for renewable energy, and blocking oil and gas drilling on up to 13 million acres of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. Conservation Leases The third action the Interior Department took Friday was the finalizing of the Public Lands Rule. According to a statement from the Department of the Interior, the rule is...

The Ambler Access Road project would open up mining opportunities in Alaska that would supply critical minerals used in solar panels, wind turbines, and electric vehicle batteries. The Biden administration is expected to deny approval of the road, increasing our reliance on China. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Biden administration is expected this week to deny approval of an Alaskan road that would provide access to potential mining opportunities in a very remote region of the state. The Ambler Access Road project is a proposed 211-mile gravel road that would connect a mining district in west-central Alaska to the Dalton Highway that runs...

Space X CEO Elon Musk and Argentinian President Javier Milei have met in Texas and spoke about working together to promote free markets and potential lithium projects. President Javier Milei’s chief spokesperson said that during their visit to Tesla’s Austin headquarters, the two talked about a range of issues, including the need to boost declining birth rates globally and the pursuit of technological advancement while upholding “liberty.” Musk has previously expressed his admiration for Milei’s unabashed support of private enterprise as well as his distaste for what he considers to be socialist excesses.

Why it matters: Ultra-high-purity quartz is an essential component to semiconductor chips, and the only places in the world that can meet this need are two mines in a small North Carolina town. The mines' owner, Sibelco, is investing $700 million to expand capacity, but is that enough to keep up with AI-fueled chip demand? Spruce Pine is a small town about two hours drive northwest of Charlotte, NC. You can get to the general area via a number of ways, depending on your point of origin, but for the last stretch of the trip, you need to travel down...

-Mining workers and villagers near the Bikita Minerals lithium mine in Zimbabwe accuse the government and Chinese mining company Sinomine Resource Group of sidelining environmental and social standards in the scramble for lithium. -After a series of displacements, spills, labor abuses, a death, and little action by authorities, locals and experts accuse the government of failing to enforce its own laws and letting bad mining practices run loose. -According to industry experts, in theory, Chinese investments come with an increasingly robust set of ESG standards, but in practice these aren’t followed if host countries “shy away” from making such demands...

Incredible map shows the places on the moon where we might find ‘infinite energy’ or trillions in minerals by 2030. A new space race is warming up after half a century, with Russia, China and America racing to put robots, human astronauts and even lunar trains on the moon. The prize is enormous, with resources ranging from ‘rare earth’ minerals used in electronics to Helium-3, a potential energy source which could power a nuclear fusion revolution offering infinite clean energy. Morgan Stanley has previously suggested that the global space industry could be worth $1 trillion annually by 2040 - and...

A new find of underground helium in Minnesota could turn out to be one of the largest in the world, Minneapolis’s WCCO-TV reported Thursday. The drill site, just outside Babbitt in the northeastern part of the state, took about a month from initially breaking ground to get to a depth of 2,200 feet. What it found there, Pulsar Helium CEO Thomas Abraham-James called “a dream.” “There was a lot of screaming, a lot of hugging and high fives. It’s nice to know the efforts all worked out and we pulled it off,” Abraham-James told WCCO. He said that the concentration...

There is excellent news for the American industry, economy, and international trade sectors. The discovery of colossal rare earth deposits in Wyoming could essentially restructure the global supply chain of these crucial elements in the near future. A discovery of 2.34 billion metric tons of rare earth elements (REEs) in a mine outside of Sheridan, Wyoming, has generated great excitement across industries stateside. For one, the reserves are estimated to be bigger than China’s current reserves, implying that this single find could end America’s reliance on Chinese exports if exploited judiciously.

There’s a modern-day gold rush happening in the attempt to dig green-energy rare earth minerals out of the ground. Some believe Wyoming could be America’s answer to China’s lock on the market. And one of a handful of Wyoming companies in the rush may have hit the mother lode. American Rare Earths Inc. has its sights on thousands of acres of land near Wheatland, Wyoming. The company disclosed in a technical report on Wednesday that it found 64% more rare earth minerals than it had originally envisioned in a March 2023 assessment of the land. The newly disclosed figure of...

The CK Gold Project is on a fast track to complete state permitting and start mining land near Curt Gowdy State Park for what it believes is 1 million ounces of Wyoming gold. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Technicians with Buckley Powder Co., a Cheyenne-based explosives service company that blasts rock in quarries, helped perform seismic tests on land near Curt Gowdy State Park that U.S. Gold Corp. wants to mine for gold and copper. The technicians just loaded a 50-foot hole with explosives and are preparing for a test they performed in 2022. (Courtesy U.S. Gold Corp.) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Mining expert George Bee was...

