‘Cultural appropriation’: discussion builds over western yoga industry

Practitioners fear Indian culture has been ‘suppressed by colonisation’ while some question accessibility

In 2019, the global yoga industry was worth an estimated $37.46bn.

 Photograph: Thomas Barwick/Getty Images

Nadia Khomami
@nadiakhomami

Mon 12 Dec 2022 

Yoga has been a big part of Nadia Gilani’s life since she was introduced to the practice by her mother at the age of 16. A few years ago, after various personal struggles, she became a full-time yoga teacher.

But almost immediately, she realised not only were most yoga teachers and students in the UK white, but the accompanying wellness narrative has divorced yoga from its 5,000-year-old roots.

“The lack of people of colour in the industry is a massive problem,” Gilani said. “There is a big issue with diversity, in terms of both teachers and those who practice it. What especially annoys me is when Sanskrit words like ‘namaste’ get emblazoned on T-shirts, images of Hindu gods are turned into tattoos, or ‘om’ symbols are printed on yoga mats. It’s cultural appropriation and it’s offensive.”

If her mother had not introduced her to yoga, Gilani wonders if she would have found it at all. “Flashy studios, costing up to £20 a class. It’s gatekeeping, in a way.”

This week, practitioners in India have once again sought to draw attention to what they see as cultural appropriation of yoga, amid allegations it has been whitewashed. Vikram Jeet Singh, a yoga instructor in Goa, told This Week in Asia that “his own culture” has been “wiped out and suppressed by colonisation”.

In the west, he added, yoga has “become synonymous with a workout session stripped of any kind of cultural background, where you have to show up with $100 Lululemon leggings and an equally expensive mat. That is not right”.

Yoga has developed from an underground practice to a multibillion-pound industry driven by celebrity fans such as Gwyneth Paltrow and Jennifer Aniston. In 2019, the global yoga industry was worth an estimated $37.46bn (£30.53bn).


‘Skinny, bendy and blonde’: women of colour challenge racism in UK yoga

Teachers of South Asian heritage in the UK, such as Nikita Desai, have posted videos claiming yoga has become “colonised” and inaccessible to many, the Times has reported. Online teacher Cat Meffan said she had to learn about issues around appropriation, which was not taught when she studied to be a teacher in 2014.

In her book The Yoga Manifesto: How Yoga Helped Me and Why it Needs to Save Itself, Gilani writes at length about the problems in the industry. But she said she did not like words such as “colonised” to describe the spread of the yogic practice.

“I don’t think claiming yoga back as an Indian practice for only Indians is the way,” she said. “These conversations have to be nuanced. It’s not as simple as saying ‘the west has nicked yoga’.

“I was born in the west, I’ve got a western practice and I’ve got a western modern life, which is why I think the call to ‘decolonise’ doesn’t quite work. I need my practice to fit with my modern life. Of course, I’m more sensitive because I had to deal with growing up as a person of colour in the west. But this isn’t about bashing white people – everyone has to be sensitive. I could easily make a mistake too, and what’s important is having those discussions afterwards.”

‘Like an oilwell in your back yard’: Irish people turn to cutting peat to save on energy bills

Curbs to protect Ireland’s bogs have gone up in smoke amid soaring costs – theft of trees and woodpiles in Germany also rising

Ireland’s bogs are important carbon sinks and sources of biodiversity.

 Photograph: Patrick Bolger/the Guardian

Rory Carroll Ireland correspondent

 and Kate Connolly in Berlin

The Guardian

Mon 12 Dec 2022

This was supposed to be the year Ireland got serious about protecting its bogs but some of those hopes are wafting up in smoke as households burn peat to save on energy bills.

The soaring cost of oil and gas has reinvigorated the ancient practice of cutting and burning turf, a fuel that hurts the environment but can save a family thousands of euros, especially as temperatures drop to freezing.


‘We’re being left with nothing’: Ireland’s turf wars expose rural grievances

Earlier this year the government introduced curbs to peat cutting to protect Ireland’s bogs – which are important carbon sinks and sources of biodiversity – but Europe’s energy crisis has boosted what is supposed to be an anachronism. It costs approximately €500 to heat a household with peat for a year versus several thousand euros for more climate-friendly sources of energy.

“People are glad to have turf. It’s like having an oilwell in your own back yard,” said Michael Fitzmaurice, an independent member of parliament and chair of the Turf Cutters and Contractors Association. An average household that relies on peat consumes 10 to 12 tonnes per year, he said. “It’s security of energy.”

