The Elements of Innovation Discovered
The Elements of Innovation Discovered
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Whether exploring and mapping a historical underground mine for the first time since it was shuttered during World War II or generating more detailed maps of a modern operation, drones that navigate the labyrinth of ramps, declines, stopes, and other underground environs without reliance on the global positioning system or human guidance can make subterranean mine surveying safer, faster, and more accurate. Ascot Resources Ltd. and Northern Star Resources Ltd. are amongst the...
Becancour, a small Quebec town along the shores of the St. Lawrence River about midway between Montreal and Quebec City, is rapidly emerging as an epicenter for producing the advanced materials needed for lithium-ion batteries powering the electric vehicle revolution. This rural Canadian town of around 12,800 people surfaced in the battery space about a year ago when Nouveau Monde Graphite Inc. announced plans to build a facility there to produce the coated spherical purified...
Looking to break America's reliance on China for rare earths and critical minerals, the U.S. Department of Energy is investing $140 million to develop a facility that extracts these minerals from unconventional sources and then refines them into the metals needed for electric vehicles, renewable energy generation, and other modern technologies. These technological advances are creating new demand for a suite of minerals and metals that are often rare and in short supply. In...
Electra Battery Materials Corp. is making headway on upgrades and expansions of North America's only battery-grade cobalt refinery, the centerpiece of an emerging eco-industrial park in Ontario that will supply battery materials to the lithium-ion battery and electric vehicle plants in North America. Electra's cobalt refinery is a hydrometallurgical facility that previously operated in Ontario for a decade. Since acquiring this asset, the company has been advancing a strategy...
A group of bipartisan senators and a conservation organization are urging the White House to take definitive actions to bolster domestic production of the minerals critical to clean energy and national security. In a March 11 letter to President Biden, Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska); Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia), Jim Risch (R-Idaho), and Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana) pointed out that the "lack of home-grown production...
Liquid fuel rockets are adequate for jetting humans to the most popular destinations across our solar system in a reasonable amount of time – about three days to the Moon and six months to Mars. We, however, need a way of traveling near the speed of light to shave enough of the 75,000-year journey to get to Alpha Centauri, our closest solar system neighbor, in a human lifespan. This futuristic problem may be solved with one of humankind's earliest transportation t...
Caterpillar Inc.'s enormous autonomous mining trucks hauled 1.2 billion metric tons of ore, waste, and other materials during 2021, a world record that will likely only stand for a year as more mining companies turn to the safety and efficiency Cat autonomous haulage has to offer. Autonomous trucks equipped with Cat MineStar Command for hauling, a solution developed by Caterpillar for fully integrated autonomous mining systems, are hauling iron ore, oil sands, copper, coal,...
From hot sand in Alabama to hydrogen storage at Tennessee coal mines, the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management is investing $2.4 million into projects that could increase the duration, reliability, and affordability of novel energy storage technologies. "The Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management is investing in projects that will advance thermal and hydrogen energy storage technologies for use during and beyond the electricity...
Ontario has developed a mines-to-market critical minerals strategy that leverages rich stores of critical minerals in the northern reaches of the Canadian province, the already well-established mining sector found there, and the robust manufacturing sector that has been developed in the south. "The Critical Minerals Strategy is our government's blueprint to connect industries, resources and workers in our province's north to the future of manufacturing in the south as we...
Rising demand, tight supply, war, and a short squeeze on a China-based stainless steel titan came into perfect alignment to rocket the price of nickel to historic heights. The price for a pound of nickel soared nearly 250% over two days to a brief altitude above US$100,000 per metric ton, or US$45 per pound, on March 7. This prompted the London Metal Exchange to halt trading of the battery metal to deal with the aftermath of the largest move in the price of a metal in LME's...
Adding to a growing list of deals to source the materials and components needed for its vision to get everybody in on its transition to an all-electric future, General Motors is working with POSCO Chemical to develop a roughly $400 million plant in Quebec to produce cathode active material for Ultium batteries that will power GM electric vehicles such as the Chevrolet Silverado EV, GMC HUMMER EV, and Cadillac LYRIQ. Planning to have the capacity to build 1 million electric...
Looking to increase the speed and accuracy of establishing drill targets on its gold properties in Brazil, Jaguar Mining Inc. has signed a license for long-term use of Minerva Intelligence Inc.'s DRIVER, a proprietary artificial intelligence-driven product developed to allow mining companies to better understand and evaluate drill data to pinpoint superior targets, geometallurgical domains, and more through 3D modeling. "Jaguar is committed to embracing new technologies to...
To develop high-performance lithium-ion batteries that will power the next generation of ultra-luxury electric cars in the United Kingdom, Aston Martin has formalized an agreement that merges its 109-year history of automotive excellence with Britishvolt's pioneering expertise in battery technologies. "For a prestigious marque such as Aston Martin, staying true to its world-renowned brand of ultra-luxury, high-performance vehicles, whilst transitioning to electrification,...
