EV Mineral Demand May End Alaska Natives' Way of Life

I'm your host, David Schultz. So today we have another story for you about the trade offs we're going to have to make to get the zinc, cobalt, and other minerals essential to an electric economy. But in this case, the costs aren't necessarily environmental, but more cultural. High up in northern Alaska, on a latitude higher up than Iceland

is Amber Metals Born Night Camp. The company thinks there may be a motherload of copper and maybe also a lot of critical minerals in this vast, unexplored, often forgotten part of the country. But to really figure that out, they need a road. Because this camp is so remote it's actually not connected to any roads. So Ampler Medals has applied to the Interior Department to build a more than two hundred mile road to improve access to these

untapped resources. And while the Department hasn't decided whether to okay this yet, the Biden administration has been crystal clear that I think solving climate change will involve sourcing a lot more of these materials and sourcing them domestically. But even though this area is almost totally off the grid, there are people living here, tens of thousands of them. Native Alaskans have been living off the land here for centuries, and many of them fear that road access could pierce

the fragile and isolated ecosystem that they rely on. Bloomberg laws, Bobby McGill was granted a rare opportunity to actually visit the Bore Night Camp and see what Ampler Medals is up to and to see how the Native villagers live. I brought him into the studio to learn about what he saw there, and I started by asking him why the Alaskan ecosystem is so fragile. Yeah, it's complicated, but

it's called Arctic amplification. And though there are other factors involved and other possible expl nations, scientists generally think it boils down to this, which is the global warming is quickly melting the Arctic sea ice. And because the Arctic sea ice under normal conditions reflects the radiant heat from the sun back out into space, um global warming. As it melts the sea ice, there's less sea ice to radiate that sunlight and the heat back into space, which

means that the region warms up even more. That makes sense. It would be like if you had some sort of heat absorbing thing on your roof and that thing was slowly shrinking, and as it shrunk, your house got hotter or your roof got hotter. That's it, is it? I mean, that's it grows over simplification, but is that essentially the idea more or less. And you know, it's a big deal up there because most of the most of the

ground up there is frozen all year. When the permac permafrost melts, there's a lot of like subsidence in the landscape, and it also creates a feedback. I mean, there's a lot of there's a lot you can talk about there, but it's a really big deal up there. So you know, if you've never been up there, you don't know what to expect. And I didn't really Um, it's it's hard

to know exactly what it is you're looking at. But as you drive around Fairbanks, you you notice that a lot of the roads are in kind of bad shape. And that's you know, from the beating they take in forty below zero winter temperatures. But there's a lot of subsidence there too, and it it's kind of a bumpy ride. So just to clarify what we're talking about here, that the roads are cracking and there and are are essentially sinking because the ground below them, which is usually frozen,

is now thawing and is not frozen. Is is that right? Right? And so, I mean it's it's it's one of the reasons like on the on the north slope of Alaska, north of the Brooks Range, you have oil companies needing to use chillers to keep the ground, you know, frozen beneath their equipment all year. That yeah, and I mean that's just wild unto itself, the idea that you would need to use you know, machines to chill something that's in the Arctic circle essentially a really close to it.

But let's back up a little bit. You know, we're talking about you know, what's going on in Alaska. I want to talk about how you got to Alaska, because I remember you and I were in a meeting a couple of months ago and you said, Hey, I just got this call, uh from this mining company. They want me to come up to Alaska. Like now, UM, tell me about how you wound up there and how this

all came together. Yeah, So the deal is this, I went to I've been wanting to write about the Ambler Mining District for a long time, and you know, really the only way to to write about it is to actually see it. Um, because this place is so remote. The only way to actually get into the to the mine is or even around the mine for that matter, is you know the companys to grant you access. Well, their operation there is seasonal, and it turns out that I called him up right around the time that they

were shutting down for the season. So they said, well, I would love to have you up here, but you gotta you gotta do it next week. And uh, so I booked a flight and went. So you flew into Anchorage or Fairbanks or where did you use? From DC to where? Uh d c to Fairbanks through Seattle and uh I jumped on a charter flight to a little place called Doll Creek. It's a gravel airstrip about three

