Eritrea

Kate Lanier offers selections from global mining, fracking and energy-related news including:

Chile: “Chile is now emerging as the southern hemisphere’s renewable energy giant, particularly in the mining sector.” They’re “building independent solar, solar thermal, wind and geothermal power plants” which are producing power at prices “competitive with or lower” than conventional producers. Chile’s latest renewable power costs are $80/megawatt hour—compared to $95 for coal.

Russia: Rosneft tried to buy “a Morgan Stanley oil-trading firm,” but the deal went poof! thanks to US authorities whose sanctions “have hurt Rosneft’s ability to finance the operations.” Those sanctions also mean ExxonMobil and other Rosneft partners won’t be developing offshore oil in the Arctic.

Texas: Gas flaring at the Eagle Ford Shale “burned off more than 20 billion cubic feet of natural gas,” producing as many tons of pollution in seven months as were produced in all of 2012. Not all the flaring was state permitted, either. The TX Railroad Commission (I know, I know, but they’re in charge of these things) has sent lots and lots of letters to the companies involved, reminding them they shouldn’t flare without permits, but with the price of oil so low, what’s a company to do?

Kate’s roundup of the top mining and environmental news from around the world including:

Ecuador: Jose Isidro Tendetza Antun of the indigenous Shuar Federation will not be attending the climate talks in Lima, Peru, this week. He was recently captured, tortured, and killed after leading resistance to the Chinese CCRC-Tonagguan Investment’s Mirador open-pit copper and gold mine. BTW, President Rafael Correa has assured multinational companies of “full state security from the police and the army” and is pursing oil drilling in the Amazon reserve.

Alaska: XS Platinum and five executives “have been criminally indicted under the federal Clean Water Act for allegedly dumping toxic waste into the Salmon River” from their Platinum Creek mine, falsifying records and reports, etc. Apparently, the toxic waste made its way into the Togiak National Wildlife Refuge where “chinook, chum, coho, pink and sockeye [salmon]” spa

Worldwide: 180 cities in 35 countries have taken back their water, preventing it from being contaminated by extractive industries.

Mining The Earth & Fracking The World: Hallelujah, Save The Planet!

Mining The Earth: Taking Back Our Water