Niall Ó Brolcháin, a researcher at the Insight Centre for Data Analytics at the National University of Ireland, said consumers faced a pinch point. “The financial factor is a much stronger motivation than saving the planet. People are facing an immediate crisis.”

People in rural areas traditionally cut peat sods in spring and burn them in winter. Photograph: PhilAugustavo/Getty Images/iStockphoto

Meanwhile people across Europe are turning to solid fuels, with Germany experiencing a wave of thefts of trees and woodpiles in forests.

In Ireland, anecdotal evidence suggests there has been a sizeable increase in the use of so-called turbary rights which allow people to cut peat, said Ó Brolcháin, a former mayor of Galway city. “In many cases turbary rights had lapsed but people are using them again all of a sudden. There is plenty of evidence of people selling peat door to door. It’s quite understandable, given the economics.”

People in rural areas traditionally cut peat sods in spring and burn them in winter. There are no official statistics about how much was cut or stockpiled. Ó Brolcháin estimates an increase from last year ranging from 30% to 200%. “Last year I drove around Connemara looking for piles of turf and it was hard to find them. This year it was really easy.”

Marc Ó Cathasaigh, a member of parliament with the Green party, which is part of the ruling coalition, also cited anecdotal evidence of increased turf cutting. Though hard to quantify it represented a “step backwards”, he said. “Our bogs are important for carbon sequestration, water management and biodiversity. They are much more valuable to us as bogs rather than as fuel.”

Ó Cathasaigh said fuel allowances and energy credits had cushioned households but some still relied on peat, coal and wood, adding to chimney smoke. “Air quality affects health, one follows the other.”

Ireland’s rural inhabitants survived for centuries by draining bogs and using peat as fuel. A semi-state company, Bord na Móna, cut turf on an industrial scale. Storytelling by a blazing hearth embodied the national identity.

Attitudes began to change in the 1990s. Burning smoky fuels was banned in Dublin and in 2018, Bord na Móna announced the phasing out of its commercial turf cutting. The government banned the sale of turf, smoky coal, and wet wood in shops or online in October.

But fearing a rural backlash, it allowed families living near remaining bogs to continue cutting turf for domestic use. Almost 14% of households do so, including 4% for whom it is a primary source of heating, according to an Environmental Protection Agency study. The European Commission has threatened to impose sanctions on Ireland unless it curbs peat cutting in special areas of conservation.

Fitzmaurice hopes families can continue cutting and burning turf, saying it bolsters Ireland’s energy security. “If you have something in your own country you should use it rather than be bringing in something from Saudi Arabia or Canada.”

John Dore, a spokesperson for the Kildare Turf Cutters Association, said he felt sorry for households facing big energy bills. “I wouldn’t like to be a tight-budgeted person paying for oil and gas. It won’t make any difference to me because I’ve got the turf.”

Sacks of firewood are stacked at a business in Berlin, Germany, where a shortage of Russian gas has reignited enthusiasm for the method of heating private homes. Photograph: Carsten Koall/AFP/Getty Images

People in Germany, meanwhile, have turned to wood. The Consortium of German Forest Owners Associations says more people are collecting wood – and that professional thieves are stealing it for firewood and building materials, with losses in recent months amounting to millions of euros.

Typically, thieves drive heavy vehicles into forests at night and filch felled trees that are awaiting collection. In one case, criminals near Königs Wusterhausen, outside Berlin, cut down and removed 100 trees. Forest walkers have been urged to report suspicious activity. Some forest owners have put GPS devices on trees.

For some there is an upside: Germany’s 21,000 chimney sweeps have reported a boom in business – a quadrupling in some areas - as householders install and rehabilitate fireplaces.

The Fed needs to stop raising interest rates

Robert Reich

Interest rate hikes mean that workers and consumers take the hit. Here are other tools to address inflation

‘The government should use other means to tame inflation. Like what? Windfall taxes.’

 Photograph: Brendan McDermid/Reuters

Mon 12 Dec 2022 

The Fed is meeting on Tuesday. This week, presumably, it will announce that it’s raising interest rates once again in its continuing attempt to stem inflation by slowing the economy.

But shouldn’t it be obvious by now that higher interest rates aren’t doing the trick?

Despite seven straight increases in just nine months, totaling a whopping 4.25 percentage points – a pace not seen since the Fed’s inflation fight in the 1980s – prices have barely slowed. (We’ll know more today when November’s Consumer Price Index is released.)

The Fed’s failure is partly due to events outside the United States – Putin’s war in Ukraine, China’s lockdown and post-Covid demand worldwide exceeding worldwide supplies of all sorts of materials and components.

