U.S. states with a long history of coal mining have struggled with sinking demand for the fossil fuel amidst the energy transformation and ecological concerns. Repurposing active coal mines into rare earth production could offset possible job losses and reduce the U.S. dependency on China.
Norway has announced its intention to open 281,200 square kilometers (nearly 108,600 square miles) of its nearby ocean to deep-sea mining.
The country’s parliament could still overturn the decision, but most political parties in Norway currently support moving forward with deep-sea mining.
This much is real: In the late Renaissance and Early Modern era, Venetians mined in the German mountain ranges - primarily so that they could find rare minerals for their famous glass production. Since the details of these were considered state secrets, their mining operations were likewise fairly secretive....
"An inquiry set up by the APPG on Coalfield Communities has warned there are too many poorly paid low-skilled jobs, too many people having to rely on unemployment benefits and the expected “trickle-down” effect from nearby big cities isn’t working.
It highlights shocking statistics which say the average life expectancy in the former coalfields as a whole is a full year less than the national average, and two years less than in London."
Today in Labor History June 16, 1869: In the small mining town of Ricamarie, France, troops opened fire on miners who were protesting the arrest of 40 workers. As a result, troops killed 14 people, including a 17-month-old girl in her mother’s arms. Furthermore, they wounded 60 others, including 10 children. This strike, and another in Aubin, along with the Paris Commune, were major inspirations for Emile Zola’s seminal work, “Germinal,” and the reason he chose to focus on revolutionary worker actions.
Perlite processing, where they bring the perlite into a mill to crush it, so that it can later be turned into filtration material, acoustical tiles, and more. #mining#mininghistory
Today in Labor History June 1 is the day that U.S. labor law officially allows children under the age of 16 to work up to 8 hours per day between the hours of 7:00 am and 9:00 pm. Time is ticking away, Bosses. Have you signed up sufficient numbers of low-wage tykes to maintain production rates with your downsized adult staffs?
The reality is that child labor laws have always been violated regularly by employers and these violations have been on the rise recently. Additionally, many lawmakers are seeking to weaken existing, poorly enforced laws to make it even easier to exploit children. Over the past year, the number of children employed in violation of labor laws rose by 37%, while lawmakers in at least 10 states passed, or introduced, new laws to roll back the existing rules. Violations include hiring kids to work overnight shifts in meatpacking factories, cleaning razor-sharp blades and using dangerous chemical cleaners on the kills floors for companies like Tyson and Cargill. Particularly vulnerable are migrant youth who have crossed the southern U.S. border from Central America, unaccompanied by parents. https://www.epi.org/publication/child-labor-laws-under-attack/
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Of course, what is happening in the U.S. is small potatoes compared with many other countries, where exploitation of child labor is routine, and often legal. Kids are almost always paid far less than adults, increasing the bosses’ profits. They are often more compliant than adults and less likely to form unions and resist. Bosses can get them to do dangerous tasks that adults can’t, or won’t, do, like unclogging the gears and belts of machinery. This was also the norm in the U.S., well into the 20th century. In my soon (I hope) to be released novel, “Anywhere But Schuylkill,” the protagonist, Mike Doyle, works as a coal cleaner in the breaker (coal crushing facility) of a coal mine at the age or 13. Many kids began work in the collieries before they were 10. They often were missing limbs and died young from lung disease. However, when the breaker bosses abused them, they would sometimes collectively chuck rocks and coal at them, or walk out, en masse, in wildcat strikes. And when their fathers, who worked in the pits, as laborers and miners, went on strike, they would almost always walk out with them, in solidarity.
4,000 Meters Below The Sea Lies The Planet's Largest Source Of #Battery#Metals #Mining always comes at a cost, but could the sea offer less damaging potential than land?
"Is it too late to halt deep-sea mining? Meet the activists trying to save the seabed - If mining companies are given the go-ahead to exploit the ocean depths, the environmental cost will be devastating. As the clock ticks down to a crucial deadline in July, Michael Segalov (Guardian) reports"
"For almost 30 years, much of what went on at the secretive-sounding International Seabed Authority (ISA) in Jamaica was unreported and scarcely noticed ... There have been allegations of secrecy and interference against its governing body and of legal loopholes being exploited. After discussions chugged along quietly for decades, a growing community of campaigners, scientists and now governments are raising an urgent alarm about what’s happening within these walls. They argue that unless immediate action is taken, it might be too late to halt the devastating environmental and ecological impact of mining the global high seas. Their warning is simple: humanity’s insatiable appetite to plunder the planet for profit might mean some of the Earth’s most untouched corners are exploited before we even understand what it is we risk losing. As Louisa Casson, who is leading Greenpeace’s global campaign to stop deep-sea mining, puts it: “It’s a threat, continental in scale, that until recently nobody was even talking about ...
