Free Republic

Global gold production is in terminal decline despite record prices and Herculean efforts by mining companies to discover fresh sources of ore in remote spots, according to the world's top producer Barrick Gold. Aaron Regent, president of the Canadian gold giant, said that global output has been falling by roughly 1m ounces a year since the start of the decade. Total mine supply has dropped by 10pc as ore quality erodes, implying that the roaring bull market of the last eight years may have further to run. "There is a strong case to be made that we are already at...

At a time when our economy is struggling to produce jobs, the left is still intent upon keeping Americans from earning a livelihood. On Saturday, Democratic Representative Gabriella Giffords held a public hearing on a proposed copper mine in her district in Southern Arizona. But rather than being a public hearing designed to share information on the project, some felt it was more accurately a public hearing designed to present only one point of view. Not surprisingly, Ms. Giffords, all four panel members and all but one speaker were against the project. In a letter to the editor, one attendee,...

The pond that fills the bottom of the Mountain Pass rare-earth metal mine reflects the terraces. Digging is expected to resume by the second half of 2011 after the water is pumped out. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)Reporting from Mountain Pass, Calif. - Fear of a shortage of rare-earth metals used in high-tech military and industrial products has spawned global efforts to reopen abandoned mines, including the formidable Mountain Pass Mine in California's Mojave Desert. Discovered in the 1940s by uranium prospectors, Mountain Pass contains an array of rare earths, including cerium and lanthanum, in concentrations almost double those...

PIKEVILLE, Ky. (AP) - Thousands of coal miners fearing the loss of jobs if mountaintop removal mining is curtailed or outlawed shouted down a handful of environmentalists at crowded public hearings Tuesday on the much-debated practice. Many in Kentucky and West Virginia wore hardhats and T-shirts and waved signs proclaiming the merits of coal. Environmentalists who have fought for decades to end the destructive form of mining that blasts away peaks to unearth coal showed up in small numbers.

As Virginia’s odd-year election approaches, Democratic candidate Creigh Deeds has unleashed a frenzy of promises to spend money on everyone he can think of. On Saturday Deeds campaigned in Southwest Virginia at a rally sponsored by the United Mine Workers union, whose leaders say the time has come to “take from the upper one per cent that portion of the wealth they’ve been stealing for the past 35 years and return it to the workers.” Dumb, but — if possible — getting dumber.

Australia wants 15 pct cap on foreign investment-paper Article layout: raw SYDNEY, Sept 25 (Reuters) - Australia wants to limit foreign investment in its major mining companies to 15 percent under guidelines spelled out by its Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB), the Australian Financial Review reported on Friday. The general manager of the FIRB, Patrick Colmer, also warned foreign investors to keep their businesses listed in Australia and not allow their lawyers to use complex legal arguments in approval applications, the paper said. For start up mining projects, the FIRB wants foreign investment to stay below 50 percent, according to...

The Obama administration will make reforming the nation's 137-year-old hardrock mining law a top priority despite a full plate of higher profile issues, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Tuesday. Salazar told a Senate committee considering reform legislation that "it is time to ensure a fair return to the public for mining activities that occur on public lands and to address the cleanup of abandoned mines." The General Mining Act of 1872, which gives mining preference over other uses on much of the nation's public lands, has left a legacy of hundreds of thousands of abandoned mines that are polluting rivers...

WASHINGTON -- Sen. John McCain intends to try to hold up two Obama administration nominees because of a dispute over land-swap legislation intended to pave the way for an Arizona copper mine, his spokeswoman said Friday. McCain spokeswoman Brooke Buchanan confirmed the Arizona senator will oppose the nominations of Bob Abbey as director of the Bureau of Land Management and Wilma Lewis as Interior assistant secretary for land and minerals management when they are voted on by the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. She said he intends after that to place holds on the nominations when they come before the...

Gov. Brian Schweitzer is calling on the Obama administration to force General Motors to honor its contract with a Montana mining company instead of going overseas to buy the precious metals used to control vehicle pollution. By failing to shield the platinum and palladium mines, the Democrat said Friday that the administration had shown a bias against his state -- at a time when other U.S. jobs were protected with a "buy American" clause in the $787 billion stimulus act. GM is shedding its contracts with Stillwater Mining Co.'s platinum and palladium mines as part of the automaker's emergence from...

