Tag: natural resources

Russia races for Ukranian mineral wealth before a potential ceasefire

Russia has spent the past five months swallowing up ever bigger tracts of Ukrainian coal, lithium, and uranium in the Donbass. Yet Western politicians still cling to the belief that they will be able to tap these resources to repay Ukraine’s ever mounting pile of debt. This is economic madness.

In the summer of 2024, most Western politico-military commentators were predicting that Russia was focussed on storming the strategically important military hub of Pokrovsk in Donetsk. Russian troops had advanced slowly, inexorably westward in a straight line following the bloody attritional battle for Avdiivka which was captured in February 2024.

But from August, Russian tactics shifted. First from the south of Donetsk they stormed Vuhledar, literally translated as “Gift of Coal,” a site of significant reserves, capturing it on October 1. That opened the way to swallow up large swaths of land in the south. Following the apparent encirclement of Velyka Novosilka in the past two days, one of Ukraine’s three licensed blocks of extractable lithium is now within short reach in Shevchenko.

Russian armed forces skirted Pokrovsk, instead battling through Selydove and in a straight line for about 20 miles, capturing a Uranium mine in a village called Shevchenko (not the same Shevchenko where the lithium is located). In recent weeks, Russian forces have taken Ukraine’s most important mine for coking coal in Pishchane and two related coking coal shafts in Udachne and Kotlyne. Together, these mines alone had produced the coking coal for 65% of Ukraine’s steel production. There are now fears that Ukrainian steel production could plummet to 10% of its prewar level in 2025.

Since President Trump was elected in November, and the prospect of an enforced ceasefire grew brighter, Russia’s advance has progressively accelerated. Today it is on the verge of completing its capture of the coal-rich bastion of Toretsk, the only town on the line of contact that hadn’t moved since 2014.

That’s bad news for Ukraine, not just because of a potential loss of further territory.

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Alaska Natives say Biden’s last act against oil and gas makes them more eager for Trump’s return

With only a few days remaining in his presidency, Joe Biden took one more parting shot at the oil and gas industry — and Alaska Natives — Thursday. The Department of Interior recommended that approximately 3 million more acres in Alaska’s 23-million acre National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A) region be protected from development. The announcement also provides direction for additional protections for impacts to “subsistence use,” which are areas used by Alaska Natives for traditional fishing and hunting. 

“This is just another slap in the face as Biden heads out the door. It was always about pushing his radical agenda and propping up his eco-elitist friends,” Larry Behrens, communications director for Power the Future, an energy advocacy group, told Just the News.

Indigenous voices

While presented as an expansion of protections for Alaska Native traditions, native communities in the North Slope have long been critical of the Biden-Harris administration’s attacks on oil and gas in the region, which they say provide needed economic development. Besides the jobs the industry provides, the tax revenues support infrastructure development in an area that previously had little. 

“The Biden administration is selectively citing Indigenous voices, while ignoring wide swaths of the North Slope Iñupiat, and fails to understand the implications of this announcement. Instead, it listened to voices that agreed with its policy agenda to justify its actions while ignoring the overwhelming majority of North Slope residents and locally elected leaders who opposed today’s decision,” Nagruk Harcharek, President of the Voice of Arctic Iñupiat (VOICE), said in a statement. 

The VOICE, which represents 21 communities and companies in the North Slope, spent years trying to gain an audience with Biden’s Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, only to have her continually ignore their requests. Finally in June, Haaland met with representatives of the VOICE.

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‘We Are in Serious Trouble’: Speaker Johnson Reveals Biden Didn’t Know He Signed Executive Order Banning Natural Gas Exports

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) raised concerns about who was really in charge at the White House for the last four years after revealing that Joe Biden wasn’t aware he had signed an important executive order pausing liquid natural gas exports to Europe.

