In that context, a region that, in spite of its storied mining history — does the Klondike gold rush ring a bell? — and its vast mineral potential has rarely made headlines in the U.S. may come into focus going forward: The Yukon.

Writes Yukon economist Keith Halliday in an opinion piece for Yukon News:

“Yukoners have long been fortunate to live in a geopolitical backwater. The Yukon generally doesn’t make it into the President’s Daily Brief. If you run into a foreign correspondent with a sat-phone in Whitehorse, it’s because they’re going canoeing with friends on the Snake. (…)

But could we actually benefit from today’s rising tensions, as China’s ‘wolf warrior’ diplomacy prompts democratic countries to look for strategically secure sources of raw materials? After the recent G7 summit, where leaders discussed a more unified China strategy, both the Biden Administration and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen talked about the role Canadian resources could play.

(…)

There is the possibility that the Yukon could benefit from the desire among Canada’s allies to find secure sources of strategic minerals.”

Indeed, the region’s mineral potential is vast, to the point that it made the top 10 of the Fraser Institute’s list of most attractive mining jurisdictions as recent as 2018.

Halliday argues that the fact that Europe and the United States are looking to diversify their mineral resource supply chains away from China amidst growing geopolitical tensions “is good news for Yukon mining projects whose ores are on US and European lists.”

“However,” as he notes, “that list does not include some of the most commonly mined minerals in the Yukon, such as copper or gold.”

While it is true that Copper did not make the U.S. Government’s official list of critical minerals in 2018, the Biden Administration’s 100 Day Report acknowledges Copper as an integral component of Lithium-ion battery technology, both in the context of being what we have called a “gateway metal” to other critical materials, and for its “use across many end-use applications aside from lithium-ion cells, including building construction, electrical and electronic products, transportation equipment, consumer and general products, and industrial machinery and equipment.”

With that, the Yukon’s appeal may be on the rise.

As perhaps it should be, given geopolitical developments this week that put five Chinese companies operating in Xinjiang Province on the U.S. Government’s sanctions list for using forced labor at the province’s quartz mines to produce polysilicon for the solar power sector. With Yukon’s many quartz deposits, the territory may draw attention from companies in the solar sector seeking a new source of polysilicon, produced under Canada’s exacting environmental, health and safety standards.

Whatever metals or minerals may come to define a new tech metals Yukon “gold” rush, Halliday cautions, though: “We should also remember that there are still many other countries who will be happy to host mining projects if Yukon properties get tied up in extensive permitting and approval processes.”

And permitting is an area that has seen the territory drop in the Fraser Institute rankings in recent years, with the latest report citing a mining company executive as stating “Permitting approval processes in the Yukon are a major concern for investors.”

Concludes Halliday:

“If we don’t ensure our mining approval processes allow high-quality, environmentally-sound projects to be permitted in a timely way, we will end up missing out on both the economic benefits of strategic mining as well as the opportunity to help our allies secure their mineral supplies.”

Suffice it to say, ARPN will add the Yukon to our watch list for critical mineral resource developments (pun intended). You should, too.

The post Report from The Yukon: Critical Minerals Challenge Brings “Geopolitical Backwater” Into Focus appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

As followers of ARPN may recall, the agency’s 2014 decision represented an unprecedented early action to derail the development of the so-called Pebble Deposit.  In spite of the fact that no permit application or specific plans had been submitted, the agency released a cursory review of the Bristol Bay Watershed in Alaska which sounded the alarm on the possible impact of hypothetical mining – even though previous EPA assertions of such preemptive power had been rebuffed in federal court.

The EPA’s decision to preemptively veto the project before any application had been filed represented a unilateral expansion of EPA powers under section 404(c) of the Clean Water Act.

According to the EPA press release, “the agency can continue its focus on fulfilling its responsibilities under the Clean Water Act to work with the Army Corps to review the permit.”

The release goes on to say:

“Today’s action does not approve Pebble’s permit application or determine a particular outcome in the Corps’ permitting process. Instead, it allows EPA to continue working with the Corps to review the current permit application and engage in the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process.”

As ARPN’s principal Dan McGroarty stated last year : 

“With the growing recognition that the U.S. is dangerously dependent on foreign supply for scores of critical minerals and metals, the need for a predictable permitting process has never been greater. The pre-emptive veto of the Pebble Project casts a chilling effect over resource development in the U.S.  […]to allow a pre-emptive veto to stand is ‘contrary to the spirit of our environmental protection laws, to due process, and to basic fairness.”  

Thus, seeing the preemptive determination revoked is a positive development that will allow due process and a rigorous review to take its course. 

The post EPA Withdrawal of Preemptive Veto of Alaska Strategic Mineral Mining Project Positive Development for Due Process appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

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With its new applications, silver is a prime example of the fact that this is not your grandmother’s resource sector anymore. As their utility broadens, metals and minerals are increasingly becoming foundational elements that will drive the 21st century economy. It is time we develop a coherent strategic framework reflecting this fact while harnessing our own vast mineral potential, and creating valuable jobs in the process.

The post Silver fundamentals strong, may outperform gold appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

Venezuelan officials have argued that a weakening U.S. dollar, and the United States’ and European debt crises were contributing factors in the decision.

In all likelihood, Chavez, ill and often characterized as being paranoid, is acting out desperation. But whatever his real motives, his plans are yet another indicator that in the current climate, metals can trump paper as a global currency and store of value.