The Obama administration yesterday said it could not endorse legislation that would make way for a copper mine in an Arizona national forest, reversing the Bush administration's support of the bill and outraging its Republican sponsors in the Senate. Forest Service Deputy Chief Joel Holtrop told the Senate Public Lands and Forests Subcommittee that the administration has serious concerns about S. 409, a proposed land swap which would allow Resolution Copper to build a mine on a piece of Arizona's Tonto National Forest in exchange for private lands. He said the administration had not finalized its opinion on the bill...

Byrd aides studying mountaintop removal miningby The Associated Press Tuesday June 16, 2009 CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Aides to Sen. Robert C. Byrd are in southern West Virginia for what they call a three-day fact-finding tour about mountaintop removal mining. **SNIP** But the West Virginia Democrat issued a statement Tuesday saying his aides will see mountaintop mining operations firsthand. They will meet with coal industry officials, environmentalists and citizens. They'll also inspect flood recovery efforts and talk to people about fears that mining may have made the damage from the spring floods worse. Byrd says the Obama administration's plan to increase...

06-12) 04:00 PDT Redding - -- Rick Sugarek knows not to splash through the puddles inside "the mouth of the beast." That is what he calls the gaping wound near Redding known to everybody else as the Iron Mountain Mine, which is widely regarded by scientists as one of the most polluted places in the world. The project manager for the Environmental Protection Agency said he once dropped a pen in some running water inside the mine and when he recovered it, it was coated in copper. The water is so acidic that droplets eat holes in blue jeans and...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration is planning tougher environmental reviews for coal companies that mine the Appalachians by blasting off mountaintops and discarding the rubble in stream valleys. The administration plans to announce Thursday a proposal to eliminate the expedited reviews that have made it easier for mining companies to get approval for mountaintop mining. The proposal is part of an agreement between three federal agencies that will lead to a series of changes to boost federal oversight and environmental screening of the practice.

Environmentalists feel betrayed by the EPA's decision not to block new mountaintop mining projects.Reporting from Washington — With the election of President Obama, environmentalists had expected to see the end of the "Appalachian apocalypse," their name for exposing coal deposits by blowing the tops off whole mountains. But in recent weeks, the administration has quietly made a decision to open the way for at least two dozen more mountaintop removals. In a letter this month to a coal ally, Rep. Nick J. Rahall II (D-W.Va.), the Environmental Protection Agency said it would not block dozens of "surface mining" projects. The...

A lot has changed since the General Mining Law was passed in 1872, but very little has changed about the law itself. Those who want it to be modernized say this finally may be the year they get reform. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., has introduced a reform bill, and House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., already has held a hearing on his own legislation. Attempts over the years to change the law have foundered against the political influence of the mining industry, but members of Congress say prospects for an overhaul are...

The global economic slowdown has cast a pall over the mining industry with the vast majority of mining executives saying they expect a severe pull-back in exploration activity and at least 30 percent of exploration companies going out of business, according to the Survey of Mining Companies 2008/2009, released Feb. 26 by the Fraser Institute. The survey, conducted annually by the independent research organization, found that more than four out of five mining executives believe that at least 30 percent of exploration companies will be forced out of business in the current economic downturn. Of that total, two out of...

BEIJING - Nearly 100 miners were trapped underground after a gas blast ripped through a coal mine in a northern province, Chinese state media said. The official Xinhua News Agency said 96 miners were trapped in Sunday's pre-dawn blast at a mine belonging to the Shanxi Jiaomei Group in Gujiao city near Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi province. It said 436 miners were underground at the time but 340 managed to escape. Story continues below ↓advertisement | your ad here An official with the provincial government duty office confirmed the accident but did not have any details. He would give...

A gold discovery north of Fairbanks is among the largest worldwide in 10 years, said a mining exploration company. International Tower Hill Mines Ltd. updated its reserves estimate on land about 70 miles north of Fairbanks. The new estimate puts the size of the Livengood deposit at 5 million ounces of gold, but company president Jeffrey Pontius says that additional exploring could push the figure to 10 million ounces. "We have found a really exceptional concentration of gold that Mother Nature put out there," he said. "That's a tremendous thing." If the estimates turn out to be accurate, the gold...

CHARLESTON - At least one state coal industry leader said he was shocked by comments Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama made earlier this year concerning his plan to aggressively charge polluters for carbon and greenhouse gas emissions. "What I've said is that we would put a cap and trade system in place that is as aggressive, if not more aggressive, than anybody else's out there," Obama said in a Jan. 17 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle that was made public today first on the Web site newsbusters.org, which calls itself "the leader in documenting, exposing and neutralizing liberal media...