But it’s also because domestic inflation is being driven by profits, not wages. And interest rate hikes don’t reduce profit-driven inflation – at least not directly. Instead, workers and consumers take the hit.

The labor department reported that labor costs increased 5.3% over the past year. But prices rose 7.1%. This means the real purchasing power of American workers continues to drop.

Forget the 1970s wage-price spiral when real average earnings continued to rise for much of the decade. Now, workers are taking it on the chin.

Profits have grown faster than labor costs for seven of the past eight quarters. As Paul Donovan, chief economist for UBS’s Global Wealth Management, wrote last week, “today’s price inflation is more a product of profits than wages.”

Corporate profits surged to a record high of $2.08tn in the third quarter of this year, even as inflation continued to squeeze workers and consumers. Over the last two years, quarterly profits have ballooned more than an 80%, from around $1.2tn to more than $2tn.

Executives of big companies across America continue to tell Wall Street they can keep prices high or raise them even higher. As Pepsi Co’s financial chief, Hugh Johnston, said on his company’s third quarter earnings call, we’re “capable of taking whatever pricing we need”.

Not every business is raking it in, to be sure. Most small businesses aren’t sharing in the profit bonanza because everything they need for putting stuff on the shelves has gone up in price.

But the big ones have never done as well.

In fact, rather than slowing corporate price increases, the Fed’s rate hikes seem to be having the opposite effect.

It’s not hard to see why. If I run a big corporation, I’m not going to lower my prices and profits in the face of a pending economic slowdown. I’ll do everything I can to keep them as high as possible for as long as I can.

I’ll reduce my prices and profits only when the Fed’s higher rates begin hurting consumers enough that they stop buying stuff at my high prices because they can find better deals elsewhere.

Yet if I have a monopoly or near-monopoly – as is increasingly the case with big American corporations – my consumers won’t have much choice. If they want and need my stuff, they’ll continue to buy at the higher prices.

Of course, I’ll keep telling them I have no choice but to keep raising my prices because my costs keep increasing – even though that’s bunk because I’m increasing my profit margins.

Eventually, the Fed could raise interest rates so high that the cost of borrowing makes it impossible for consumers – whose wages, remember, are already dropping, adjusted for inflation – to afford what I’m selling, thereby forcing me to stop raising my prices.

But by this time, people will be hurting. Many will have lost economic ground. Some will have become impoverished. A large number of jobs will have been lost.

The Fed should stop believing it can easily stop profit-price inflation by hiking interest rates. It should pause interest-rate hikes long enough to see – and allow the nation to see – they’re harming workers and consumers more than corporations that continue to rake in record profits.

The government should use other means to tame inflation. Like what?

Like windfall profits taxes – as California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, has proposed for oil companies there, and Representative Ro Khanna and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse have proposed nationally (taxing the difference between the current price of oil per barrel and the average cost between 2015 and 2019).

Like tough antitrust enforcement aimed at reducing the pricing power of big corporations (as Lina Kahn is attempting at the Federal Trade Commission and Jonathan Kanter is trying at the antitrust division of the justice department).

Like a new antitrust law that allows enforcers to bust up big corporations (and prevent them from buying other businesses) when they’re powerful enough to continue raising their prices higher than their costs are rising. (Could Republicans in Congress be coaxed into supporting this? I believe so.)

It’s important that Americans know the truth. Seven Fed rate hikes in just nine months have not dented corporate power to raise prices and profit margins.

Which is why the Fed is putting the onus of fighting inflation on workers and consumers rather than on the corporations responsible for it.

This is wrong. It’s bad economics. It’s insane politics. And it’s profoundly unfair.

Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com

Freed Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout joins ultranationalist party

Bout, who was released in prisoner exchange, could seek a seat in parliament, and has spoken of ‘pride’ in Putin

01:45

Freed Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout joins far-right party – video report


Pjotr Sauer

Mon 12 Dec 2022

The Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who returned home last week in a prisoner exchange for the American basketball star Brittney Griner, has joined the pro-Kremlin far-right Liberal Democratic party (LDPR), in a move that could see him seek a seat in the Russian parliament.

In a video posted on telegram, LDPR’s leader, Leonid Slutsky, who was standing next to Bout, said: “I want to thank Viktor Anatolievich [Bout] for the decision he has made and welcome him into the ranks of the best political party in today’s Russia.”

Despite its name, the Liberal Democratic party has, since its foundation in 1991, propagandised an ultranationalist and xenophobic ideology, urging Russia to invade the countries of the former Soviet Union.

The party has also served as a springboard for unsavoury characters into Russian politics. In 2007, Andrei Lugovoi, a former KGB agent who is accused by Britain of murdering the Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko, gained a seat in the Russian Duma for the party.