In an interview with The Free Press on Friday, Johnson explained he had the revelation Biden hadn’t been in charge for awhile when, in private meeting with the puppet president in January 2024, Biden admitted he didn’t know he had signed the EO several weeks earlier.

“He’s in the twilight years of his life. He obviously has not been in charge for some time, and I know this by personal observation and now the whole world knows it, and it’s been very concerning to me over the last year and half since I’ve been Speaker,” Johnson told journalist Bari Weiss.

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An independent energy expert explains how the UK’s “Net Zero” strategy will result in blackouts by 2030 – how the solution is nuclear and how natural gas could have reduced bills for decades

The UK plan is to shut down natural gas and so remove the back up to intermittent “renewables”.

Gas and nuclear rely on turbines rotating at 3,000 rpm to produce 50 cycles – renewables produce direct current – requiring an adjustment to convert to the alternating current used by the grid.

From here:

Gas powered electricity accounts for at leas 50% at all times. The Marxist lunatics want to turn it off by 2030.

Here is a 47-minute video:

Will blackouts come to Britain?

On 8 January 2025, wind provided just 2.5 GW (out of the claimed 17 GW) and imports of electricity from overseas interconnectors could only provide 5.7 GW – demand was for 47 GW.

Loss of load probability was 29% – it is usually zero – meaning power blackouts were possible.

NESO = National Energy System Operator – a quasi-autonomous non-government organisation – QANGO – formed when the Marxist Labour government bought out the grid assets from National Grid plc – with taxpayers money a few months ago.

Demark had to defer maintenance in order to supply 700 MW (not GW) from Demark – thy dd the UK a favour – the Danes were under no compulsion to send the electricity over.

All about “where did the reserves come from and how much back-up is available?”

Prices on 8 January 2025 reached £5,500 per MW – normally 120-150 per MW – a power company made a few million pounds in a few hours – why would not ALL power companies take advantage of the price?

Don’t forget, the flip side, if the power from wind turbines is not needed, “curtailment fees” are paid to the wind turbine operator – for NOT producing energy!

The YouTube write-up says this:

“Did the UK only narrowly avoid a blackout last week? Freddie Sayers is joined by energy analyst Kathryn Porter to break down the National Grid numbers and find out how Net Zero might cause blackouts by 2030.”

The solution is to get KEPCO (South Korean Electricity Company) to build 8 nuclear power stations in the UK over the next decade and let everyone make out like bandits!

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The War Behind The War: What World War III Is Really Being Fought Over

World War III, like all 21st century wars, is not being fought over ideologies.

It’s being fought over energy and natural resources.

Because he who controls the world’s resources will be free to impose whatever ideology he wants.

Washington and London, the epicenter of the Western liberal world order that thinks it’s admirable and virtuous to redefine God-created genders and appropriate to unleash deviant transvestites on innocent school children, is seeking to neutralize the massive resources of Russia as it ramps up its “net zero” sustainable development model of economic progress. This economic model is really just a scam designed to pilfer what remains of the middle class and further subjugate them under AI-powered government-corporate control. Hence the need for more massive data centers, which Donald Trump is being used to build across the United States with $8 billion in foreign investment from a billionaire in the United Arab Emirates.

The surveillance state cannot be built out without these data centers scooping up, processing and storing highly personal information on every citizen. But Trump is either too dumb to know this or doesn’t care because he is blinded by a naive belief that without an expanded AI America will lose its global hegemony.

The modern technocratic state is going to be based on energy and carbon credits. Fiat currencies will become a thing of the past if these global predators succeed in their plans for a one-world surveillance state, where freedom of movement becomes a distant memory. Our healthcare and even our diets will also be tightly controlled by the elitist globalist predator class, whose interests are exemplified by the World Economic Forum and other elitist organizations.

With an understanding of the ongoing war over who controls the global food and energy supplies, it becomes easy to see how the NATO-Russia war (with Ukraine as NATO’s proxy) will blow up into World War III.

