The numbers guys win a Spotty ™

October 29, 2015

Criticizing the Pride of the Business Press

by Steve Timmer

How do you drown-proof a mine?

October 28, 2015

It’s the question on everyone’s lips

by Steve Timmer

Put your best mine forward

October 26, 2015

In order to help him figure out whether copper-nickel sulfide mining is the cat’s pajamas or the worst idea in the history of ideas, Governor Dayton is going to visit two mines: one chosen by the mining romantics, and one by the people who choose to plan more than six weeks into the future, the […]

by Steve Timmer

“Leave no nest unshitted!”

October 24, 2015

Kurt Daudt, 2015

by Steve Timmer

Lee Schafer: PolyMet tout

October 21, 2015

Please see the updates below — It has been an especially glum time for the mining industry in recent months. Taconite (spellchecker offers masonite) plants are shuttered across northern Minnesota, and to add insult to injury, a new one, Essar Steel “Minnesota” is set to commence operations next year, financed in part with some $72 million in […]

by Steve Timmer

What do you do when your Sugar Daddy is out of sugar?

September 24, 2015

Please see the updates below. This is no doubt the question on the minds of all of the bright lights at PolyMet Mining at the moment. You see, PolyMet recently released its second quarter financials, and it made just as much money in the last quarter as it has ever quarter of its existence, going […]

by Steve Timmer

Puppet on a string – a reprise

August 14, 2015

I’m Your Puppet! sings PolyMet

by Steve Timmer

Who will keep PolyMet’s grave clean? – a reprise

August 12, 2015

Because it sure won’t be PolyMet

by Steve Timmer

Hiring more dingoes as babysitters – a reprise

August 7, 2015

When “catastrophe” is putting it charitably

by Steve Timmer

Glencore: corporate citizen – a reprise

August 6, 2015

The sound you hear is scales falling

by Steve Timmer

Hubris and blandishments

July 21, 2015

It hasn’t been much in the news around here, but in more sentient parts of the world, notice has been made of the fact that the United States’ monument to the Cold War — the Runit Dome, or the Tomb, to the locals — is leaking radiation after having built a mere 35 years ago. Swell. This is […]

by Steve Timmer

Looking upstream

April 14, 2015

A group of friends is enjoying a picnic on the bank of a pleasant river surrounded by woods. Birds are singing and there is a faint whisper from the breeze in the trees. The idyll is shattered when one of the friends shouts, “There’s a baby in the river!” He jumps in the river and wades out to […]

by Steve Timmer