Gold futures returned to above $1,800 an ounce Friday as investors sought the perceived safety of the precious metal ahead of the weekend and news emanating from Europe injected a dose of uncertainty back into markets. Gold for December delivery added $33, or just under 2%, to settle at $1,815 an ounce in afternoon trade. Reuters reports between gold’s highs and lows this year, there is a more than $600 gap, the largest since the 1960s, though its 32% range is below the 42% range seen in 1980.

Kentucky power companies Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities said on Friday new, stricter, federal environmental regulations will force them to retire three older, coal-fired power plants and recoup the $4 billion in EPA compliance costs through future price hikes for customers. A recent industry-sponsored study showed the US coal ash industry could suffer $110bn in lost economic activity and cut 300,000 jobs over the next 20 years under the new rules and between 50,000Mw and 70,000Mw of coal-fired power generation throughout US could be retired. The three Kentucky plants being shut down supplied less than 800Mw of power. One megawatt powers about 1,000 homes.

The Montreal Gazette reports that there are still a stubbornly low number of women pursuing engineering as a course of study in university, and the question remains - why? The gender disparity has continued, they wrote, "despite the fact that there has been a dramatic increase in the number of new jobs in engineering and technology." Elizabeth Croft, a UBC mechanical engineering professor and, since 2010, regional chair for Women in Science and Engineering with the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), agreed that engaging women in applied sciences is a serious concern. "I don't think we've done a particularly good job of communicating that the careers for engineers do not require you to be a man," she said in a recent interview.

Euroenews reports that two bodies were found by rescuers who are trying to reach trapped miners in an underground coal mine in south Wales. On Thursday morning, water flooded the hillside colliery near Cilybebyll where seven miners were working. Three miners managed to escape while four remained underground. Divers have been trying to reach the workers but debris in the water is making progress difficult.

Silvercorp Metals Inc. says the anonymous fraud allegations that have hammered its share price are completely false, and the company is backing that view up by buying back its shares at low prices.

Rio Tinto PLC (RIO) plans to sell "a lot" of the output from the Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold project in Mongolia to China, and is in discussions with smelters in China, Rio Tinto's U.S. Copper Chief Financial Officer said Friday at an industry event."Talks are still underway, and there's no definite plan right now," Kay Priestly told a Metal Bulletin conference in China. With the Oyu Tolgoi mine strategically located close to China where demand is high, so "it's certainly our plan to transport a lot of the products to China," Priestly added.

Western Australia’s manufacturing sector is losing nearly 150 jobs per day as workers chase high wages in mining.

JSW Steel today said shortage of iron ore had "severely impacted" its production this month and the company was running units at 75% capacity.

Preliminary estimates from Metals Economics Group’s (MEG) Corporate Exploration Strategies (CES) study indicate that 2011 nonferrous exploration budgets will exceed $17 billion for expenditures related to precious and base metals, diamonds, uranium, and some industrial minerals.