Development banks seek to revive world’s biggest power project
The planned Grand Inga hydropower complex in the DRC has been stalled for decades.
The polemic Pebble Mine project in Alaska, a 50-50 partnership between Anglo American (LON: AAL) and Northern Dynasty Minerals (TSX: NDM) is one again the centre of attention, as BBC World News aired Monday an in-depth report on the proposed open-pit copper and gold mine.
The video comes barely a week after the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) admitted to have spent $2.4 million in reviewing the proposed project in southwest Alaska.
The deposit, which could be worth as much as half a trillion dollars, hosts 55 billion pounds of copper, 76 million ounces of gold, 3.3 billion pounds of molybdenum, and quantities of silver, palladium and rhenium.
RELATED: INFOGRAPHIC: Pebble Project economics and employment
If approved, it would become the largest open pit copper and gold mine in the world, but it would also generate tons of potentially dangerous waste material, which would damage the area’s salmon population, one of the world’s most valuable habitats for the fish.
Watch the BBC‘s video here:
(Image by Charlie Kindel)
5 Comments
Mike Failla
Here we go again. Once again, public outcry with no knowledge of where our minerasl come from and what they mean to us in the united states.. This group should take a page out of Rosemont (augusta resources) playbook, address the issues head on and be cutting edge with all issues such as the water issue, berming issues, as well as all environmental issues.( for example: dry stack tailings as opposed to wet tailings? Banking water, zero discharge? Rosemont will be a mine done like no other, why? Because they found better ways to do things. Is it still an uphill fight? yes, but it has been addressed with facts not fiction. Perhaps Anglo-American/northern dynasty can do the same and learn that mining does not have to be destructive as we drink the same water and breath the same air just like everyone else. If you can grow it, it will have to be mined.
Just my 2 cents. I would like to see pebble go as a viable environmentally friendly mine as that will benefit all just not a few.
Apple
Lets start shutting all mines down for a year or two. It may enforce the source of our lifestyle
Concerned Miner
I don’t think it’s necessarily a question of people not knowing where our minerals and metals come from. It’s a question of protecting the environment as much as possible. Because our industry has had so much negative impacts in the past, even in the past few years (rivers polluted, tailings dams failed, etc), it’s still hard for people to accept mining. Mining companies should have a zero tolerance on environmental damage, just as many of them do on worker safety issues.
Fred Miner
Let’s just restrict sales of value added goods to areas that don’t support the extraction of natural resources. A great bumper sticker from the 1980’s was: “Ban Mining! Let the Bastards Freeze in the DARK!” To each his own; you reap what you sow. I won’t tell you how to live our life if you don’t suck mine dry. Personal responsibility has been lost in this age……..
MarkDonners
Anglo American is a criminal, domestic terrorist organization and should be treated as such. Like many large US corporations and their counterparts around the world, they have no loyalty to country, or any values except money, and they are ready to commit any crime, no matter how monstrous, including destroying the future of their children and the planet, if it involves a buck.