Moscow accused Ukraine Monday of conducting “energy terrorism” after what the Kremlin described as a failed drone attack against a Black Sea gas-compressor station that forms part of the major TurkStream gas pipeline linking Russia and Turkey.

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Cutting Slovakia’s Gas Supplies May Well Backfire on Zelensky

On 1 January, Ukraine ceased to allow the transit of Russia gas to Europe. This ended almost uninterrupted supply of Russian piped gas to Europe, through sovereign Ukraine, since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Some in the west have celebrated this as victory over Russia. More likely, it will backfire on Ukraine’s NATO and European aspirations.

I have always considered the sale, purchase and supply of gas or any other commodity as an entirely commercial matter. In that regard, even while posted to the British embassy in Moscow, I dismissed suggestions that Russia was weaponizing its energy supplies.

There was only one occasion, in 2009, when Russian gas supplies to Europe were halted temporarily following a dispute over Ukraine’s non-payment of its accumulated debts. Russia worked hard to position itself as a reliable supplier of gas specifically because it sells gas domestically at heavily subsidized prices; gas exports therefore subsidize domestic consumption.

Having good relationships with European consumers was prioritised, as Alexander Medvedev, the Deputy Chairman of Gazprom remarked to UK Members of Parliament who visited the British Embassy in early 2017.

Ukraine’s recent decision to end a long-standing gas supply route to Europe seems just another minor twist in the long-running saga of energy disputes between both countries.

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Biden Regime Declares War on Energy Independence: Bans Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Development in Nevada’s Ruby Mountain for 20 Years — Mining Exempted

The Biden regime announced Monday that it will bar oil, gas, and geothermal development in northeastern Nevada’s Ruby Mountains for the next 20 years.

This sweeping restriction covers an estimated 264,000 acres of federal land and effectively halts new energy exploration in the region.

Under the guise of environmental stewardship, the regime claims the move is in response to requests from Native American tribes, conservationists, and outdoor sports enthusiasts.

But critics argue this is another clear example of Biden’s commitment to strangling domestic energy production in favor of appeasing radical environmentalist groups.

The regime’s proposal begins a 90-day public comment period and triggers a two-year moratorium on new oil, gas, and geothermal leases in the area.

The lands will remain accessible for mining activities, leading some to question the consistency of the regime’s environmental policies.

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China has Banned US Exports of Key Minerals for Computer Chips – Leaving Washington with Limited Options

China recently banned the export of the minerals gallium and germanium to the US amid growing tensions between the two countries on trade.

The minerals are of critical economic value because they are used in computer chips, in military technology such as night vision goggles, and in the renewable energy industry, where they are important for manufacturing electric vehicles and solar cells. All of these areas are very sensitive sectors for the US and EU.

China has overwhelming market power over supply, because it is the source of 98% of primary gallium and 91% of primary germanium. Primary refers to “raw” sources such as mineral ore. In several sectors where the minerals are used, there are no substitutes for them.

Gallium and germanium are present in very low concentration as byproducts of major minerals – they’re known as trace minerals. Germanium’s primary source is the residue from zinc refineries and coal fly ash (a powdered residue produced when coal is burnt in power plants).

Gallium is mainly produced as a byproduct of bauxite ore (which is the main source for aluminium) as well as the processing stage to extract aluminium from bauxite.

The Chinese ban on exports of these minerals to the US closely followed Washington’s third crackdown in three years on China’s semiconductor (computer chip) industry. The US wants to curb exports of advanced chips to China that could be used in applications that threaten America’s security.

For example, advanced chips could be used in electronic warfare applications that make use of artificial intelligence (AI), or in advanced weapons systems such as hypersonic missiles. China said its ban on gallium and germanium was because of the minerals’ “dual military and civilian uses”.

According to a report in Reuters in 2023, the US Department of Defense holds a strategic stockpile of germanium, but no reserves of gallium. In October 2024, the US Geological Survey (USGS) estimated that a total ban on the export of gallium and germanium could result in a US$3.4 billion loss to US GDP.