She's telling them to listen to the tape!!!! Go McCUDA!!!! VOTE!!!!

Spread the word. Stop the ObamaNation.

Audio Unearthed ATTN: Coal states Virginia , Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Indiana and more guess what Obama told San Francisco about you. San Francisco Gate Interview January 17 2008

A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency permitter was surprised to hear Coeur d'Alene Mines Corp. blame her agency when it pulled out of the Kensington gold mine permit process. While the company announced EPA comments on the environmental review of the mine would trigger months of delay, EPA scientist Patty McGrath was expecting they would be addressed in a couple of weeks. "They made this decision on their own, without discussing it with us first, which is why we don't understand why they're pointing to our comments as the reason for the delay," McGrath said. Coeur announced it was canceling the...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Obama is the next target for a bailout, I am convinced. Now, let me set this up. I'm sure that quite a few of you who are spending any time at all on the computer have received what I have received a gazillion times. By the way, as a little heads up, those of you out there who receive things in e-mail, these flash blast e-mails that go out: If you think I haven't seen it yet, change your mind. By the time you see it, I have seen it so many times, I have practically thrown...

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Norway's state-run fund that is funded by oil proceeds on Tuesday said it's divested its entire $853 million (4.8 billion Norwegian kroner) stake in mining giant Rio Tinto on ethical grounds. The Government Pension Fund -- Global sold its stake on concerns that Rio Tinto is contributing to severe environmental damage.

The rising price of gold is prompting a return to Mojave's mining roots, as the Golden Queen Mining Co. prepares to resume mining operations on Soledad Mountain just southwest of the community. Company President Lutz Klingmann outlined the company's plan for the project before a packed house Thursday at the Mojave Chamber of Commerce's regular monthly meeting. "Mining has been going on in east Kern County since before the beginning of the last century," chamber Secretary Bill Deaver said in introducing Klingmann's presentation. The company has been working toward resuming mining on Soledad Mountain for the last seven years, re-engineering...

Alaskans were given an option when voting for an initiative in their primary election: mining or fish. They chose mining. With more than 84 percent of votes tallied early Wednesday, the measure was declared dead with more than 57 percent of voters rejecting it. The ballot measure would have imposed two water quality standards on any new large-scale mines in Alaska. Had it passed, it would have restricted large, new mines from releasing toxic pollutants into water that would adversely affect the health of humans or salmon. Opponents of the initiative say if it had passed, it would have killed...

Google is implementing a DoubleClick ad-serving cookie across its content network that will give advertisers new powers to target advertising. The cookie also gives users the ability to opt-out, the company told the House Energy and Commerce Committee in a letter released yesterday. ---snip--- Google’s letter praised the self-regulation approaches favored by the Federal Trade Commission but the revelations are sure to fuel Rep. Ed Markey’s (R-MA) efforts to pass omnibus privacy legislation next year. The Washington Post quotes Markey: Increasingly, there are no limits technologically as to what a company can do in terms of collecting information . ....

The cause of mining law reform — long the province of the environmental community — has now gained an important ally in Earl Devaney. Mr. Devaney is the independent-minded inspector general of the Interior Department, which oversees the antiquated 1872 mining law, approves new mining leases and has responsibility for nearly all the 160,000 or so abandoned mine sites that dot the western landscape. The House bill has some support in the Senate, but it also has one powerful opponent: Harry Reid, the majority leader who is a miner’s son and whose home state of Nevada does a brisk business...

Terrified workers at a mining compound in one of Russia's most isolated regions are refusing to go to work after a pack of giant bears attacked and ate two of their colleagues. At least 30 of the hungry animals have been seen prowling close to the mines in northern Kamchatka in search of food, where the mangled remains of the two workers, both guards, were found last week. The Kamchatka brown bear is one of the world's largest, with males growing to around 10 feet and weighing up to 1,540 pounds. They can also reach speeds of up to 30...

Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton have asked their Chinese steelmaker customers to accept the largest ever increase in iron ore prices or risk the interruption of supplies from Australia. Traders and industry officials said the mining companies have demanded price increases for their annual iron ore contracts in excess of the record 71.5 per cent rise of 2005 and were fighting for increases of 85-95 per cent.Rio and BHP have warned their Chinese clients some annual contracts will expire next Monday and they would cease supply under the old terms. They have told them the ore would instead be sold...