Regardless, due to a quirk in an ageing international treaty, deep-sea mining might happen in a matter of months after the pulling of a legal lever by a Canadian-owned company and the government of Nauru."
It's relatively easy to find sources willing to criticize #Japan's fossil fuel investments in #seasia
But its far more difficult to get anyone, especially from outside the region, to do the same for #Chinese#fossilfuel or #mining investments.
For example, on #Indonesia#coalgasification plans, now only supported by Chinese investment. So little global outcry compared to Japan's #LNG investments.
Researchers pored over satellite imagery to create one of the most comprehensive data sets on the global mining footprint ever generated.
The data set maps out in fine detail the boundaries of a combined 65,585 km2 (25,323 mi2) of mining sites across the world.
Nearly 10% of the total mining areas mapped in the study fell inside protected areas like national parks, Ramsar wetlands and UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
"By including a finer analysis of mining-related land use...he hopes the data set will help train image-recognition tools in how to automatically spot and analyze #mining sites from #satellite imagery in the future.
For...analysts looking to determine the #ecological + social impacts of mines in specific regions, the level of spatial detail included in the study could be a 👉breakthrough👈...
I don't think the transition to renewables is being talked about honestly. Particularly the ecological devastation being caused due to mining for battery minerals.
There are very few voices talking about the need to consume less across the board.
"When a foreign company started exploratory drilling for the possible return of uranium mining near #ChurchRock, community members say they were not informed in advance.
“It was a complete shock,” Jonathan Perry, the director of Eastern Navajo #Diné Against Uranium Mining, said of the process that started this winter.
"The eastern Navajo Nation communities have stood largely in opposition to future uranium mining for decades.
"'The majority of Diné people have been personally impacted by (uranium),' Leona Morgan, an activist and member of Navajo Nation, said.
"The Navajo Nation has a moratorium dating back nearly two decades that prohibits uranium extraction, but the Eastern Agency consists of what is known as checkerboard. That means federal and state lands are intermixed with Navajo, or Diné, lands and allotment lands.
"#LaramideResources, a Canada-based company, plans on extracting uranium from an area within the checkerboard that is not tribal land.
"The work would occur near the same location where, in 1979, a dam breach released 1,100 tons of uranium waste and 94 million gallons of #RadioactiveWater into the #RioPuerco, which the nearby Navajo communities relied upon for water.
"Decades later, the spill, along with mine and mill sites in the area, remain unremediated. Earlier this year, the U.S. NRC issued a record of decision as well as a license amendment that will allow the #UnitedNuclearCorporation—which owned the site where the spill occurred—to dispose of mine #waste from the old uranium mine at the old mill site.
"Morgan said there are concerns that this disposal method in an unlined pit could lead to a second spill happening, especially as climate change increases the risks of extreme weather events like monsoon floods."
Today In Labor History May 1, 1830: Mary Harris "Mother" Jones was born. Mother Jones was renowned for her militancy and fiery oration, as well as her many juicy quotes. She once said, “I’m no lady. I’m a hell-raiser.” She also was an internationalist, saying “My address is wherever there is a fight against oppression.” Despite the difficulties of constant travel, poor living and jail, she lived to be 100. She was also a cofounder of the anarchosyndicalist IWW.
Here's how the story goes: Capitalism removes the forests in search of profits, drills into the earth in search of profits, pollutes the air and water in search of profits... and now, what's left?
Oh, wait, say the capitalists, we haven't dug into the deep sea yet in search of profits, er, um, minerals. And guess what, we can pretend we're doing that for the sake of the climate and the environment!
Yeah, that's the idea. We need those minerals to make electric cars. So it's a win-win. We'll make billions more in profits, AND we'll make ourselves look good by promoting Green Growth! 😃
When representatives of an Australian mining firm arrived in Ambohitsy Haut village in southern Madagascar, they told residents they wanted to drill holes looking for graphite in their village. The villagers agreed, but they were clear; you can dig, but away from our ancestral tombs.
Rare Earths – The Future of Coal-Mining States? (rawmaterials.net)
U.S. states with a long history of coal mining have struggled with sinking demand for the fossil fuel amidst the energy transformation and ecological concerns. Repurposing active coal mines into rare earth production could offset possible job losses and reduce the U.S. dependency on China.
Venetians - The Magical Strangers
This much is real: In the late Renaissance and Early Modern era, Venetians mined in the German mountain ranges - primarily so that they could find rare minerals for their famous glass production. Since the details of these were considered state secrets, their mining operations were likewise fairly secretive....