The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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At a time when American automakers are looking for potential domestic supplies of the graphite that makes up nearly half of all the materials that go into the lithium-ion batteries powering electric vehicles, Graphite One Inc. offers up details of its plans to develop a mine at its Graphite Creek project in Alaska and processing facility in Washington that would produce roughly 75,000 metric tons of advanced graphite products per year. Earlier this year, S&P Global Platts...
Being cynical by nature, and having a solid distrust of the integrity of the popular press, it crosses my mind that the political determination of the United States and its NATO allies to dump our sacred treasure, if not our blood, into the defense of Ukraine precipitates a serious question: Why? When all else fails, I tend to fall back on the wisdom of the ages as generally manifested by bumper sticker memes like "follow the money." In the case of Ukraine (not unlike...
Alaska is known to be a trove of the minerals and metals critical to every segment of the American economy. This critical mineral richness is despite the fact that Alaska is a vast state that remains largely underexplored. To help gain a better understanding of the Last Frontier State's potential to provide domestic supplies of the 50 critical minerals, the U.S. Geological Survey has allotted $6.75 million to explore specific regions of the state for 29 critical minerals. The...
Modern society depends on the responsible development of a wide variety of minerals and metals. These commodities are used in numerous consumer products, such as cellular phones, computers, televisions, and automobiles. They are also extremely important for powering the transition from a fossil fuel-based economy to one in which renewable energy is a major part of the energy mix. Many of these commodities have been designated as "critical minerals" by the U.S. federal...
The global transition to low-carbon energy and transportation is both an incredible opportunity and daunting challenge for Alaska's mining sector. On the one hand, Alaska is incredibly enriched with the minerals and metals required to build electric vehicles, solar panels, wind farms, and other clean energy technologies. On the other, America's Last Frontier is burdened by a lack of affordable, low-carbon energy options in the remote reaches of the state where many of these...
Graphite One Inc. June 8 reported that its 2021 drilling at Graphite Creek continued to confirm that this deposit, approximately 37 miles north of Nome, Alaska, is the largest and highest-grade graphite resource in the United States. According to a 2019 calculation, Graphite Creek hosts 10.95 million metric tons of measured and indicated resources averaging 7.8% (850,534 metric tons) graphitic carbon, plus 91.89 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 8% (7.34 milli...
Graphite One Inc. June 1 named mining veteran Mike Schaffner as senior vice president, mining of its Alaska subsidiary, Graphite One (Alaska) Inc., effective July 1. "I'm excited to join the Graphite One team as the company moves into its next phase of development," Schaffner said. "I've been involved at every stage in the development process, from design to start-up, into operation and closure. I'm ready to help the team realize G1's tremendous potential of becoming...
FAIRBANKS, Alaska (May 10, 2022) – "We truly have a bright future for mining in the state if we are allowed to pursue it," was the message Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy delivered to the more than 250 people that gathered to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Alaska Mining Day. While commemorating the intrepid pioneers that first ventured North in pursuit of Alaska's rich mineral potential and celebrating the mining's current contributions to the state's economy, Dunleavy said t...
May 10, 2022, celebrates the ninth annual Alaska Mining Day. Established in 2013, Alaska Mining Day was created through legislation sponsored by Sen. Cathy Giessel, R-Anchorage, "to recognize and honor the intrepid individuals and industry that played an enormous role in settling and developing the territory and the state that continue to contribute to the economy of the state." Why May 10? On this day in 1872, the General Mining Act of the United States was approved – w...
While hailing President Joe Biden's use of the Defense Production Act to bolster domestic production of critical lithium-ion battery minerals and metals as good news for the Far North State's mining sector, Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy says this move contradicts actions taken by the administration to reevaluate a road to the Ambler Mining District. "I fully support the President making the development of these minerals a priority in our nation's interest. But the Biden...
Graphite One Inc. March 14 announced that it has selected Washington as the location for the processing plant that will upgrade concentrates mined at its Graphite Creek project in Alaska to the spherical coated graphite needed for lithium-ion batteries and other advanced graphitic materials. According to a 2019 calculation, the Graphite Creek mine project about 35 miles north of the Alaska gold mining town of Nome hosts 10.95 million metric tons of measured and indicated...
With the lithium-ion batteries powering electric vehicles and storing intermittent renewable energy driving enormous new graphite demand, Graphite One Inc. focused its 2021 program on collecting the final bits of data needed to complete a feasibility study for developing a mine at its Graphite Creek project about 35 miles north of Nome, Alaska. According to a 2019 calculation, Graphite Creek hosts 10.95 million metric tons of measured and indicated resources averaging 7.8%...