Bout, whose release has been presented as a major PR win by Moscow, on Monday told Russian media that he had no immediate plans to participate in “any elections”.

Prominent Russian figures close to the Kremlin welcomed Bout’s entry to the LDPR.

“Viktor Bout is not a person, he is an example of firmness,” said Yevgeny Prigozhin, a powerful Russian businessman and close ally of Vladimir Putin behind the Wagner mercenary group.

“Bout will certainly be good at the head of any existing party and any movement,” Prigozhin added in a statement posted by his catering company, Concord.

The moment he landed in Moscow last week, Bout was on a Kremlin-organised media tour in which he has praised Vladimir Putin and backed Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

01:11Brittney Griner and Viktor Bout exchanged on UAE airport tarmac – video

His first interview in Russia was with the state-backed television channel RT and conducted by Maria Butina, who herself spent more than a year in prison in the US for being an unregistered agent of Russia.

“I am proud that I am a Russian person, and our president is Putin,” Bout told Butina, adding that he kept a picture of Putin in his US prison cell.

Commenting on Russia’s war in Ukraine, Bout told RT: “I know that we will win.”

The former Soviet air force pilot, who allegedly has ties to the Russian intelligence services, claimed that he would have volunteered to go to the frontline if he had the “opportunity and necessary skills”.

“Why did we not do it earlier?” Bout said, referring to Putin’s decision to launch the invasion.

Parroting much of Putin’s recent statements that blasted liberalism, he also predicted the end of western civilisation.

“What is happening in the west is simply the suicide of civilisation … And it may be happening in all areas, with drugs and LGBT+ among them,” said Bout.

SCI FI TECH

US scientists make breakthrough in nuclear fusion energy

Bloomberg News | December 12, 2022 

International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. (Stock Image)

Scientists in California have made a key breakthrough in nuclear fusion, a technology with the potential to transform the global energy landscape.


Researchers at the US Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory near San Francisco were able produce a fusion reaction that generated more energy than it consumed, according to a person familiar with the research who requested anonymity to discuss results that have not yet been fully disclosed in public.

Fusion is the same process that powers stars and the achievement is a major milestone that shows it may eventually be possible to tame the energy of the sun to create a commercial power plant on Earth. Though that is still many years away, the technology offers the promise of abundant carbon-free electricity.

In the experiment, lasers were used to bombard hydrogen isotopes held in a superheated plasma state in order to fuse them into helium, releasing a neutron and carbon-free energy in the process.

The breakthrough “could be a game changer for the world,” said Representative Ted Lieu, a California Democrat.

Scientists have been experimenting with the technology for decades, but tests typically require enormous amounts of power. Generating a fusion reaction that puts out more energy than it consumes — technically called a net-energy gain — has been elusive.

The reaction produced about 2.5 megajoules of energy compared to the 2.1 megajoules used to power the lasers, according to the Financial Times, which earlier reported the results.

The technology has drawn billions in investments from backers including Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Peter Thiel. In recent years, it also started to win support from sovereign wealth funds, national development banks and venture capitalists, a sign that the industry is starting to look more seriously at the concept.

A spokeswoman for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory said the analysis was still ongoing and it would share more details Tuesday.

While the results represent a breakthrough, it’s still a long way to creating a viable technology, let alone delivering enough clean energy to help wean the world off fossil fuels and limit climate change.

The technology is different from fission, which is now widely used in commercial nuclear power plants. Fission creates energy by splitting atoms, but also produces radioactive waste. It has been commercially available for decades and still produces only 10% of the world’s power, far less than coal and gas.

Fusion’s potential market share would also be challenged by solar and wind power, both of which are cheaper and have mature supply chains. Their main drawback — intermittent generation — is being addressed by a rapidly growing battery storage industry.

Still, if fusion can be scaled up, it offers the promise of around-the-clock clean power with less risk and hazardous waste than fission. Investment into fusion startups like Commonwealth Fusion Systems and Helion Energy jumped to $2.3 billion in 2021 and will likely total more than $1 billion this year, according to BloombergNEF.

The Energy Department previously said Secretary Jennifer Granholm planned on Tuesday to announce a “major scientific breakthrough” at the national laboratory by researchers with the agency’s National Nuclear Security Administration.

(By Ari Natter and Will Wade, with assistance from Dan Murtaugh)

Breakthrough in nuclear fusion could mean ‘near-limitless energy’

Researchers managed to release more energy than they put in: a positive gain known as ignition

The National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory system 

uses 192 laser beams converging at the centre of this giant sphere. Photograph: Damien Jemison/AP

Nicola Davis Science correspondent
@NicolaKSDavis

Mon 12 Dec 2022

Researchers have reportedly made a breakthrough in the quest to unlock a “near-limitless, safe, clean” source of energy: they have got more energy out of a nuclear fusion reaction than they put in.