KAYFORD, West Virginia (AFP) - The traditional lifestyle of the Appalachian peaks of West Virginia is under threat from mining companies who blow the summits off mountains to reach the coal deposits that lie beneath the surface. "They are killing off the culture of the mountain people," said Maria Gunnoe, who lives on a hillside which has had its insides dug out to expose a huge mine called Jupiter. "We are fighting not only for right now but also for yesterday and tomorrow," she said. Mountaintop removal mining, or MTR, is not only affecting traditions, but also polluting drinking water...

A number of Chippewa County residents are drawing a line in the sand when it comes to a sand mine. As we first reported two weeks ago, a Canadian company is looking to build a sand processing plant in the Town of Howard. If a permit is approved, the sand mine will operate for 40 years. During that time, it's estimated 60 to 90 trucks will haul 16 hours a day in the summer and ten hours a day in the winter. That's why a committee has been formed to stop construction. Kasey Schindler, the Stop Mine Committee spokesperson says,...

WASHINGTON — This is not your economy. It's not even your parents' economy. To a surprising degree, this is your great-grandparents' economy. Quietly, while attention has focused on the technology, finance and service sectors, businesses that stood astride 19th century industrial America but then collapsed have been resurrected to meet the needs of a feverishly industrializing world. In the process, much of what Americans think they know about their economy is being upended. Steel makers, railroads, mining concerns and agriculture, long considered part of a fading past, suddenly have bright futures. And segments of the economy long lauded as the...

SPRING GLEN - Those heartbroken women. Sculptor Karen Jobe Templeton's thoughts kept coming back to the wives and mothers as, day after day after day, she listened to radio accounts in August of the Crandall Canyon mine disaster. She would look around the light-filled studio she and her devoted husband, Kent, had spent two years building behind their home in this community between Price and Helper, and ponder: "How would I deal with losing Kent, if I had nothing to touch, to feel?" She resolved to do something about it. This week, Templeton is delivering clay bas-relief sculptures of the...

During the War of Independence, America learned the painful lesson of reliance on foreign nations. The newborn United States had to rely on France and the Netherlands to supply everything from iron and gunpowder to blankets and clothing, and Britain routinely cut America’s supply lines. Seeing this weakness, America’s founders implemented a national strategy promoting industrial and military self-sufficiency in order to establish the nation’s security. It seems America has forgotten that lesson. One specific example is in mineral production. America’s leaders have allowed the nation’s once formidable mining industry to erode. Many minerals—including some that are strategically important for...

A Bill Clinton-linked nongovernmental organisation, which has already raised $350-million to create sustainable development, will roll out in South America from March 1 and then Africa. Clinton-Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative chairperson Frank Giustra told the Mining Indaba in Cape Town on Tuesday that the initiative was investing in the future of countries where mining was taking place. This would result in economic activity continuing when mining, which had a finite horizon, ceased. Giustra, who made hundreds of millions of dollars from mining and movies, said the initiative chose the Clinton Foundation as a partner because of Clinton's record in getting...

China's coal mines kill 3,786 in 2007 22 minutes ago Accidents in China's notoriously dangerous coal mines killed nearly 3,800 people last year, state media reported Saturday — a toll that is a marked improvement from previous years, but still leaves China's mines the world's deadliest. A total of 3,786 were killed in mining accidents in 2007 — 20 percent lower than the 2006 toll, indicating the effectiveness of a safety campaign to shut small, illegal mining operations and reduce gas explosions, the Xinhua News Agency quoted the head of China's government safety watchdog as saying. Coal is the lifeblood...

<p>A methane blast ripped through a coal mine in eastern Ukraine early Sunday, killing at least 33 miners and leaving about 70 others trapped, emergency officials said.</p> <p>The explosion occurred at the Zasyadka mine in the Donetsk region at a depth of more than 3,280 feet at around 3 a.m., the Emergency Situations Ministry said. Oleksandr Soldatov, a spokesman for the ministry's regional branch, said that 33 bodies had been found.</p>

Measure passed in U.S. House aims to protect environment. A measure that would amend the General Mining Law of 1872 to establish environmental protections and eliminate land patenting passed the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday. Rep. John Salazar, D-Colo, voted with the 244-166 majority and hailed the legislation for its environmental protections and reclamation requirements on hard-rock mining. “I have heard from constituents in Crested Butte, the Summitville area, and throughout Colorado who want to protect our precious water resources,” said Salazar, whose 3rd Congressional District includes most of the Western Slope. “After 135 years, I am glad the...