The U.S. Geological Survey has finalized a list of 50 minerals and metals critical to the United States. While seemingly a large increase over the 35 critical minerals on the 2018 list, most of the additions are from individually listing the constituents of two mineral groups, rare earth elements and platinum group metals. In addition to listing each rare earth and platinum group element individually, the changes to the list of U.S. critical minerals include the addition of...
Intrigued by Electra Battery Materials Corp.'s vision of developing a hydroelectric-powered battery materials park in Ontario, Talon Metals Corp. has joined a partnership that will investigate the potential of using this emerging Canadian facility to upgrade nickel produced at its coming Tamarack Mine in Minnesota into the battery-grade nickel sulfate needed for the lithium-ion batteries powering electric vehicles. This partnership, which also includes the Ontario government a...
Part of a much larger critical minerals investment and strategy unveiled by the Biden administration on Feb. 22, the Pentagon has awarded MP Materials Corp. a $35 million contract to commercially separate and refine heavy rare earth elements at its Mountain Pass Mine. Located in California's Mojave Desert, Mountain Pass is currently the only mine in the United States that produces rare earths, a group of 17 elements critical to a wide array of technologies used for industrial...
Seeking every advantage when it comes to the efficient and sustainable production of lithium and boron at its Rhyolite Ridge project in Nevada, ioneer Ltd. has turned to the expertise of ABB, global leader in electrification, automation, and digitalization for mining and other industrial sectors. "ABB is focused on providing environmentally sound engineering and technology solutions," said ioneer Managing Director Bernard Rowe. "This aligns with ioneer's ambition to not only...
The United States Department of Energy is investing $2.2 million to explore the holy grail of clean energy projects – a domestic mine that helps to supply the nickel and copper needed to achieve America's electric vehicle and renewable energy ambitions while also pulling carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it as a mineral in rocks for geological periods of time. Global mining company Rio Tinto is contributing another $4 million and is leading this three-year r...
Toward its goal of eliminating 1,000 internal combustion vehicles from its fleet by 2025, Teck Resources Ltd. is piloting a fully electric on-highway transport truck to haul copper concentrates the roughly 30 miles (48 kilometers) from its Highland Valley Mine in southern British Columbia and a rail loading facility in the town of Ashcroft. The Canadian miner says this will mark a world's first when it comes to battery-electric truck hauling copper concentrates from a mine....
With its sights set on supporting North and South America's mining sectors with a growing line of equipment and technological innovations, Hitachi has broken ties with John Deere and launched Hitachi Construction Machinery Americas Inc. Hitachi and Deere have been working together since the 1960s and officially forged a partnership to build and distribute excavators in the United States during 1988. This joint venture, which brought together Hitachi Construction Machinery's...
Getting ahead of the expected growing demand for vanadium redox flow batteries in North America, Austria-based Enerox GmbH has significantly expanded its agreement to buy electrolyte for its CellCube VRFB from US Vanadium LLC. "As part of our go-to-market in North America, we want to use electrolyte which has been regionally processed within North America ensuring long-term deliverability at a competitive price," said CellCube CEO Alexander Schoenfeldt. After an expansion...
Maestro Digital Mine, which specializes in industrial internet of things (IIoT) devices that make mines safer and more productive, and Exyn Technologies, a pioneer of aerial drones capable of autonomously navigating complex underground environments, have teamed up to create the 21st century equivalent of a canary in the mine – an ExynAero drone equipped with critical gas sensors manufactured by Maestro. For centuries, hazardous gases have posed a fatal threat to underground m...
On Feb. 22, 2022, Teck Resources Ltd.'s Red Dog Mine in Northwest Alaska became the largest critical minerals operation in the United States, both in terms of quantity and value of the materials produced at this world-class base, precious, and critical minerals operation. Being catapulted to America's top dog when it comes to critical minerals production is not due to the germanium produced, though this semiconductor metal vital to ultrafast computing and communications is...
Now that masks made with its patented ZENGuard antimicrobial graphene coating are being commercially produced, Zentek Ltd. is looking at other ways to leverage the superlative qualities of the graphene it produces to make the world a better place. This includes research into making better lithium batteries with graphene-coated silicon as the anode. As an anode material, silicon has shown the ability to have up to 10 times more storage capacity than the graphite that is...
Graphite One Inc. Feb. 15 reports that a more environmentally sound fire suppressing foam enhanced with advanced graphite material from its Graphite Creek deposit in western Alaska shows the potential to meet the United States' military firefighting standards. "While Graphite One's primary focus remains the production of lithium-ion battery anode grade material, our foam fire suppressant work is a prime example of the advanced graphite material opportunities in markets...
