At a Glance
APPLE approved the info sheet on the right at our board meeting of August 8, 2007. Look for this sheet in print around the community in the coming days, weeks, and months.
Emgold, Idaho-Maryland Mining Corp., and/or pro-mining interests have started an advertising campaign to convince the public that the re-opening of the mine is a benefit for the community.
APPLE encourages you to gather the facts for yourself, form your own opinion, and be vocal about it when the opportunity arises, primarily at Grass Valley city council meetings.
Download the paper:
Links:
- APPLE's scoping comments - APPLE's official Scoping comments at the Sept 20 2007 meeting at Condon Park
- Wolf Creek Community Alliance (or go straight to their Idaho-Maryland Mine News page)
- No Dirty Gold - international nonprofit, raising awareness of gold mining impacts
- City of Grass Valley's Idaho-Maryland Mine Public Documents page
- Emgold - the Canadian parent company
- Idaho-Maryland Mining Corp.
- Golden Bear Ceramics
Energy Consumption of Proposed Emgold Mining Operations
August 7, 2007 - Alliance for a Post-Petroleum Local Economy - www.apple-nc.org
In 2005, Emgold, Inc. filed applications with the City of Grass Valley to begin de-watering, gold mining and ceramic tile manufacturing at the site of the old Idaho-Maryland mine, less than two miles from downtown. If accepted, operations could begin by 2011 or sooner.
This information sheet is intended to give a summary of available energy consumption estimates in an objective and user-friendly format. For more complete details please see the referenced documents.
Summary of key energy consumption points:
- The proposed ceramics plant, if located here1, would either double or triple Nevada County's total yearly natural gas consumption.2,3,4
- The proposed mining operation yearly electric consumption is more than one third of the 2006 PG&E total supplied to all of Nevada County.2,3,4
- These numbers do not include energy consumption for construction, set-up, end-of-life tear-down, or any environmental clean-up that may be needed.
- No natural gas service exists to the old mine site, and Nevada County may not have enough total pipeline capacity to supply the plant. It's unclear who would pay for a new large long-distance pipeline.
- Natural gas prices change seasonally and have roughly tripled in the last decade.5 PG&E forecasts Large Commercial gas prices to rise 12.3% from 2006 to 2007, and 10.6% from 2007 to 2008.6
- Changes in energy prices or availability could lead the company to abandon the project at any stage.
Emgold Proposed Energy Consumption (hypothetical Jan 2011 start date)
Case I: No Mine2 -- Case II: Emgold April 2005 application3 -- Case III: Emgold June 2007 responses4
(Click Here for a larger image of the graph)
(Click Here for a larger image of the graph)
There are many concerns in the community regarding the Emgold operation that are not addressed here. Wolf Creek Community Alliance (www.wolfcreekalliance.org) has assembled a collection of articles from local media over the previous years that discuss some of these. Emgold's public workshop documents also discuss several of these concerns:
- proximity of the project and tailings to Wolf Creek
- toxic content of the tailings
- toxic chemicals imported to GV for ore processing
- water quality and volume during mine de-watering (12 acre-ft/day)
- ecosystem and habitat impact
- 24-hour-a-day traffic (150 - 218 truck trips per day4)
- job quality, longevity, and recruiting base (August 2007 layoffs1)
- cleanup, demolition, and unused large buildings when the mining project is finished (Emgold expects to close after 20 years)
- economic viability of the project as a whole
- commercially unproven Ceramext ceramics process
- air, light, water, and noise pollution
Emgold was expected to file a revised application with the city in May or June of 2007; no revised application was available at the time of this printing.
APPLE-NC may revise this document as more information becomes available. Please see our online version of this page, with live web links to references and other related information: http://www.apple-nc.org/emgold
- "Mine lays off ceramic workers", Aug. 2, 2007, The Union (www.theunion.com): the "first commercial ceramics plant ... will open in another area where environmental reviews are not on the table" and "The plan is to build a production plant here, but Golden Bear [Ceramics] can start elsewhere right away". APPLE's interpretation is that this does not change long-term energy consumption numbers.
- 2002 thru 2006 Nevada County Totals - information supplied from PG&E (does not include consumption form non-PG&E sources); 2007 thru 2010 totals are based on average growth rates from PG&E 2002 - 2006 totals, plus values in the specified Emgold proposal
- Emgold Apr2005: 2,100 million cubic feet natural gas per year and 172 gigawatt-hours electricity per year: "Expanded Environmental Assessment for the Proposed Idaho-Maryland Mine Project", MACTEC Engineering and Consulting Inc., Apr. 25, 2005: http://www.cityofgrassvalley.com/services/departments/cdd/IdMd/PermitAppRev3Jan2006/Vol1/EnvAssessment.pdf; p. R6-11, R6-12
- Emgold Jun2007: 1,100 million cubic feet natural gas per year and 150 gigawatt-hours electricity per year: "Summary of Community Questions & Concerns with Responses; January 30, 2007 - Public Workshops", Idaho-Maryland Mining Corp., published June 2007: http://www.idaho-maryland.com/i/pdf/IMMC-January-2007-Workshops-QA.pdf; pp. 15, 18
- "U.S. Natural Gas Prices", April 2007, US Department of Energy's (DOE) Energy Information Administration (EIA): http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/ng/xls/ng_pri_sum_dcu_nus_m.xls
- "Large Commercial Bundled Average Gas Rate", June 2007 forecast, PG&E: http://www.pge.com/rates/tariffs/Lg_Commercial.xls (as of August 7 2007, this link could no longer be verified)
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