Goldman Sachs' declaration that "copper is the new oil" may serve as a foreshadowing of Alaska's economic future, one that is not so heavily reliant on the revenues from petroleum flowing from the North Slope and leans more heavily on the state's rich endowment of precious, critical, and base metals. The investment bank's suggestion that copper is to become the strategically most important commodity on Earth is due to the vital role the conductive metal plays in global...
While copper may be the new oil of the green energy revolution, a wide variety of industrial minerals and metals found in abundance in Alaska will be needed to build the envisioned low-carbon future. In a 2021 report on the minerals and metals critical to low-carbon energy and transportation, the International Energy Agency estimates that a typical passenger electric vehicle requires six times the mineral inputs of a conventional internal combustion engine car and an onshore...
Graphite One Inc. enters 2022 with growing momentum as the company rapidly advances the largest known and highest-grade graphite deposit in the United States toward development as the transition to electric mobility and renewable energy is powering new demand for the advanced graphite materials it plans to produce. "Despite the challenges of COVID on the business climate and all aspects of operations, Graphite One raised more than C$30 million in capital, completed a...
Home of the famed golden beaches of Nome that has captured the imagination of millions over the past 120 years, the Bering Straits Native Corporation (BSNC) region covers the Seward Peninsula and coastal lands arcing around the eastern and southern coast of the Norton Sound in the far western reaches of Alaska. While this region may be 300 miles beyond North America's highway system, it has served as a crossroads for human activity for at least 15 millennia and will continue...
The $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act brightens an otherwise gloomy outlook when it comes to federal policies that impact Alaska and its mining sector. "I believe this is truly historic for our state," Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said during a Nov. 17 address at the Alaska Resources Conference. While the massive infrastructure bill passage was chalked up as a political win for President Joe Biden, the billions of dollars to be invested into upgrading and...
Graphite One Inc. Oct. 13 announced the completion of a 2,052-meter drill program focused on gathering data for a feasibility study on developing a mine at its Graphite Creek project about 35 miles north of Nome, Alaska. A preliminary economic assessment completed in 2017 outlined plans for a mine at Graphite Creek that would produce roughly 60,000 metric tons of 95% graphite concentrate per year and a separate processing facility to refine these annual concentrates into...
As another signal foreshadowing the growing demand for graphite, the Pentagon has added this lithium-ion battery ingredient to its newest National Defense Stockpile Acquisitions List. Published by the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency on Oct. 4, this list calls for DLA's strategic materials department to acquire up to 900 metric tons of graphite to store in government stockpiles over the coming year. Primary reasons for the Department of Defense to have a graphite stash for its ow...
Canada is positioning itself as the "global supplier of choice" for the critical minerals and metals essential to tomorrow's technologies, especially the almost unfathomable quantities of raw materials that will be required by a world transitioning to low-carbon energy and electric vehicles. "Demand for minerals and metals continues to grow with an increasing focus on critical minerals – vital in aerospace, healthcare, telecommunications and an array of clean technologies such...
While the history of human innovation is a series of discoveries, each building on the last, there are certain "eureka moments" that mark a shift in the trajectory of mankind – taming fire, stone toolmaking, Bronze Age metalworking, the printing press, and harnessing electricity to name a few. The history books may one day reflect on these opening decades of the 21st century as one of those rare occasions that human innovation makes a leap that necessitates a new chapter be w...
The global transition to electric vehicles plugged into renewable energy sources is powering enormous demand for graphite, the single largest ingredient in lithium-ion batteries. "Graphite demand increases in both absolute and percentage terms since graphite is needed to build the anodes found in the most commonly deployed automotive, grid, and decentralized batteries," the World Bank penned in a 2020 report, "The Mineral Intensity of the Clean Energy Transition." According...
Extremely hard and with the highest melting point of all the metals, tungsten's toughness is legendary. Like many of the other metals that have found their way onto critical mineral lists in Canada, Europe, and the United States, this durable metal is vulnerable to Chinese control. "World tungsten supply was dominated by production in China and exports from China," the U.S. Geological Survey inked in its 2021 mineral commodities report. It is estimated that mines in China...
Reminiscent of America's gilded age, the world is priming itself for a new era of technology and energy centered on the electricity that sparked the imaginations of visionaries such as Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison. This new era, however, sets aside more than a century of burning fossil fuels in favor of new clean sources of the electricity that will power human innovation into the 21st century and beyond. Solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal are but a few of the methods...
A heavy reliance on imports for a long list of minerals and metals critical to American supply chains could be a stumbling block for the Biden administration's ambitious "Build Back Better" agenda. "From the largest infrastructure plan since the Eisenhower interstate highway system, to an aggressive plan for a national energy transition, the Biden administration's agenda will require an immense amount of minerals," National Mining Association President and CEO Rich Nolan...
