As if the unlawful cancellation of oil & gas lease sales wasn’t bad enough, Brandon et al., 2021-2022 are now cancelling mining leases that would have led to increased domestic production of the “copper, nickel, cobalt and platinum group metals” required for wind turbines, EV batteries and all of the other Unicorns they believe can replace fossil fuels. As an example, here are the mineral resources required to manufacture smartphones:
The cancelled mining leases were part of a project to tap the vast mineral resources of Maturi deposit in the Duluth complex.
The Duluth complex is a world-class copper-nickel resource, rich in cobalt and platinum group metals.
Twin Metals Minnesota’s Mine Plan of Operations (MPO) was “the culmination of a decade of engineering, environmental study and community engagement work.”
Our plan to do this right.
We at Twin Metals Minnesota are proud to have formally proposed our world-class, 21st century underground copper, nickel, cobalt and platinum group metals mining project for environmental review. This is the first step in ensuring that mining will be done safely in northeast Minnesota.
It’s been a long time coming.
The submission of our Mine Plan of Operations (MPO) to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and the Scoping Environmental Assessment Worksheet (SEAW) data submittal to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (MDNR), is the culmination of a decade of engineering, environmental study and community engagement work.
Where is just as important as why.
The proposed project site is located between the cities of Ely and Babbitt – an area long-sustained by mining. It’s in an area that has been designated for mining, logging and other commercial activities within the U.S. Forest Service Superior National Forest Plan. The project is outside the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, as well as the federal and state mining exclusion zones surrounding the BWCAW.
We’ll be targeting the minerals within the Maturi deposit, part of the Duluth Complex geologic formation. It’s one of the largest undeveloped deposits of these minerals in the world, with more than 4.4 billion tons of ore containing copper, nickel and other strategic minerals.
Submission of the MPO and SEAW data submittal started a multi-year environmental review process that will thoroughly evaluate our proposal. The review process will include additional baseline data collection, impact analyses and multiple opportunities for public input.
We look forward to this process and the continued conversations with regulators, tribal governments and the public, because at the end of the day, we all want what’s best for Minnesota.
We know this land.
We’ve studied it for years.Over the course of a decade, we’ve studied the Maturi deposit in great detail. To date, our core storage facility houses approximately 1.5 million feet of core samples from the deposit – about a half million additional feet of core samples have been sent to state storage facilities.
Following mineral resource characterization, several years of process flowsheet engineering work led to conceptual and initial prefeasibility studies. The project design we have today minimizes potential impacts in the areas of water, wetlands, noise, dust, light and visual pollution.
Specific examples include:
*The overall project footprint is only 15-20% of what a traditional open pit mine would be.
*The mine will process 20,000 tons of ore per day.
*Mining operations will occur between 400 and 4,500 feet below the surface.
*Ore processing will remove most of the sulfide minerals. Therefore, tailings will not produce acid rock drainage (ARD).
*Up to 50% of tailings will be diverted from surface storage, and will instead be utilized as backfill in the underground mine.
*Tailings stored on the surface will be dewatered and compressed, otherwise known as dry stacking.
*Adopting dry stacking as the tailings management method will reduce the surface impact by approximately 35% and the wetlands impact by approximately 65%, compared to conventional slurry tailings storage.
*The dry stack facility will be lined and progressively reclaimed with native soil and vegetation.
*The project will not discharge process water, and is designed to not require discharge of contact water. Water used in the mineral concentration process will be reused on site.
*No waste rock will be stored on the surface, eliminating a potential source of ARD.
*Ore crushing will be conducted underground, limiting surface impact, dust and noise.
*No mining will occur under the Birch Lake reservoir.
*After the mine’s closure, most of its infrastructure will be removed, and the surface area will be revegetated.
Our plans are yours to read.
Whenever possible, we strive to maintain an open dialogue with community members, stakeholders and agencies.