Nuclear fusion involves smashing together light elements such as hydrogen to form heavier elements, releasing a huge burst of energy in the process. The approach, which gives rise to the heat and light of the sun and other stars, has been hailed as having huge potential as a sustainable, low-carbon energy source.

However, since nuclear fusion research began in the 1950s, researchers have been unable to a demonstrate a positive energy gain, a condition known as ignition.

Now, it seems, the Rubicon has been crossed.

According to a report in the Financial Times, which has yet to be confirmed by the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California that is behind the work, researchers have managed to release 2.5 MJ of energy after using just 2.1 MJ to heat the fuel with lasers.

Dr Robbie Scott, of the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s (STFC) Central Laser Facility (CLF) Plasma Physics Group, who contributed to this research, described the results as a “momentous achievement”.

“Fusion has the potential to provide a near-limitless, safe, clean, source of carbon-free baseload energy,” he said. “This seminal result from the National Ignition Facility is the first laboratory demonstration of fusion ‘energy-gain’ – where more fusion energy is output than input by the laser beams. The scale of the breakthrough for laser fusion research cannot be overstated.

“The experiment demonstrates unambiguously that the physics of Laser Fusion works,” he added. “In order to transform NIF’s result into power production a lot of work remains, but this is a key step along the path.”


The race to give nuclear fusion a role in the climate emergency

Prof Jeremy Chittenden, professor of plasma physics at Imperial College London, agreed. “If what has been reported is true and more energy has been released than was used to produce the plasma, that is a true breakthrough moment which is tremendously exciting,” he said.

“It proves that the long sought-after goal, the ‘holy grail’ of fusion, can indeed be achieved.”

But experts have stressed that while the results would be an important proof of principle, the technology is a long way from being a mainstay of the energy landscape. To start with, 0.4MJ is about 0.1kWh – about enough energy to boil a kettle.

“To turn fusion into a power source we’ll need to boost the energy gain still further,” said Chittenden. “We’ll also need to find a way to reproduce the same effect much more frequently and much more cheaply before we can realistically turn this into a power plant.”

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Prof Justin Wark, professor of physics at the University of Oxford, added that while, in principle, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory could produce such a result about once a day, a fusion power plant would need to do it 10 times a second.

And there is another point: the positive energy gain reported ignores the 500MJ of energy that was put into the lasers themselves.

However, Chittenden stressed the NIF was designed for a scientific demonstration, not as a power plant. “The efficiency of converting electrical energy to laser energy was not a factor in its design,” he said.

“Anyone working in fusion would be quick to point out that there is still a long way to go from demonstrating energy gain to getting to wall-plug efficiency where the energy coming from a fusion reactor exceeds its electrical energy input required to run the reactor,” he added.

“The experiments on NIF demonstrate the scientific process of ignition and how this leads to high fusion energy gain, but to turn this into a power station we need to develop simpler methods to reach these conditions, which will need to be more efficient and above all cheaper in order for inertial fusion to be realised as a fusion power source.”

The latest results, if true, top the last big breakthrough by the facility which came just last year when it was announced that the team had hit 70% of the laser energy put in to the experiment released as nuclear energy.

First Martian Regolith Samples: NASA’s Perseverance Rover Gets the Dirt on Mars

By JET PROPULSION LABORATORY DECEMBER 10, 2022

Two holes are left in the Martian surface after NASA’s Perseverance rover used a specialized drill bit to collect the mission’s first samples of regolith on December 2 and 6, 2022. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Mars 2020 Perseverance mission’s first two samples of regolith – broken rock and dust – could help scientists better understand the Red Planet and engineers prepare for future missions there.

On December 2 and 6, NASA’s Perseverance rover snagged two new samples from the Martian surface. Unlike the 15 rock cores collected to date, these newest samples came from a pile of wind-blown sand and dust similar to but smaller than a dune. Now contained in special metal collection tubes, one of these two samples will be considered for deposit on the Martian surface sometime this month as part of the Mars Sample Return campaign.

Scientists want to study Martian samples with powerful lab equipment on Earth to search for signs of ancient microbial life and to better understand the processes that have shaped the surface of Mars. Most of the samples will be rock; however, researchers also want to examine regolith – broken rock and dust – not only because of what it can teach us about geological processes and the environment on Mars, but also to mitigate some of the challenges astronauts will face on the Red Planet. Regolith can affect everything from spacesuits to solar panels, so it’s just as interesting to engineers as it is to scientists.