Today, House Committee on Natural Resources Chairman Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) and Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Chairman Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) led a letter to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler and Director Haoxiang Zhu, seeking information on a proposed rule change to permit the listing of Natural Asset Companies (NACs) on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

Nod to deep-sea mining sparks global concerns. Image: Shutterstock/Hermann Viria IN a historic move, Norway has become the first country to approve commercial-scale deep-sea mining, passing a bill in its Parliament on January 9. The legislation aims to accelerate the search for minerals crucial for green technologies, including electric vehicle batteries. This decision permits exploration in approximately 280,000 square metres of the country’s national waters, equivalent to the size of Italy, situated in the Arctic between Svalbard, Greenland, and Iceland. What Lies Beneath: Minerals and Green Technology While the Norwegian government asserts caution, Energy Minister Terje Aasland emphasised the need...

Workers at Tara Mines in County Meath have been asked by the company to express their interest in a proposed voluntary severance scheme. Staff at Europe’s largest zinc mine were today updated by management on its plans to reopen the facility outside Navan in the second quarter of this year. The site was placed under care and maintenance last June, with 650 workers temporarily laid off. At the time, the company said it took the decision in response to unsustainable losses, and cited a decline in the price of zinc, high energy costs and inflation as some of the reasons...

OPINION The USA, Canada, Australia, Norway and the UK which had the moral responsibility to rapidly phase out oil and gas production are responsible for planned expansion from new oil and gas fields for next decade and half. How can these countries advise India to cut on coal consumption? Our greenhouse gas emission is nearly 3 Giga tonnes of CO2 equivalent annually. We are distant third behind the two top emitters China with 14 Giga tonnes and the US with 8 Giga tonnes Among the important outcomes, COP 28 text proposes to triple renewable energy capacity and double the global...

I'm looking forward to watching California environmentalists argue with each other over whether or not they should mine this lithium for electric cars.

The Osage Nation won a massive ruling in Tulsa federal court on Wednesday that requires Enel to dismantle a 150-megawatt wind project it built in Osage County despite the tribe’s repeated objections. The tribe’s fight against Rome-based Enel began in 2011 and is the longest-running legal battle over wind energy in American history. As reported by Curtis Killman in the Tulsa World on Thursday, the ruling grants the United States, the Osage Nation, and Osage Minerals Council permanent injunctive relief via “ejectment of the wind turbine farm for continuing trespass.” The decision by U.S. Court of International Trade Judge Jennifer...

A new nickel-rich, single-crystal battery technology is on track for rapid deployment A seemingly simple shift in lithium-ion battery manufacturing could pay big dividends, improving electric vehicles’ (EV) ability to store more energy per charge and to withstand more charging cycles, according to new research led by the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. An EV’s mileage depends on the deliverable energy from each of the constituent cells of its battery pack. For lithium-ion cells—which dominate the EV battery market—both the cell-level energy capacity and the cell cost are bottlenecked by the positive electrode, or cathode. Now that bottleneck...

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - Elon Musk says prototypes are easy, production is hell. And when it comes to the long-awaited Cybertruck, Tesla's hell is its pioneering 4680 battery. Tesla delivered the first of its futuristic stainless steel-plated electric pickups last month and CEO Musk said in October that it would probably hit an annual production rate of a quarter of a million vehicles at some point during 2025.

Net zero’s dirty little secret is the African child labor and China’s forced labor for mining cobalt. But what that also means is that the United States is heavily dependent on our existential enemy and child labor for one of the most important minerals in modern society. Even NPR recognizes the problem. “Right now, most of the cobalt the US and its allies use comes from mines that are owned or controlled by China or the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” the outlet reported. Of course, NPR did not explain that those supposedly wonderfully eco-friendly electric cars, besides being unreliable,...

Imperial County, a sprawling desert region three hours southeast of Los Angeles that straddles the U.S.-Mexico border, may not be what you would typically associate with Southern California. Home to ramshackle landmarks like Salvation Mountain, the Salton Sea and Bombay Beach, it’s the least populated county in the region with just 180,000 residents. But U.S. politicians are suddenly interested in this rural area for other reasons — namely, the wealth of lithium deep beneath its surface. The rare mineral used in batteries, now in particularly high demand with the rise of electric vehicles, could be enough to produce 375 million...