We look forward to this process and the continued conversations with regulators, tribal governments and the public, because at the end of the day, we all want what’s best for Minnesota.
Twin Metals Minnesota
- A world-class mineral resource, rich in the metals needed for the “energy transition.”
- A meticulously crafted, utterly transparent plan of operations.
- Located within the continental United States, securing access to strategic minerals.
What’s not to like about this? Apparently the fact that it’s located in these United States and would actually put America first, is what the Harris-Biden Dominion don’t like about it…
Biden administration cancels Twin Metals’ leases to mine near BWCA
Dan Kraker Duluth January 27, 2022The Biden administration has canceled two federal mineral leases held by Twin Metals Minnesota, dealing a potentially fatal blow to the company’s bid to build an underground mine for copper, nickel and precious metals on the doorstep of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
Those leases, located along Birch Lake in the Superior National Forest, about 7 miles east of Ely and just south of the BWCA, are critical to Twin Metals’ plans. They’re required for the company to access the valuable minerals underground.
The Department of the Interior took the action after determining that the leases were improperly renewed by the Trump administration in 2019.
[…]
In a statement, Twin Metals called the announcement “disappointing, but not surprising given the series of actions the administration has taken to try and shut the door on copper-nickel mining in northeast Minnesota.”
“We will challenge this attempt to stop our project and defend our valid existing mineral rights. We expect to prevail,” the company added.
[…]
In a separate effort, the Biden administration has also proposed a 20-year moratorium on new copper-nickel mining proposals within the watershed of the Boundary Waters, in the same area Twin Metals wants to dig. The government says it’s taking that step because of the pollution risks mining poses to the Boundary Waters.
Mining supporters say that effort, combined with the Twin Metals lease cancelation, block projects that could provide important metals needed for wind turbines and electric car batteries.
“The Biden administration is talking out of both sides of its mouth,” said Frank Ongaro, executive director of Mining Minnesota.
“On one hand, it wants domestic critical minerals for a supply chain to address climate change. And on the other hand, it’s locking us out of the vast majority of the U.S. supply of these metals. That’s extremely hypocritical.”
[…]
MPR News
The race for clean #energy transition (and its minerals) has started
Any Questions?
Well… Brandon?
Kid Rock sums it up for me in his “We the People” release and the “Let’s Go Brandon” chants (has no one else seen this? Maybe too avant-garde? At what point do we put on the yellow vests???)
NSFW (language warning-you have been informed) btw –
This –
Just an observation here: The cancelled mining leases were part of a project to tap the vast mineral resources of Maturi deposit in the Duluth complex. – article
Sometimes, what seems like a curse can become a good thing. Those mining leases can be renewed/reinstated once the current (Lack of) administration is gone. Meantime, China is digging into its own resources to produce the same stuff, and cranking out electronic junk by the gross tonne. So…. if your competitor is giggling and raking in cash and you are sitting on “unused potential” (for want of something better), what happens when your competitor’s resources run out?
Think about that for a minute.
China is on a downhill slope doing about 150MPH while we’re watching. I’d say we will have the advantage of them at some point.
If it were a purposeful plan to make China use up all their supplies, I’d be in favor. However, I don’t think that the current (mal)administration is that smart.
One downside is that we end up borrowing money from China, giving it more leverage over us, and also giving China more money to control other countries. When an individual or country has a lot of capital, it is easier to make even more money.
Growing up some 50 miles west of the Northern Minnesota Iron Ore mining country, during the early ’60s, I remember several school (and canoe) trips into the mining areas. The large open pit mining outputs were declining by then, and taconite production was just starting. I remember looking at a great chandelier in the entrance to the Hibbing High School and being told that “at one time, the high school was once had the largest funding of any high school in the country”.
The dominant features of the entire area were the piles and piles of “mine tailings” everywhere you could see. These were huge rocky piles of broken red rocks bereft of any vegetation at all. There would be an occasional glimpse of the actual mines, deep below the surface, but mostly there was nothing but miles and miles of rock piles, all unfit for most any human endeavor.