miles or so northwest of Fairbanks. And as you're flying between you know, the two places, there's no um, I mean you can it's it's a roughly two hour flight. You don't see any sort of there's no roads down there, there's no power lines, there's it's all wilderness down below. So tell me what the accommodations were like here. I imagined that. You know, we're not talking Hilton's or Marriott's. No. I mean when I say that Bournight is a mining

exploration camp, it's literally a camp. It's you know, all the workers their stay in tents um and there are these platform tens. I was a boy Scout when I was a kid, and so that makes one, that makes one of us. You get, uh, you know, you're familiar with what If you ever worked on like a boy scout camp staff, you understand what a platform ten is like.

This is kind of like that, excepted slightly insulated. It looks like a space blanket on the inside, and uh, you know, there are a little signs inside warning you about bears and whatnot. So um, you know, but it's a real tent they had. It's got electricity. They had a heater that only that warmed up the tent by a couple of degrees. And so one of the guys I talked to was Alaska tele Communications Company UM satellite Internet repair guy who had flown in to fix the

satellite internet and which was down. And it's it's interesting the internet there. The network was called Morale because they know, if you know, workers can't communicate, that's gonna be all yeah, wow, Well, I'm glad you brought up the folks who work at the Mind because I wanted to talk about them. UM. You know, it sounds like a lot of the workers who work at Bournnite are drawn from the local Native

villages that are in and around that area. UM. Tell me about the relationship between the native communities and this mine. So as with everything, UM, in that part of the world, things are complicated, right, So a lot of Ambler Metals workers are are from the native villages. But that doesn't necessarily mean that all the villages up there support the Mind, because the issue is that those in favor see the

jobs that this would create. UM, because other minds in the region, the you know, Red Dog Zinc mine in northwest Alaska has has generated just tons and tons of jobs up there. There are villages scattered all around northern Alaska. There there aren't a lot of jobs, if any jobs in in these villages, and so you know they rely on these minds for um, you know, for for employment. Well, let's hear from one of those actual workers themselves, Bobby. You spoke with Clara Newland, who uh lives in a

Native village and works on the Fortnite mine. Here's what she had to say about working there local. It's very important for our income because we don't have very many local jobs available at home. So it's good for us most of the people that come up here and work, and it's the sacrifice that we make. But good so, uh, Bobby, As you just heard Clara say, you know, this is a really economically depressed part of the country. It's very rural,

very sparsely populated. But you also spoke with several other people who are villagers who say, no, no, this is not economically depressed. We're just kind of off the grid. We uh you know, live off the land. We engage in subsistence farming and hunting. Can you explain that a

little bit. Well, that's that perspective. Here's the thing. It's sort of both because to give you an idea of what of how remote this region is, like Burnit and all of these minds are literally hundreds of miles off the North American road roadway now work, and so all of these villages they're either along rivers and they might rely on barges for for supplies if they can't get a barge because you know, for all manner of seasonal and environmental reasons. You know, they rely on on air

travel as the only way in and out. So these are these are very traditional communities. They literally live off the land in part because they have to, but also because it's it's the basis of their culture. I think one thing that really came through in your story for me was just the ambivalence that a lot of these people feel about the mind, and specifically about the road that would connect the mind to the rest of the

road network. Uh. You spoke with Angel Stickman, who is a former resident of Thesetive villages we're talking about now lives in Fairbanks, and she said, you know what, living in a subsistence kind of fashion one way of fighting off inflation. Looking at the example of inflation, I feel like people who live in rural religions are the luckiest, and we'll survive because they got their fish, they got their water, they got their moose, they got their cariboo,

they got their berries. And here in Fairbanks it's like I'm depending on the stores. Right For the last like three months, I've been living on only chicken and beef. Yeah, I heard that a lot from folks um. You know, they were recounting stories about the Great Depression and the two thousand eight recession um, and they said, you know, we didn't even know that was going on because you know, we've we've got all the resources we need up here,

they said. You know, the the issue is that if you grant greater access to mines up there by building a two eleven mile road, you're you're gonna damage the subsistence economy so to speak, in which you know, which which relies on you know, these caribou herds and other wildlife that migrate across the Arctic, and uh, if you do anything to damage these intact ecosystems, it really really damages the ability, you know, for for these tribes to

