The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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Alaska and Canada's North poised to deliver in the 21st century. As the United States wrestles to loosen China's grip on the global supply of critical minerals, there is a growing realization that Alaska and Canada's North host rich deposits of the elements essential to the energy transition, national security, and the overall economy. Antimony and graphite in Alaska, platinum group metals (PGM) and tungsten in the Yukon, cobalt and lithium in Northwest Territories, nickel...
Toward its goal of unlocking the value of Estelle, Nova Minerals Ltd. is pulling together the final bits of information needed to complete a feasibility study for developing a mine at this gold and critical minerals project in Alaska’s West Susitna Mineral District. “Estelle is a major mineralized trend, hosting gold, antimony, silver, copper, and other critical elements and we are working to begin production as early as possible and operate for decades supplying the min...
With financial backing from the Pentagon, a loan offer from the Export-Import Bank of the United States, and an American automaker signing up to buy future supplies of graphite for the batteries powering its electric vehicles, Graphite One focused its 2024 work on collecting the final information needed for a feasibility study that will provide details of a complete mine-to-EVs graphite supply chain in the United States. The first link of this supply chain outlined in the...
Fortune Minerals Ltd.'s efforts to establish a North American supply of metals critical to the energy transition at its NICO project in Northwest Territories received a $11.9 million (C$16.2 million) boost from federal grants awarded by both Canada and the United States. Located about 100 miles (160 kilometers) northwest of Yellowknife, NICO is a near-development stage project that includes an intriguing mix of critical and precious metals. According to a 2020 development plan...
With all the 2024 results in hand, the company is planning for an early start to the 2025 program at Stibium. Nova Minerals Ltd. Jan. 13 announced that its 2024 surface exploration and sampling has refined targets for a resource definition drill program at the Stibium antimony-gold prospect on the company's Estelle project in the West Susitna Mineral District about 100 miles northwest of Anchorage, Alaska. "Defining a gold-antimony resource at Stibium and advancing towards...
DOD and NRCan co-invest in advancing company's Mactung tungsten mine project and upgrades to infrastructure in eastern Yukon. In a strategic bid to establish secure and reliable North American supplies of minerals critical to defense and the broader economy, the U.S. Department of Defense and Canadian government are jointly investing up to US$27.3 million (C$35.4 million) to aid Fireweed Metals Corp. in advancing the Mactung tungsten mine project in eastern Yukon toward a...
President-elect vows to maximize Alaska's mining potential; an aligned Congress swings political pendulum in industry's favor. With an incoming president that favors "reshoring" over "friendshoring" the nation's critical mineral supply chains and a Congress positioned to pass permitting reform and other mining-related legislation that has stalled in one chamber or the other for more than a decade, America's mining sector is poised for growth following the outcome of the Nov....
Raises $7.5 million through the sale of shares in Snow Lake Resources and the exercise of warrants to fund its antimony and gold initiatives in Alaska. Nova Minerals Ltd. Jan. 2 announced that it has raised $6.7 million (A$10.9 million) through the sale of 6.6 million shares of Snow Lake Resources Ltd., an energy metals exploration company with lithium and uranium projects in Canada and Namibia. Nova, which founded Snow Lake in 2021, decided to sell its holdings in the company...
Exploration and sampling confirm a second high-grade antimony vein outcropping from the Estelle project. Nova Minerals Ltd. Nov. 20 reported that its crews collected samples containing as much as 54.1% antimony lying on the surface at the Styx prospect on the company's 198-square-mile (514 square kilometers) gold-critical minerals property about 100 miles (160 kilometers) northwest of Anchorage, Alaska. "Field crews visited the Styx prospect this year to follow-up on the initi...
Alaska's critical minerals potential to take center stage at AMA convention; antimony and graphite expected to be hot topics. Rising geopolitical tensions around the globe, China's increasing use of critical minerals as a trade war weapon, and the International Energy Agency's forecast that an additional $800 billion needs to be invested into the mining of energy transition metals by 2040 in order to meet global climate ambitions, have political and military leaders looking...
Carries out studies to support permitting and development at high-grade antimony mine north of Fairbanks. Felix Gold Ltd. Oct. 23 announced that it has taken several steps toward the goal of establishing a 5,000-metric-ton-per-year antimony mine on its Treasure Creek project about 12 miles north of Fairbanks, Alaska, by the end of next year. Treasure Creek is part of a larger land package Felix began assembling in 2020 that covers roughly 151 square miles of the Fairbanks...
An interesting tale of a mineral that has shaped human progress for over a millennium, from alchemy to modern industry. Mysterious, enduring, and occasionally deadly, few elements have woven themselves into the tapestry of human history quite like antimony. Revered for its alchemical potential and wielding a double-edged role as both poison and remedy, this versatile element found its way into everything from ancient makeup and medicine to early batteries and, ultimately, a...