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What Are Ukraine’s Top 10 Minerals?

The Kiev regime is trying to curry favor with the incoming Trump administration by offering concessions on Ukraine’s critical mineral deposits – valued up to $11.5 trillion, according to the New York Times.

So, what are the top 10 natural resources and why are they so important?

Lithium: Ukraine has an estimated 500,000 tons of lithium reserves. The mineral is key to making batteries for electric vehicles (EVs). Two of Ukraine’s major lithium deposits are now under Russian control in the Donetsk and Zaporozhye regions.

Titanium: The US Geological Survey estimates Ukraine’s titanium reserves at 8.4 million tons, primarily in the central regions. Titanium is crucial to the military, aerospace, medical, automotive and marine industries.

Gallium: Ukraine was the world’s third-largest producer, generating around 4 tonnes of gallium annually. Gallium, found in small concentrations in other metal ores, is vital for semiconductors and LEDs.

Manganese: Estimated reserves of about 140 million tonnes of manganese are concentrated in the Dnepropetrovsk and Zaporozhye regions – the second now part of Russia. Manganese improves the strength and workability of steel and other alloys.

Beryllium: Ukraine has proven reserves of 5,515 tons, primarily in the northwestern Zhitomir region. Beryllium is essential for the nuclear power, military, aerospace, acoustic and electronic industries.

Graphite: Ukraine holds 17.9 million tons of graphite, concentrated in the Zhitomir, Kirovograd and Dnepropetrovsk regions. The Pryazovsky site is now in Russia’s Zaporozhye. Graphite is critical for producing telecommunications, medical and military equipment.

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Why Trump is Pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement (again)

It’s going to be at least four years of “Drill baby, drill!” as President-elect Donald Trump has said numerous times over the last few years.

With Trump’s election, the United States will now definitely withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement.

Trump is seeking to overhaul energy and environmental policies, aiming to dismantle the Left’s climate agenda and eliminate programs that impede the country’s economic growth. While President Joe Biden’s negotiators will be at this week’s COP talks in Azerbaijan, nothing they agree to will be binding for the Trump administration.

In fact, Reuters is reporting that Trump’s transition team has already prepared executive orders and proclamations on withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement and shrinking the size of some national monuments to allow more drilling and mining.

The new Trump administration will push for a major ramp up of oil and gas exploration within the US, roll back environmental protections as well as impose heavy tariffs on electric vehicles and solar panels coming from China.

Trump is also expected to end the pause on permitting new liquefied natural gas exports to big markets in Asia and Europe and revoke a waiver that allows California and other states to have tighter pollution standards, according to a New York Times report.

Trump is also reported to be under pressure to pull the US out of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) for the first time if he becomes president.

While leaving the Paris Agreement would be legally straightforward, legal experts had previously been divided on whether Trump could withdraw the US from the UNFCCC without the approval of the US Senate and – if he did – how easy it would be for a future president to re-join.

However, given that the Senate is now in Republican hands, Trump could move forward on this should he so choose.

The 2015 Paris Climate Agreement is an international treaty aimed at limiting global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, with efforts to keep it under 1.5 degrees.

Democrats have made climate change and the goal of limiting global warning a new religion.

They claim Trump risks derailing American climate policy, as well as the global fight against climate change.

They have called his election a “crushing blow,” a “dark day for the climate,” and “the greatest civilizational and climatic setback on our planet.”

Democrats believe the Paris Climate Agreement represents a positive, collective global effort to address climate change.

As part of the Agreement, countries set nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, fostering accountability and progress tracking. Developed nations pledge financial and technical support to help developing countries transition to greener economies and adapt to climate impacts, which can alleviate economic inequality.

The US has already committed billions in American taxpayer dollars to developing countries, a move many conservatives are upset about.

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