I was surprised, though, during a recent trip through the area. What I saw now was vegetation mostly everywhere. It was quite stunning, certainly after expecting only rock piles. I doubt there had been much “central planning” to achieve this, and the now beautiful hills and valleys are a long way from human habitation, it goes to show, though, that we humans are but a tiny blip on the overall history of this planet.
I live now right on the side of the Balcones Escarpment in Texas. It’s a much larger rock pile, over a much greater area than the Minnesota iron mines. I have walked down the nearby Canyon Lake Gorge. The two-hour trip goes from the present-day surface at the top, and then travels through 110 million years of geologic history to the bottom. One steps over dinosaur footprints, through the dry part of the oil rich Eagle-Ford strata, layers of fossils, and lots of rocks. It proves to me that a bit of additional mining in Minnesota won’t stop the world. Water always wins!
Don’t the Chinese have control of the rare earth market? Wouldn’t these projects compete against them? Don’t the Chinese own the Brandon crime syndicate?
Cui bono?
Meanwhile green fraud continues…..
The University of California system is suing 8minute Solar Energy LLC and Tom Buttgenbach, its co-founder and chief executive, seeking roughly $1.22 billion over the university’s investment in several renewable-power projects.
The public university’s regents allege that 8minute and Mr. Buttgenbach fraudulently induced it to invest $150 million in a collection of projects in early 2020, then Mr. Buttgenbach misappropriated much of the capital and used it to enrich himself, in a lawsuit brought last month in Alameda County Superior Court in Alameda, Calif.
“How now
browngreen cow?”– A mostly nonsense phrase with no real meaning as such, sometimes used as a jovial greeting …
It looks like they’re now just doing as much damage as they can before losing power mid-term.
Biden and his puppet masters can only be explained by a very intricate and devious plot to destroy America, or in the alternate, complete utter incompetence augmented by perpetual delusions about the real world. I am certain Biden is incapable of the first option, because he can’t remember most days where his is or what his job is. Not so sure about the puppet masters. I think the second option fits Biden’s profile exactly. I wonder what type of stimulants go into his ice cream to make him stand upright and make vaguely intelligible noises during his few public appearances. The biggest concerns are the folks behind the curtain. There is a very real possibility that willingly or mistakenly they are doing the bidding of nations and actors whose interest is indeed the destruction of America and the democratic, capitalistic system. People who care about this are going to have to get active and noisy to stop this process before the point of no return is reached.
They just want their EVs with imported metals and polysilicon panels made with slave labor. The details other than union-made products don’t matter. Pay up or step aside.
This reminds me of Bill Clinton.
Before Obama’s “War on Coal”, there were 3 know deposits of “Clean Coal” in the world. (Out of the ground they were clean. I forget why. Low sulfur?)
One was in Africa but impractical to mine due to logistics and local politics.
One was in Indonesia(?) owned by The Lippo Group.
The last was in Utah. Bill Clinton declared it a “National Refuge” or some such which would prohibit mining in the area.
I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that The Lippo Group had (illegally?) contributed heavily to his campaign.
David Middleton: Pardon me if this was noted here already and I missed it – I downloaded the PolyMet Technical Report on the NorthMet Project. In several places, for one paragraph 2, Section 1.8, p. 24, it states “It is important to note that NorthMet is south of the Laurentian Divide and in a separate watershed from the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and Voyagers National Park located to the northeast.” A SEPARATE WATERSHED – so the fact that it is “near” the BWCA is irrelevant.
The Twin Metals leases on the Maturi deposit (the subject of this post) are within the BWCA watershed… Hence the meticulous procedures to eliminate polluted runoff.
Everyone should keep an eye on this and see if the licence is given to someone else in a couple of years time.
One more reason the only land the federal government should win is D.C.
All other land in America should be privately owned.
Start there.