Tin is indispensable today and shapes innovation of tomorrow. From $5 flashlightS to multi-million-dollar super computers, virtually all electronics rely on tin, primarily because of its use in soldering. If circuit boards are considered the backbone of technology, then tin-based solder could be seen as the connective tissue that holds the industry together. Despite its fundamental role in the Digital Age, tin is often overshadowed by other critical minerals and contends with...
Critical minerals security seen as national security issue. Welcome to Critical Minerals Alliances 2024, the fourth installment of this annual magazine that provides in-depth insights into minerals and metals critical to a robust economy, national security, and the transition to clean energy. For the Data Mine North news team, Critical Minerals Alliances is more than an annual update on the rapidly changing critical minerals markets and policies. From the very beginning, it...
Redox flow batteries are just beginning to hit their stride. Although vanadium is an abundant element, it is quite rare in its metallic form. That fact, combined with its position as a strategic metal for industry, national defense, and the green energy transition, has put it squarely on the list of critical minerals. According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), "Estimated U.S. apparent consumption of vanadium in 2023 increased by 27% from that in 2022....
Incalculable riches, delicate ecosystem, and the green energy future. Deep-sea mining has captured the world's attention as a uniquely promising source of the metals needed for lithium-ion batteries powering the green energy future and a bitterly controversial topic of debate. Undersea deposits contain quantities of nickel, cobalt, copper, and manganese sufficient to replace every U.S. car on the road today with an electric vehicle. They also host some of the most diverse, lit...
China dominates global supplies of future-leaning tech metal. With a growing range of unique properties that are being leveraged in next-generation smartphones, shape-shifting robots, and catalysts that scrub carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, gallium is an uncanny tech metal that teeters on the edge of science fiction and science fact. Gallium's unusual properties begin with its 85.6-degree Fahrenheit melting point, which means it is a solid at normal room temperatures but...
Original computer semiconductor now energizes space ambitions. Germanium is a versatile and powerful semiconductor that traces its technology roots back to the dawn of the Digital Age and continues to lend its superlative semiconducting and optical properties to enhancing computers, smartphones, solar panels, fiber optics, and other devices 80 years later. In 1945, Sylvania introduced the first germanium diode to enhance the vacuum tube computers that launched the Digital...
Rising demand, lack of domestic supply, and China's dominance. While graphite has not captured the same level of media attention as some of the other mined materials critical to the clean energy transition, the strategic nature of this largest ingredient in lithium-ion batteries powering electric vehicles is high on the list of concerns for American automakers, Washington policymakers, and the Pentagon's top brass. These worries are based on a trifecta of graphite...
Nickel's continuing journey toward clean processes and domestic production. Nickel has a complex relationship with the ongoing energy transition: It provides relatively inexpensive energy density and greater capacity to the lithium-ion batteries powering electric vehicles and storing clean energy, helping to lower the cost of each kilowatt hour. Its properties have been instrumental in untethering the portable electronics we use every day and incorporating clean power...
Projects, initiatives, and technology expand scandium supply chain security. While it may not have quite as strong a chemical bond to its adopted lanthanide siblings as they do each other, scandium does possess similar enough characteristics and is almost always found at the same geological gatherings (deposits) as the rest of its rare earth family. Named for the Latin word for Scandinavia, "Scandia," – as the mineral was thought to only dwell off the Nordic peninsula – sca...
An all-of-government strategy is beginning to unfold in the US. Over the first two years following the passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act, the U.S. Department of Energy has invested billions of dollars into establishing a clean energy supply chain in the United States. These heavy investments, however, have neglected one vital link – the domestic mines needed to supply the processing facilities, battery plants, and other energy t...
Pentagon turns to Idaho gold mine for a strategic domestic supply of critical metalloid. Falling in the grey area between metals like zinc and nonmetals like carbon, antimony is a semi-metal that possesses some interesting properties that make it a vital ingredient in a wide range of household, industrial, high-tech, and military goods. Despite its widespread uses, many people have never heard of antimony and fewer still realize that this intriguing metalloid is considered...
Will the controversial metal find its place in green tech? About 30 years ago, nobody thought much about cobalt. Today, this metal, with myriads of uses, is one of those elements that gets dragged into the spotlight due to the role it plays in electric vehicle batteries, with critics citing the disparity between the environmental and social costs of producing cobalt and the green tech solutions this critical metal enables. But we can't build a clean energy future without...
Import-reliance a top concern for national security officials. America's heavy reliance on China and others for the minerals and metals critical to the nation's economic competitiveness, military strength, and clean energy future is high on the list of strategic concerns for top brass at the U.S. departments of Defense and Homeland Security. While much of this concern is rooted in the fact that the United States' ability to defend its strategic interests at home and abroad...