The post Gold and politics: The lure of security for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

Is the choice really that stark and simple?  Is the situation so dire that EPA should step in to stop the permitting process, as at least one U.S. Senator now urges – or should we let the prescribed process run its course?  After all, it’s not as if the proposed mine is getting a free pass: As the article indicates, the current permitting process requires approvals from 67 different state and federal agencies.

Two facts to inject here:

1. As documented in the authoritative Behre Dolbear report, the U.S. currently ranks worst in the world – among the so-called mining nations – in the time it takes to permit a mine.
2. Copper – the primary product in this instance – is a critical technology-metal, no less than exotic elements like the Rare Earths.

Case in point:  A typical wind turbine uses between 3 and 4½ tons of copper.  That’s right: 3 to 4½ tons – per turbine.

Copper is also the source for Selenium – a little know metal that is key to next-gen solar power systems.

So would stopping a U.S. copper mine save salmon?  Or would it sacrifice wind and solar power we’re counting on to make the transition to a green economy?

Like so many other metals and minerals that the U.S. is blessed to have but fails to mine, we’re dependent on foreign-sourced supply, with all the attendant strings attached.

If U.S. mining companies operating under U.S. standards are sidelined, where will we get the metals and minerals we need for modern society?  As I testified in the U.S. House earlier this year, there are any number of countries that will be happy to feed our copper fix: We could buy copper from Russia, Angola, Afghanistan, DRC Congo, or China — including in all likelihood copper mined from reserves in the Tibet Autonomous Region.  There’s also copper in Pakistan and Iran.

Are we OK with “blood copper” supporting our windmills, our solar panels and our cellphones?  Do we think these mines would pollute less or be policed more stringently than U.S. mines?

This is the serious discussion we need to have – not feel-good policy-posturing.

The post EPA Urged to Oppose Wind, Solar Power appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

A story I found on www.oilprice.com provides the context:

Mongolia’s mining sector has some of the world’s richest deposits of gold and copper, uranium, coal, fluorspar as well as (rare earth elements) REEs such as tantalum, niobium, thorium, yttrium and zircon. According to a 2009 estimation by the U.S. Geological Survey, Mongolia has 31million tons of rare earth reserves, or 16.77 percent of the world’s total, exceeded only by China.

Oh, and coal.

Erdenes, a state firm is overseeing the Tavan Tolgoi (“Five Hills”) massive coal deposit located in the east Tsankhi area of Mongolia’s Gobi desert, estimated to hold over 7.5 billion metric tons of coking coal, essential for making steel, and the currently world’s biggest untapped deposit.

Where’s it gonna go?

Potential suitors include Russian, Chinese, Japanese and South Korean firms, while representatives from 20 global investment banks jetted into sunny [Ulaanbaatar] to make their pitches.

While Mongolia’s economy was traditionally based on herding and agriculture, neighboring China’s rising demand for minerals has underpinned its current mining boom, and Beijing would undoubtedly happily buy virtually all of Tavan Tolgoi’s output.

In terms of geo-politics, resources offer Mongolia an opportunity to recast its uncomfortable relationship as a buffer-state between Russia (dating back to the old Soviet Union) and China, by ushering Japan and South Korea into the picture.

The fact that the U.S. is nowhere mentioned in this article (unless of course you count the resource estimates for Mongolia’s riches, prepared courtesy of the US Geological Survey) speaks volumes.

Interestingly, though, Vice President Joe Biden’s travel itinerary for this month includes a visit to Ulaanbaatar. Might this be an indication that policy makers are finally realizing that resource development will be key to the “Wealth of Nations” in the near future?

The post Mongolia Weighs its Resource Options appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

I treated this story in 2007 as the dawning of a new “Cold War.” Read the full story here. [Subscription required.] Neither the geology nor the geo-politics has changed much in the past four years – unless we factor in the growing urgency as global resource demand collides with the glacial development pace of most new mining projects.

For the U.S., our Arctic claims come via Alaska – a.k.a. Seward’s Folly, and perhaps the best $7.2 million ever spent by the U.S. Government. Across a range of metals and minerals, expect Alaska – and by extension, our Arctic claims – to play a key role in resource supply in the 21st century. Forget the folly: let’s make that William Seward, futurist.

The post The race for Arctic riches appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

Whether or not worries of greater state involvement in Peru’s mining sector in light of Humala’s ties to Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez will materialize remains to be seen, as Humala ran on a more moderate economic platform in the runoff-election than before the first round of voting in April.

The larger issue for the U.S. is that our unnecessarily high degree of dependence on foreign imports of metals and minerals leaves us vulnerable to geopolitical changes. It doesn’t take war or major political unrest, – a couple thousand of ballots could be all it takes to potentially disrupt our supply of critical resources. Unless we explore and develop the resources beneath our own soil, all we can do in such situations is sit and wait.

The post Peruvian Elections Raise Issue of Resource Dependency for U.S. appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

This “modern day gold rush” is a manifestation of the increasing importance of metals – in this case, a precious metal – in times of turbulence.

Indeed, value-storing metals like gold, silver, and platinum are considered “safe-haven assets,” and are particularly attractive for an individual’s investment portfolio.

The strategic importance of metals, however, stretches well beyond the precious category.  As they are key ingredients in a broad range of products, securing an ongoing supply of industrial and specialty metals and minerals amidst geopolitical challenges is becoming increasingly critical for a nation’s technological advancement, economic growth, and national security. Countries like China are acting accordingly, as the race for resources has begun. But the question that remains to be answered is, “America ready to compete?”

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