John’s Blog News

The Covid-19 pandemic has hit global copper demand hard—down by 3%-4% this year by most expectations—but that’s not looking like a long term problem for copper miners. The analysts are seeing booming Chinese demand as they quickly return to economic health, pandemic hit disruptions from South America, the U.S. and Africa, and low inventory levels […]

Asia Pacific is on track to see 100% electricity access soon. And that’s a big deal.  The news come via a recent report card on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal-or SDGs-of which “Affordable & Clean Energy” is number 7. It can’t come too soon for the 200M people still without electricity, but the region managed […]

Earlier this year Oz Minerals announced it would source nearly all the energy needs of a new nickel mine from clean energy sources like wind and solar. It may not have got a lot of media attention at the time, but it should have. Not only does it signal mining is getting cleaner, greener & […]

Nearly half of mining companies globally rank licence to operate as their biggest risk to business says new report. And that’s for the second year in in a row. Ernst and Young’s Top 10 Business Risks and Opportunities 2020 report found 44% of the world’s top mining executives say reputation & community support are their […]

In a recent article in Smart Company , Holly Bridgewater talks about how Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson are on the “Hunt for investment opportunities in the mining industry“. They have already backed a technology fund called Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV) and tech money is predicted to flow into mining with a focus […]

The impact of Covid-19 on our homes is big, but it tends to miss one key question……how well they’re handling the internet.  Most articles look at how well the internet is dealing with the explosion in demand as we work, school, shop, access telemedicine & entertain ourselves online at home.  Download speeds dropped 38% in […]

I just saw that global miner, Anglo American, is about to develop the world’s biggest electric haul truck. They’ve turned to a U.S. engineering company to develop its new ‘Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle’, set to be the world’s largest hydrogen powered mine truck. The truck is part of Anglo’s FutureSmart Mining, which applies innovative thinking […]

Electric car sales have more than tripled in Australia in the past year, with 6718 electric cars-including hybrid plug-ins-sold nationwide. The new figures are from the Electric Vehicle Council-of which I’m a member-showing electric buying up three fold from 2216 in 2018.  Australia still trails the world of course, with the plug-in market only 0.6% […]

As the smoky haze lifts from Sydney we’re all left wondering what just happened, what’s still to come and what should we be doing to change things. As the world watches in horror Australia is being ravaged by the worst wildfires seen in decades. Huge swathes of the country have been burnt, people have lost […]

The International Code Council-or ICC-in the U.S. just changed their building standards so that every home should be wired for at least one electric car. That’s potentially a big deal. Homes in the U.S. generally do very little wiring to the garage and its much the same here in Australia.  The ICC based its decision […]