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover took this image of regolith – broken rock and dust – on December 2, 2022. This regolith will be considered for deposit on the Martian surface as part of the Mars Sample Return campaign. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

As with rock cores, these latest samples were collected using a drill on the end of the rover’s robotic arm. But for the regolith samples, Perseverance used a drill bit that looks like a spike with small holes on one end to gather loose material.

Engineers designed the special drill bit after extensive testing with simulated regolith developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Called Mojave Mars Simulant, it’s made of volcanic rock crushed into a variety of particle sizes, from fine dust to coarse pebbles, based on images of regolith and data collected by previous Mars missions.

“Everything we learn about the size, shape, and chemistry of regolith grains helps us design and test better tools for future missions,” said Iona Tirona of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which leads the Perseverance mission. Tirona was the activity lead for operations to collect the recent regolith sample. “The more data we have, the more realistic our simulants can be.”

Optimism, a full-scale replica of NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover, tests a model of Perseverance’s regolith bit in a pile of simulated regolith – broken rock and dust – at JPL. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The Challenge of Dust

Studying regolith up close could help engineers design future Mars missions – as well as the equipment used by future Martian astronauts. Dust and regolith can damage spacecraft and science instruments alike. Regolith can jam sensitive parts and slow down rovers on the surface. The grains could also pose unique challenges to astronauts: Lunar regolith was discovered to be sharp enough to tear microscopic holes in spacesuits during the Apollo missions to the Moon

Regolith could be helpful if packed against a habitat to shield astronauts from radiation, but it also contains risks: The Martian surface contains perchlorate, a toxic chemical that could threaten the health of astronauts if large amounts were accidentally inhaled or ingested.

“If we have a more permanent presence on Mars, we need to know how the dust and regolith will interact with our spacecraft and habitats,” said Perseverance team member Erin Gibbons, a McGill University doctoral candidate who uses Mars regolith simulants as part of her work with the rover’s rock-vaporizing laser, called SuperCam.

The drill bits used by NASA’s Perseverance rover are seen before being installed prior to launch. From left, the regolith bit, six bits used for drilling rock cores, and two abrasion bits. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

“Some of those dust grains could be as fine as cigarette smoke, and could get into an astronaut’s breathing apparatus,” added Gibbons, who was previously part of a NASA program studying human-robot exploration of Mars. “We want a fuller picture of which materials would be harmful to our explorers, whether they’re human or robotic

Besides answering questions about health and safety hazards, a tube of Martian regolith could inspire scientific wonder. Looking at it under a microscope would reveal a kaleidoscope of grains in different shapes and colors. Each one would be like a jigsaw puzzle piece, all of them joined together by wind and water over billions of years.

“There are so many different materials mixed into Martian regolith,” said Libby Hausrath of University of Nevada, Las Vegas, one of Perseverance’s sample return scientists. “Each sample represents an integrated history of the planet’s surface.”

As an expert on Earth’s soils, Hausrath is most interested in finding signs of interaction between water and rock. On Earth, life is found practically everywhere there’s water. The same could have been true for Mars billions of years ago, when the planet’s climate was much more like Earth’s.

More About the Mission

A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust

Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.

The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.

JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.

MINING IS NOT GREEN

Canada’s mining minister wants minerals projects built within a decade
Bloomberg News | December 12, 2022 | 

Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources Jonathan Wilkinson.

(Image courtesy of Province of British Columbia.)

Canada’s mining minister wants critical minerals projects built in less than a decade — spurred on by government efforts to cut red tape.


“We need to get to the point where we can get these mines from concept to production certainly within a decade, and ideally less than that,” Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said in a Monday phone interview.

Wilkinson’s comments come days after his ministry published a critical minerals strategy that pledged to review Canada’s approval process for developing mines. Government estimates show it can take up to 25 years for a mining project to become operational. Wilkinson said he expects policy recommendations on streamlining processes within the next 12 months.

The time it takes to build a mine has been a source of concern for mining companies worldwide, given that lengthy approval processes pose investment risks and heightened costs, and is top of mind for many mining CEOs. The head of Vancouver-based Teck Resources Ltd., for instance, said last week that the Canadian government could help the industry with an approval process that ensures projects get done in a timely fashion.

“If we are going to bring supply online at the pace that the world needs to electrify, we need to shorten those timelines,” Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Price said in a Thursday interview. “Getting the approvals pathway right is very important, but we have to look for opportunities to accelerate so we can bring new production to market more quickly.”

(By Jacob Lorinc)

Western countries forge green alliance for getting electric vehicle minerals

Reuters | December 12, 2022 | 

The founding members of the Sustainable Critical Minerals Alliance. Credit: Jonathan Wilkinson’s official Twitter page

The United States and other western countries on Monday announced an alliance to produce and buy critical minerals from countries with stronger environmental and labor standards, a move that could reduce business with market leader China.


Announced at the COP15 talks on biodiversity in Montreal, the Sustainable Critical Minerals Alliance would support these standards for elements like lithium, cobalt and nickel, Canada’s Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said.

“Unless China and Russia are willing to put in place … measures required to be able to legitimately say that they are supporting these kinds of standards then it would essentially mean … we will be buying alternatives as we can,” Wilkinson said in an interview.

Wilkinson acknowledged that the voluntary alliance of the United States, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom would not shun China which dominates the market for the minerals used in EV batteries.

“Obviously right now there are some critical minerals that are processed in large measure in China so this will be something that will need to happen over time,” he said.

Western countries have been trying to wean themselves from dependence on authoritarian regimes for strategically important materials. Canada last week unveiled a strategy to ramp up production and processing of critical minerals. In June, the United States and allies set up a partnership aimed at securing supplies.

China said it has taken steps to curb pollution in its mining sector, but has faced criticism.

Mining, along with other sectors are under scrutiny at the Montreal talks due to their impact on nature.

“China is actually free to up its game with respect to environmental standards and with respect to labor standards and eventually join the alliance,” Wilkinson said. “But it would have to make those kinds of changes.”

A strategist from environmental group Greenpeace welcomed the alliance’s support for higher environmental, indigenous rights and labor standards but questioned how it would be enforced.

“Will there be teeth to that? For the moment it’s more like a memorandum,” said Keith Stewart, senior energy strategist, Greenpeace Canada.

(By Allison Lampert; Editing by David Gregorio)

Canada has dozens of critical minerals. Here are the key ones and how they are used

By Sean Boynton Global News
Posted December 10, 2022 

WATCH: Canada eyes 'generational opportunity' with new critical minerals strategy

Canada’s new billion-dollar plan to boost its critical minerals sector will focus on six particular materials that are crucial components of electric vehicles, clean energy technologies and more.

While the strategy unveiled Friday lists 31 minerals it classified as “critical,” the six that are under the spotlight — lithium, graphite, nickel, cobalt, copper and rare earth elements — hold “the most significant potential for Canadian economic growth,” according to the federal government.

READ MORE: Canada unveils new critical minerals strategy eyeing ‘generational opportunity’

Those mining sectors will also be the initial focus of the nearly $4 billion in federal investments under the new plan.

Here’s a closer look at those materials, what they’re used for, and where Canada currently stands with each of them.

Lithium

Lithium is currently one of the most sought-after materials in the world. Not only is it a key component in rechargeable batteries for electric vehicles, smartphones and computers, it is also contained in metal alloys used in military armour, aircraft, and train components, as well as hydrogen fuel storage containers.

But its use in batteries makes lithium a key mineral for the global clean energy transition.

4:56 Canada eyes ‘generational opportunity’ with new critical minerals strategy

Although Canada does not produce lithium, it has “large hard rock spodumene deposits and brine-based lithium resources,” from which lithium can be extracted. The new strategy seeks to introduce domestic production facilities that take advantage of those resources.

Canada’s lithium reserves were the sixth-largest in the world as of 2020, but they only account for 2.5 per cent of the global supply. Australia and Chile lead the world in both reserves and production.

“We shouldn’t get too excited that we’re going to be one of the big producers around the world when it comes to mining,” said Jack Mintz, who heads the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy and is a senior fellow at the Fraser Institute.

“Hopefully we’ll have enough production that will just satisfy our own needs, but we’re certainly not a big producer by any means compared to other countries like Australia.”

The strategy identifies other ways to extract lithium, including through recycling of lithium-ion batteries via domestic recycling facilities.

READ MORE: Canadian critical minerals will be ‘key’ amid pivot away from China, Russia: minister

Graphite

Graphite is found in rechargeable battery anodes as well as electric vehicle fuel cells and vehicle brake linings. It is also used in electrical motor components and frictionless materials — key components of wind turbines and other clean technologies.

Canada is among the top global producers of graphite, with several mines in Quebec and Ontario either running, newly approved or under environmental assessment. The Black Crystal Quarry and Plant in British Columbia also mines graphite.

Nickel

Another rechargeable battery component, nickel can also be found in solar panels as well as aerospace and military aircraft.

Canada has nickel production facilities in Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador, making the country one of the leading global producers and suppliers. The country is home to nearly 3 million tonnes of nickel reserves.

2:07 Wilkinson comments on critical minerals strategy and foreign investment

Cobalt

Cobalt is primarily found in battery electrodes but is additionally used in turbine engine components, vehicle airbags and magnets. Along with lithium, graphite and nickel, cobalt is among the four main minerals needed for electric vehicle batteries.

The mineral is actually mainly produced as a by-product of nickel mining in Canada, but new projects seek to change that and ramp up production, including a primary cobalt mine in the Northwest Territories and North America’s first cobalt refinery in northern Ontario.

Canada is already a top-five cobalt producer globally, according to the government.

1:03 Canada can contribute global minerals, metals, energy in place of Russia, China: Freeland

Copper

A key wiring material, copper is essential for powering buildings, vehicles, telecommunications and other electrical components. It’s also used in solar panel cells and electric vehicles.

Copper is produced in provinces across the country, unlike many other critical minerals that are primarily found in Quebec and Ontario. Canada is a leading global producer, accounting for nearly three per cent of all copper production in 2020.

Rare earth elements

A group of 15 elements known as lanthanides, rare earth elements are found in some of the most widely-used electronics in modern society, including touch screens, televisions, LED lights and speakers. They are also a key component of permanent magnets, including those used in electric vehicle motors and wind turbines.

Canada has some of the largest known reserves and resources rare earth elements in the world, according to the government, estimated at over 14 million tonnes as of 2021.

In addition to boosting production, the new strategy is also eyeing the potential to extract rare earth elements from recycled magnets.

READ MORE: Trudeau sees ‘real opportunity’ for collaboration with U.S. on electric vehicles, critical minerals

What other minerals are important?

Although these six minerals will be focused on first, the strategy also mentions a series of other materials that “present notable prospects for the future.”

Those minerals — including vanadium, gallium, titanium, scandium, magnesium, tellurium, sinx, niobium and germanium — can all be found in various clean technologies and other modern equipment. Potash, uranium and aluminum are also highlighted.

The government says the list of 31 minerals will be reviewed and updated every few years.

— With files from Global News’ Saba Aziz and Bryan Mullan

Be careful when charging lithium-ion battery devices, Calgary Fire Department warns

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Lithium-ion batteries are found in devices like cellphones,

 laptops and electric cars

CBC News · Posted: Dec 09, 2022 

Calgary Fire Department Chief Steve Dongworth says it's important to use the correct charger for electronic devices that contain lithium-ion batteries to prevent overcharging and fires. (Tom Ross/CBC)

The Calgary Fire Department is warning residents to be aware of fire hazards when using electronic devices with lithium-ion batteries, which can cause fires when charged and stored incorrectly.

Chief Steve Dongworth said there is nothing unsafe about lithium-ion batteries themselves, which can be found in devices ranging from cellphones, laptops and power tools to electric cars and scooters. The challenge is how people safely store and charge devices with this type of battery in them.

"It's not being used with the right charger. It's being overcharged. We see cellphones sometimes being charged where the cellphone is in bedding or is covered up and there's no ventilation," Dongworth said.

With holiday season ahead and electronic gifts waiting under the tree, the fire chief said it's important to follow manufacturers' instructions with electronic devices and use the correct charger to avoid overcharging. Other ways to prevent fires is to make sure cellphones aren't stored under pillows while charging and that outlets are not overloaded.

According to Dongworth, the Calgary Fire Department responded to eight calls in 2022 related to fires caused by lithium-ion batteries.

'These are inherently safe products,' fire chief says

Dongworth said multiple lithium-ion battery fires that the department has responded to this year have happened in garages, which indicates to him that residents may not be charging electric cars, lawn mowers or snow blowers properly.

"These are inherently safe products," Dongworth said. "It's when the human behaviour comes in and perhaps we … changed the wiring somehow or we connect the wrong kind of charger or we don't follow the instructions, I think is where the risk is."

Lithium-ion batteries can be found in devices ranging form cellphones and laptops to electric cars and scooters. (Tom Ross/CBC)

Dongworth said if there is a fire in one's home caused by an electronic device, only try to put it out if it's a small fire and if there is a BC fire extinguisher around — the type of extinguisher that puts out flammable liquid and electrical equipment fires. If the fire is large, Dongworth said to immediately leave the area and call 911.

The fire chief also encouraged Calgarians to check the city's website to find out where to properly recycle devices that contain lithium-ion batteries, as they can spark fires if placed in landfills.

With files from Tom Ross