to be able to sustain themselves. One of the most kind of compelling pieces of your stories when you spoke with Luke Wood, who is another Native, asking who does work at at boornight Um and let's hear from him. He's talking about how the difference between his generation and his father's generation about their views on modernization and substitutence. O. Our elders are like, no, but my generation, younger generation,

for employment, is for it. If my father is a life he would be against it because he is a man of the land. He totally is a hunter subsistence. He provides for my mom's side of family and other families for subsistence moose, caribou, bear, fish, um snug like where people that are from the cities where they can go fred Meyers and cars and everything's already prepackaged six dollars upon them to or whatever. So it all depends

on who you talk to. It's you can hear the ambivalence in what he's saying there in that he thinks that, you know, subsistence is great, but ultimately you know it's better to have a job that pays a salary. Right, And he was pretty clear, actually he Um, of all the people I talked to, he was he was the one who who stated in the in the clearest terms

that you know, the tradeoff is worth it. He thinks and he said that he thinks that, you know, this is the subsistence lifestyle is on life support for a variety of reasons, and uh, you know, it's it's it's a no brainer for him anyway to you know, eventually be able to go to a grocery store and get your food rather than have to hunt for it. But that is not the predominant view up there. I mean, these folks are are fighting for their culture, they're fighting

for their their way of life. But finally, let's talk about something that we've talked about previously on this podcast with other minds. Um, just the idea that you know, the people who are opposing this are sort of out on a limb here. And what I mean by that is that you know, the Governor of Alaska, who you

spoke with, is in favor of building this road. The White House has not come out in favor or against the road yet, but the President has made very clear that he is a big fan of mining for minerals that would go into electric batteries and e vs. If you're trying to block this, who's who's on your side? Are you? Are you alone? Well, you know, the White House UM is trying to have it both ways in

some in some ways. If you look at the Arctic Strategy that it came out with UM back in October, it says that it it supports domestic minerals production and specifically in Alaska, except that it wants it to be done in an environmentally sensitive way, in a way that does not harm native ways of life. And so you know, there's a lot of caveats to support to this right. I mean, I think the question that everyone has is

that is that even possible? And it's a good question. UM. If you talk to environmental groups, they basically told me, well, you know, there are other ways to get these metals. I mean there's we need to start you know, recycling our our minerals and um, you know, diving into landfills to find precious metals there. Well, I get the sense that you know, while that may produce some of the minerals, we need to build these batteries and you know, ultimately

decarbonized that there could be you know, huge amounts in Alaska. Yeah, I mean they know that there that there are critical minerals up there. They don't know exactly how much how many there are, in part because it's a state that is so large and so unexplored. It hasn't been fully mapped for critical minerals yet. The BIDE administration is working on that. They're going to spend you know, the better part of the next decade and you know, on a

on a mapping project for this. But they do know that, you know, there are critical minerals deposits at in the Ambler Mining District, which is part of a two hundred mile wide mineral belt. Um, there's a you know, the largest graphite find in in the country is up there at UH in western Alaska. Graph Fight One is a company that's developing that. You know, there's the existing zinc mine that's in northwest Alaska, which is you know, slated to be expanded. So, um, you know there's a lot

of potential there. Uh, there's just a lot of excitement mainly because you know, they know that there are these large, large deposits up there, and um, there's there's likely to be a lot more to be found, all Right, well that was Bobby McGill fully thought out after his return from Alaska um and talking about what's going on up there. Bobby, thank you so much for talking to this. This is great. You bet anytime. And that's it for today's episode of

Parts for a Billion. If you want more environmental news, check us out on Twitter. We use the handle at environment I'm at David B. Schultz if you want to talk to me directly. Today's episode of Parts for Avillion was produced by myself, David Jolts, with help from Greg Henderson and Jessica Coombs. Partical Billion was created by Jessa Coombs and Rachel Dagle and is edited by Zack Sherwood and Chuck McCutcheon. Our executive producer is Josh Block. Thanks

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