Mining!!!
By Elyse “Cutie” Boileau
What is Mining?
• Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or
other geological materials from the earth, usually
(but not always) from an ore body, vein or (coal)
seam
• Materials recovered by mining include coal,
copper, gold, silver, diamonds, iron, lead,
limestone, nickel, phosphate, and tin to just name
a few
• Any material that cannot be grown from
agricultural processes, or created artificially in a
laboratory or factory, is usually mined
Why is Mining Important?
-Every American uses an
average 47,000 pounds
of newly mined
materials each year.
• A television requires 35
different minerals; 40
minerals are used to
make telephones and
15 minerals are needed
to make a car.
• Your telephone is made from as many as 42
different minerals, including aluminum,
beryllium, coal, copper, gold, iron, limestone,
silica, silver, talc and wollastonite. Without
boron, copper, gold and quartz, your digital
alarm clock would not work.
• Everything from the carpet (limestone,
selenium, lime, soda ash, zeolites, bentonite,
titanium, sulfur, diatomite) under your feet to
the doorknob (iron) on your door comes from
mining.
Underground Mining
• There's underground mining and surface
strip mining.
• The safety issue is a big problem with
underground mining. Underground mines
also produce a significant amount of
methane and particulate matter.
Surface Strip Mining
• Surface strip mining has significant
ecological issues related to it. The strip
mining rips out large areas of land for
mining.
• Water is often contaminated in the area.
Safety is not as large of an issue compared
to underground mining though
• Both types of mining use large pieces of
equipment to transport coal, that either burn
fuel, or use significant amounts of
electricity. The carbon footprint of mining
itself is huge. This is also not taking into
account the carbon footprint of the power
plants that burn all this coal, which is even
more significant!
Galore Mine
• Collapse of Galore Mine project leaves
transmission line in limbo
• Galore Creek in northwestern B.C is a world class
copper-silver-gold deposit where NovaGold
Canada announced on Feb.24th/07 that they would
start building an open pit mine there
• Unfortunately on Nov.28th/07 the $40 million plan
was put on hold
• Galore Creek Mining Co. was supposed to put up to $158
million to get the transmission line started, but Galore
principals Teck Cominco & NovaGold announced they
were halting development of their northwest B.C mine
project due to a stunning increase in development costs
• Northwest communties now rely on diesel generators to
produce electricity
• Without Galore there wouldn’t be a customer for the large
volume of power that the planned 247-kilovolt, 335 km
line would bring into the area