Headline only...

Well, it looks like George Soros is at it again – using environmental pressure groups to block a gold-mining project in job starved Eastern Europe. Steven Milloy’s recent article details Soros’s blatant hypocrisy. Soros cares nothing for the impoverished families affected by his actions. And despite claiming to be the environmental protector, he owns interest in mining companies around the world. Local resident Gheroghe Luchain is fed up with Soros’s double standards. His town faces 70% unemployment – as he writes on his blog, Report from Rosia, “we need work for food on our table.”

The Eighth Continent Project, the world's most comprehensive program to integrate space technology and resources into the global economy, was launched here today at the Colorado School of Mines Center for Space Resources. “For the first time, government, industry and academia have joined forces with entrepreneurs and venture capitalists to forge the next frontier in commercializing space technology and resources,” said Colorado Governor Bill Ritter. “With our region's unique cluster of businesses, IT infrastructure, research institutions and aerospace workforce, the Eighth Continent Project will position Colorado at the vortex of ‘Space 2.0.'” “'Space 1.0' was astronauts, rocket ships and billion-dollar...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 22 — The Bush administration is set to issue a regulation on Friday that would enshrine the coal mining practice of mountaintop removal. The technique involves blasting off the tops of mountains and dumping the rubble into valleys and streams. It has been used in Appalachian coal country for 20 years under a cloud of legal and regulatory confusion. The new rule would allow the practice to continue and expand, providing only that mine operators minimize the debris and cause the least environmental harm, although

As rescuers drilled a final hole into a Utah mountain Thursday to search for six missing coal miners, the U.S. Senate added its voice to a growing chorus of questions raised over the safety of the mine. The Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees labor issues announced plans for a hearing on the mine collapse when Congress returns from its summer break Sept. 5. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, also demanded a list of documents Thursday from the Labor Department about the Crandall Canyon Mine and its operators. Kennedy wants to review several...

Families of six trapped miners in Huntington, Utah were treated "unconscionably" during the rescue effort, says Governor Jon Huntsman. Asked to elaborate, he would not point fingers directly: "The federal folks did everything they could, let me just put it that way," said Huntsman. "I'm not going to get into the mine owner, other than to say that I thought the way the families were treated was unconscionable, and I think they deserve better."

An impoverished town strikes gold. George Soros and foreign environmentalists say, leave it in the ground. The recent tragedy in Utah has brightened the spotlight on mining, already under assault by environmental and anti-globalization activists world-wide. These activists have produced several documentaries, and the anti-mining campaign has attracted the attention of billionaire George Soros and actress Vanessa Redgrave--and enough charges of greed or hypocrisy to fill a mine shaft. Tonight, PBS will air "Gold Futures," a film by Hungary's Tibor Kocsis. The film focuses on residents in Romania's Rosia Montana, a rural Transylvanian town, who are divided over the benefits...

A mine company executive sued the state Democratic Party over a TV ad that he claims defamed him by quoting him as saying the deaths of 14 miners last year were statistically insignificant. Massey Energy Co. Chief Executive Don Blankenship filed the lawsuit against the West Virginia Democratic Party and party chairman Nick Casey on Friday in Kanawha County Circuit Court. Statements attributed to Blankenship in a Feb. 19, 2006, article in The Herald-Mail of Hagerstown, Md., were misrepresented in the party’s “Not For Sale” ad, he alleged in the lawsuit. A methane explosion at International Coal Group’s Sago Mine...

WASHINGTON - The method of mining used at the Utah mine that collapsed Monday, trapping six miners, has a history of being disproportionately deadly, according to federal safety studies. It is "the most dangerous type of mining there is," said Tony Oppegard, a former top federal and state of Kentucky mine safety official who is now a private attorney in Lexington, Ky., representing miners. The reason the practice is used is that it pays off: The last bit of coal taken from pillars is pure profit, Oppegard said. Plus, if someone violates rules during pillar removal and there is a...

Rescuers trying to find six miners missing a week in a devastated coal mine failed to see any sign of them through a video camera lowered through a drill hole and will drill yet another hole in an attempt to locate the men, a federal official said Sunday. Poor lighting allowed the camera to only see about 15 feet into a void at the bottom of the drill hole, far less than the 100 feet it's capable of seeing, said Richard Stickler, head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration.