Do.
OK. All right.
Well, I guess give us an update of
where we are in the process.
Sure, so since we talked
last November, there's been a
couple things
that Green Light has accomplished
in late November.
There was another round of
fundraising, capital raising,
through the TSX, which
brought in additional funds
into the company.
And that's important because that's
what we fund the exploration
activities off of.
In addition to that, we...
We recently, in about the last
two weeks, obtained drill permits
from the Wisconsin Department
of Natural Resources for our next
drill program that's going
to occur on the same parcel of land
that was drilled last summer.
And we are permitted to
drill up to about 20 holes on
that parcel through this package
of permits.
We'll probably complete only about
10 to 12 of those boreholes, but
it provides us flexibility to
go out there and collect additional
drill core.
Uh, that program, uh,
we hope to kick off in about,
uh hopefully this week or
next week.
We're just waiting for one piece of
authorization and that's from the
U.S. Forest Service which
Green Light hopes to be getting that
authorization any day now and
that'll allow us to set
up the drill rigs and go on to the
exploration drilling.
What's been, I know you've done some
outreach and you've got more
planned, but what's been the
reaction from the people around here
when they hear that there's
exploratory drilling?
Generally there's a level of
excitement I would say.
So Green Light has for about the
past years conducted
various meetings with town boards,
county boards, number of open
houses where the public has been
invited in and that
offers Green Light an opportunity to
share information with
local community about the drill
plans. People are interested in that
and then also to
about is there going to be a mine
here or not. Everybody thinks.
There's going to be a mine here in a
year, which is not the case,
because the company's got
to do a lot of drilling before they
can get to the point of
actually looking at permitting
a mine project.
And that's a whole different
regulatory process that
the project would have to go
through separate from
exploration drilling.
And what we tell the community is
that day when we
would actually start to permit
of mind.
Is about three to four years away.
And between now and then, it's a lot
of drilling, a lot engineering
evaluations.
The public, I would say,
is about 70%
enthusiastic
about the potential.
And then there's another group of
people who obviously have
concerns about what it means for the
environment.
And so in these town hall meetings
and in meetings with county boards
and town boards, it offers
the company an opportunity
to listen to what
some of those concerns might be
and to start engaging with
the local public on
those issues that are of importance
to them.
There are a lot of
public examples of
tragicist mining accidents
and pollution.
What has changed in that time
span? Or how would how are things
different that you can give people
confidence like that's not?
Yeah, that's a question that the
industry is often faced with.
And I think when we talk to the
public about that, and I've been
doing this for about 35 years,
I think it's important to draw a
distinction between the
way mining projects were developed
50, 60 years ago,
where, yes, if you look at those
projects, you will see harm to the
environment and the way a project
would be developed today.
And that's both at the regulatory
level and the financing
level.
So historically, projects
did not have to go through a
regulatory review process.
They did not have to get
environmental permits.
Same thing is true for municipal
wastewater treatment
systems.
Same thing as true for other
industries like the paper industry.
And if you look historically at any
industry 50, 60
years ago.
All of them had some type of impact
on the environment.
And that's why as a society,
we develop environmental
laws at both federal level and the
state level, things like the Clean
Water Act, the Clean Air Act,
Resource Conservation and Recovery
Act, which regulates all these
industrial activities, even mining.
On top of that,
Wisconsin in the early 80s,
developed what was probably the most
comprehensive mining
statute that regulates
how these projects are
developed. And they were one of the
first states to do that in the
country.
And other states have
followed Wisconsin's model.
Certainly, Michigan did when they
developed their mining lot.
They looked to Wisconsin.
Same thing with Minnesota.
And if we just go across the border
up in Michigan, we see
that projects that have been under
modern regulation
at state level, Clean Water
Act, Clean Air Act.
Those projects are very clean.
They've got very good track records.
And that's a public policy
success, because what
we're doing is we're passing
responsible legislation to
govern these industrial activities,
because we need the metals.
It's a hot topic in
our politics today.
And we need to be able to
develop them.
So that we have access to
those critical metals, and
we need to be able to protect the
environment. And that's what these
modern environmental regulations
allow us to do.
You mentioned Wisconsin's law from
the 80s, some called it
a moratorium, some called prove it
first.
It was rolled back, at least parts
of that.
Tom Tiffany was one of the lead
authors at that time.
So what has changed from
that law to where we are today
in that realm?
Sure, so the
moratorium provision that
was in Wisconsin's
mining law, that was put in place in
the mid to late 1980s.
And that was basically, it
wasn't a hard moratorium, it was
a kind of prove-it-first
type of law which said show
us evidence where a project has
operated for 10 years
and didn't cause harm to the
environment and show us an example
of a project.
That has been closed for 10 years
and didn't cause harm to the
environment.
When the moratorium was
rescinded, the state had
the benefit of the history of the
Flambo Mine Project, which was
constructed and closed in about a
10-year time frame under
Wisconsin's mining law
and had been closed for 10 years.
And no harm to the environment.
It's got a stellar environmental
track record.
Don't take my word for that.
Go to the DNR's website.
And it will say on that website
where they're still monitoring that
project, that the project was and
is in compliance with all
the environmental laws of the state.
So again, another example of a
public policy success,
and that's evidence that we can
do these projects safely if
we engineer them properly.
And we look at all facets of the
project, construction,
the operation, and the
closure, and we designed that
closure plan.
So that we have long-term, not
just five years or 10 years, but
generations after the project's
closed.
That we have protection of those
important resources around
the project.
And the demonstration is there and
it's right here in Wisconsin.
So if that law was still in place,
you'd feel comfortable that you have
the evidence in place that you
can prove it.
There's multiple examples
of projects in
this region and elsewhere in the
country where
they've gone into operation and
they've been closed and they got
very successful environmental
protection records.
So, it all comes down to
proper planning and
engineering, applying engineering to
a project. If we can design a
satellite, a telescope
to put into deep orbit,
around the planet to look out
into the farthest reaches of space.
We can do that via engineering and
we can use the same type
of engineering skills
to design a mine project
safely.
So let's back up a little bit.
What exactly is underground here?
What are we looking at and what do
you hope to get out?
So the areas that
are being explored in Wisconsin,
the northern part of Wisconsin,
the Precambrian bedrock, which
is about a billion plus years
old, is an
old volcanic belt.
It's referred to as the
Pinokkian volcanic belt,
and in these volcanic
systems about a million years
ago, you had materials being
expressed
at the atlas.
Surface of the
ocean floor, if you will,
and that material was rich
in various types of metals like
copper and zinc
and precious metals
and other things that we're finding
now such as tellurium,
which is needed for solar panels,
and then that stuff all settled out
on the ocean floor.
And then over time more sediments
built up on top of it, it turned
into rock, Some of this
stuff was uplifted.
And that's what we're drilling,
is those types of systems where they
have concentrated mineralization
of things like copper, zinc,
precious metals, and other
rare earth type elements that are
really important for our economy
today.
So one of the old arguments
was jobs, jobs, jobs,
but you alluded to it before.
There's new arguments of why it's
necessary to go after.
Yeah, it's definitely jobs.
There's great economic development
that can occur around
these types of projects.
But we also see in
kind of our national politics
today
in more emphasis
being placed on the country needing
to be able to secure
domestic sources
of critical metals.
And that's on both sides of the
aisle. You know, they're rare.
Executive orders that came out in
the Biden administration emphasizing
the need for
secure domestic sources
for these critical metals.
So that's part of it,
secure supply chains, economic
development, but then the other leg
of that is we have to be able to
protect the environment.
We look at all those things as we're
doing our work.
So how much is actually
down there?
Because this has been looked at for
a long time and not the first group
to find this, but it's been
considered unviable before.
Why is it now possibly viable?
Well, the particular site
that we're drilling at now was never
completely drilled.
So we don't know how much was down
there.
Historically, the estimates were
that there was about 4 billion
tons of
ore,
copper grade ore that was about
1% to 2% copper with good grades
of gold.
And now we're finding tellurium in
there. What we're hoping to do
is to expand the tonnage
of that. By drilling
other areas around this deposit.
The other thing that makes the
project like this more
viable is just the forecast
for metal prices.
So there's a lot more demand in the
system because of
things like AI,
electric vehicles building out the
electric grid.
It's gonna take a lot of copper.
And so the copper prices are
much higher than they were.
And it's a combination of things
like that that make these projects
more viable.
So let's talk about the economics
because your company is on the
Canadian stock exchange, is that
correct?
That's correct.
So, who gets
the money? Like if this happens and
this goes through, I mean, so
there's local truckers and road
builders and like the local economy
benefits from this.
You pay some taxes to the state
and then the investors make money.
How does it get spread around?
Yeah, so people who invest
in these projects, they'll invest
in them and then sell the stock.
And so they're coming and going all
the time.
Ultimately, when the project
goes into production,
the company will make its
money on the sell of
the concentrate that comes from the
mine.
So the ore goes into a mill,
it's concentrated down, and then
that's sold to a refinery.
That sale is where the
company makes its money.
And then it has to pay royalties to
people who own the minerals, so
we lease it.
Some of it is private minerals, some
of it federal minerals, so the
federal government will get some
royalties off of that.
And then we also negotiate a local
agreement with the townships
and the counties that we're doing
work in.
And that's an opportunity for the
counties to get cash benefits
and other things that are important
to the local community.
Resolved as part of that agreement.
In addition to that there's a whole
lot of services that are going to be
needed for any operation and those
have to come from the local
workforce, the local contractors,
and there's lot of benefits that
get generated
that way just from the contracts
for the services for the operation
which then adds to
the tax base so there's kind of a
multiplying effect there.
How long, in theory, could this
be over?
How long would it be?
Flambeau is only a few years, right?
Yeah, so we don't know what the
mine life would be yet.
One of the first things that we'll
do after we've
determined that we have a viable
resource is to
start doing preliminary engineering
evaluations on the project.
And when we do that, this is before
permitting.
So we can start to identify,
ultimately, what the
plan would be that we would
look to get permitted.
So as we do those...
Engineering evaluations,
we'll start to look at how the
project would be developed,
what the mining rate would be,
how long it would last,
where we would process the ore,
all those are issues
that we need to evaluate
as we go through this multi-year
process.
Would you ever just have
a mine here or is this only viable
if it's multiple deposits you're
looking at all come through?
Well, it's possible that
we could have a standalone mine
and mill operation.
We don't know that yet today.
Our theory of how to
develop this region is
to identify multiple deposits
and then have those processed
at a centralized mill.
And that's got benefits on
a number of different levels.
One, if we do that,
we can be a little more selective
where we put the mill.
And if you have a mill, you're gonna
have to have a tailings facility.
And we can locate that,
preferably, along some type of
a rail corridor, some land that's
already been maybe used and
developed before, so we're reusing
previous land.
We're not developing mill
infrastructure out in the middle of
a national forest or a
green field site.
And that allows us to then
capitalize create
economies of scale where
we can have a pipeline
of projects that over
a generation or multiple generations
are feeding into that operation.
And so we create an economy
of scale that has
very long life
for the operation and
that creates sustained then
economic benefits throughout
the area and that's ultimately
where we would like to go.
But we're in the early stages
and we still have a lot of work to
see if that's viable.
From my understanding, the flambeau
material all got shipped back
and processed in Canada, is that
accurate?
That's correct.
The ore was put on a train and then
hauled up to Canada and that's where
it was processed.
And that was because it was a
smaller scale.
And this scale would be larger, so
it would make sense to build a
facility here.
Is it presumably of a longer
timeframe? Thank you very much.
Sure. The other thing that made
that type of an approach viable
for Flambeau was they
didn't mine the whole deposit.
They mined the upper, say third
or half of the deposit, which was
very rich, so it was very
concentrated in metals.
And that allows to then pay
for the transportation cost up
to Canada.
We're not looking to do that here.
We want to mine at one site
and then have a centralized.
Processing facility somewhere in the
northern part of the state and
we're in the early days of
looking at that so we don't know
where that would be yet.
So the big scary
thing that comes with this kind of
mining is the sulfides in the
mineral surrounding the deposit you
actually want.
What has changed in terms of how
you make it safe to process it
and then to store that so you don't
get pollution back into the ground?
Yeah, that's a very good question.
And one of the areas that gets
a lot of attention because of
that concern is the
tailings material.
So you crush the ore up, you
separate out the metal particles,
that's your concentrate that goes to
the refinery.
And then that leftover material is
the talings, which will have some
level of sulfur mineralization
in it.
And if that stuff isn't managed
properly, and this is what
historically happened, it was just
kind of spewed out into
a, put out into
tailings dam and, you
know, water moved through it and
caused water pollution
and things like that.
That's an area that has
gone through tremendous
changes in terms of how
the tailings facilities are
managed.
And this is reflected in the
state statute and the state
rules.
So the way we would manage
the tailings for a project like this
is analogous to what you
would do for a landfill
or an industrial waste facility.
So first and foremost, any facility
is gonna have to be
developed with an
engineered liner below the waste
material, just like you would do for
any waste facility here in
the states.
It's going to have to have a
leachate drainage layer on top of
that. So the water that percolates
through the tailings material, if
you will, hits that drainage
layer, runs into a
collection sump, and is pumped out.
So it doesn't get to groundwater.
That water is then reused in the
mill. So we reuse that
water.
In addition to that, there's a lot
of different
engineering practices that have come
into play, where instead of
putting that tailings into that
repository.
As a slurried material, which
contains a lot of water,
you run that tailing slurry
through a filter press in
the mill and you squeeze
out all that water.
And so you have what's called
a filtered tails.
And it literally is like a
damp, silty
sand type material that
you truck out there, compacted
in the repository.
And that does a couple of things.
One.
It greatly reduces the
footprint of the tailings facility.
It's got very little water in it, so
there's going to be very little
water that actually drains to the
leachate collection system.
The water that does come into
it from precipitation is
collected and pumped out and reused.
And that's got huge benefits
in terms of reducing the
potential for any kind of leakage
on top of already having
a liner system under there.
And then at the end of the mine
life, it's capped.
So it's very analogous to what
you would see for a municipal
waste landfill.
And that type of technology
is starting to come into play
much more often in the industry.
And it's kind of tailor-made for the
scale of these projects.
So we can't commit today
that that is how
the facility would be engineered,
but we're very hopeful.
That's the strategy that we would
employ for these types of projects.
It's so.
And it's very safe.
Talking with the Sierra Club,
they've said they'll re-describe
mining companies as like waste
material contractors, because the
majority of their job is just
handling the waste as opposed to
extracting the minerals in the first
place. Is that accurate or is that
kind of misleading?
Well, I think it's a little
misleading because we're not just
generating waste, we're generating
these critical metals that
are vitally needed for the economy.
So take a look at the things that we
use metals for.
We use it for our computers,
we use it our iPhones,
our cars, our
infrastructure, our healthcare
system.
You wouldn't have a healthcare
system if you weren't producing
copper and nickel and
all these critical metals that are
needed just for...
Building surgical instruments,
the vaccines that we use,
think of the COVID vaccine that was
generated. You wouldn't be able to
make that vaccine if we
didn't have access to these critical
metals.
So I think it's
misleading to say we're just
a waste management company because
we're a company,
any mining company is a company that
produces critical metals that
are required for
electric vehicles.
AI data centers,
national security, et cetera.
And we have to
mine these deposits
and we have to
engineer them and manage them and
operate them safely.
That's what a mining company
is about.
Is there any way to put into
perspective like how many cell
phones or how many solar panels are
down? I mean, because I think the
scale gets lost for a lot of people
when you start talking about
billions of tons.
It's that you can't wrap your head
around it, but is it like a million
solar panels or a thousand solar
panels or yeah?
Haven't done that math, but it would
be interesting to do it.
But I personally have not done
that math to say, OK, how
many iPhones or how many solar
panels are in that deposit.
Because that's another argument that
Dave Bluhn brings up, is he says,
oh, there's really not that much
down there. Like, in the scale of
things, it's not worth the danger
and the threat to the watershed to
go down and get what's that little
amount.
Well, I would say that can
be misleading too, because one
of the things we hear is,
well, these deposits are small,
okay? And they are small
when you compare them to other
projects where they're 10,
20, 30 times bigger, purely
in terms of tonnage.
But what's different about these
deposits is they tend to be
more concentrated in the metals.
So we're talking about deposits here
that are probably close
to being 10 times higher in
metal content.
Than many larger deposits.
And so what that means is we're
producing the same amount of metals
by mining 10 times less
material than larger operations.
What would it look like?
Because I think there's two images
people have of a mine.
And one's like this giant open pit,
and the other one's the old mine
cart. Sure.
The tracks going down in it.
But what would it like from the
surface?
From the surface, so if we look
at Bend and Bend is most likely
going to be an underground deposit.
What you would see there is there
might be maybe a hundred acres
that are disturbed at the mine
site and at that site you
would see probably
a box cut or a vertical
shaft to actually
go underground.
You would see a
number of buildings and
line basins. So you might have some,
you would have some line basins to.
Contain the water that's pumped
out of the mine.
That water would then go through an
advanced water treatment system
before it's discharged
back into the environment.
You would most likely see some
buildings that would contain the
raw ore that comes out of
mine.
And if we've got a
regional mill somewhere, then
you'd see vehicles coming in there
picking that ore up and then
transporting it out to a rail
head and then from the rail head.
To the mill.
Those trucks would most likely have
sealed covers on the top of
it so you don't have particulate
emission as those vehicles are
traveling down the road.
You would see some other
office type buildings at
the surface and things
like that. You might see a truck
wash at surface so
vehicles coming out of the mine area
they would get washed so they're not
tracking mind residuals out into,
you know.
Outside of the operational area.
All of the water,
rainwater, snowmelt from the
operational area would be drained
into these centralized water
retention basins, again that are
lined, so that we have no
quote contaminated water
going off site.
It all goes through the water
treatment system.
So it's a relatively small footprint
and then underground you
would see driving around in
like a tunnel system.
See a lot of ventilation going
through the system.
You'd see a ventilation raise coming
out of the surface because you'd
have to have air going in and then
you got to have air going out to
exhaust it.
So it's a, I think it's
quite different from
the mental picture that people have
by looking in historic
textbooks of what mining
operations looked like 75
or 100 years ago.
It's a highly advanced
operation.
Would most of the ore be blasted
out? How is it actually made
sure it can be extracted?
Yeah, so the whole blasting process
is an engineering endeavor.
So if you're looking at like
a block of ore, what they're doing
is they're drilling holes into
that block.
Okay. And it's an engineer that's
directing that and they put in
a blasting agent and it's just
enough blasting agent to
fracture the ore so that it
loosens up and it drops
to the bottom of the mine area
and trucks can come in and scoop
that up and haul it out.
So There is a little bit of blasting
there, but it's very controlled
because you only want to put enough
in there to blast the
ore that you want out.
So when you look at the big picture,
there's people that, you know, may
be neutral on most of this, but
they're like, well, it's the National
Forest, or like, going for hikes,
or it's the Yellow River canoeing,
or goes right down to my favorite
fishing spot.
Like, what do you tell them about
what the impact will be on them
being able to use or still enjoy
the landscape?
I think that's central to the
permitting process because as
part of the state's permitting
process we have to be able to
demonstrate to the state that
we're not going to infringe on any
of those important adjacent
uses to the mine site.
So certainly if there's a river
flowing by the
proposed mine site we have to
demonstrate that we can actually
protect the water quality in
that river.
We have to demonstrate that we can
protect the groundwater quality
around the mine area.
That's all fundamental
to the permitting process.
And that's a decision that the
DNR makes.
Have we provided adequate
demonstration to that?
And that demonstration looks at
the construction period,
the operations period, and
then 200-plus years after
the mine is closed.
We're the only industry in the state
that has to look at.
That kind of planning horizon.
Paper mills don't have to do that.
Municipal landfills don't to do
to that. Private landfils don't do
that, mining companies do.
And so it's a
rigorous standard.
It's one that we have no
doubt that we can meet,
but we gotta go through the process
and all we're asking for is to
be allowed to go through that
process.
So recently there were
some lines for
oil and brought
through Wisconsin and there was
controversy over, I think it was
Dane County. There were some
counties that said, we want you to
put an additional insurance on
top of this. So if there's a leak,
someone pays for it.
And there was a lawsuit involved of
whether a county could require that.
And I am asking this kind of the
prelude to, there's an election
coming up.
There could be some change, there
will be some changes at the Capitol.
Do you have concerns that there
could be new mining regulations
that come in that maybe put an extra
layer of burden, or now you have to
put up an additional waiver or
insurance fee on
top of those 200 years of planning?
Sure, so there's
always the potential, you know,
that new legislation could be
developed. One of the things that
Greenlight is working on is actually
reaching out to
the legislative community and the
state already to start
talking to them about who
Greenlight is, how
Greenlight wants to operate in the
state. And one of the things we want
to do is...
Have open, transparent
communications with legislative
leaders on both sides of the
political aisle because we think
it's an important topic.
And we think its one that
both sides need to work
constructively on.
So if there's new legislation that
someone thinks is needed from
whatever side of the aisle, we're
there to talk to them about it.
And whether it makes sense or not,
we will give them our opinion.
Ultimately, it'll be up to them to
decide that.
With regards to the financial
assurance, because you briefly
alluded to that in your question on
the pipeline, I think that's another
area that people don't recognize
the levels of financial
assurance that are required for
the mining industry here in
Wisconsin.
So there are four different
financial assurance instruments
that any operator would
have to post
to the DNR before they
could start constructing a
project.
And that covers site reclamation
at the end, so there's a financial
assurance bond for that.
Once the site is closed, there
is a mandatory 40-year
monitoring program that has to
be put in place at
the mine site after it's closed.
That has to financially assured.
There is a contingency
fund for unanticipated remediation,
if, say, you had a bulk fuel
tank at the minesite.
It leaked and you didn't realize
it until you closed the site.
You got to financially assure for
those types of potential
occurrences. I call that a
contingency fund.
And then we were talking about the
tailings facility before and
ultimately we'll have to put a cap
on that just like a landfill.
We have to post a
cash instrument to the
state that would allow for
the state to go back in.
200, 300, 500
years down the road, if that
cap ever needed to be repaired,
that fund, that cash fund is
sitting in an account accumulating
interest, the
beneficiary is the state and they
can tap into that to replace
the cap.
So it's belts and
suspenders type approach to the
financial assurance of these
projects.
And I would be, I think anybody
would be hard pressed to say.
Is there another industry in the
state that has that type of
requirement?
As long as the state can tap into
that investment vehicle whenever
they want to, because then you know,
you remember the tobacco settlement
money. Sure, yeah, yeah.
But the other end of that political
question is obviously Tom Tiffany is
going to be a Republican nominee for
governor. I did ask all the
Democratic candidates when I sat
down with them in December about
mining, and for a few of them,
you could kind of see the question
go right over their head.
That was not something that was on
their radar. For a few them, they
were aware of it, but they
didn't really have that much to say.
So when you are dealing with
Democrats who oppose the mining
changes that Tom Diffie introduced,
and maybe just have, you know,
lean more towards the
environmentalist side that would
say, well, we're not really happy
with mining or we don't like that,
sounds scary.
Is there a concern or is there
outreach to them as candidates, or
is ever a point where you would
weigh in on the gubernatorial
election?
Well, we're not going to
weigh in on the gubernatorial
election. I think the
position that the company wants to
take is we
want to be transparent at the local
level with local
units of government,
local environmental groups,
and we want to be transparency
and have open lines of communication
with leaders
on both sides of the aisle.
We think it's an important topic.
Unfortunately...
It's hard to get both parties
to work together today.
This is an important issue from a
national security standpoint,
national economy standpoint.
I think it's got great benefits
for the northern part of the state,
but we want to
try to be a catalyst to bring
both sides together to talk
constructively about this issue.
We have started talking to
some of the candidates on both sides
of the aisle, obviously.
Congressman Tiffany is a supporter
and we understand the position of
the gubernatorial
candidates that are on the
Democratic side.
What we would like to do is
to actually get information
to them, okay?
So we've invited people from both
sides of the aisle to come up to our
drill sites to go
to the closed flambeau mine and
take a look at what a
reclaimed mine looks like that
was permitted under Wisconsin's
law. To talk to the DNR
and get the facts.
There's opportunities to go up to
Michigan where they have an
operating copper nickel mine that
sits right beneath the river.
And there was a lot of concerns
expressed about that
project before it was permitted.
But ultimately it did go into
production. It was permitted and
the mining law that regulates that
site.
Was actually sponsored and put into
law under the Granholm
administration.
So that was a democratic
governor in
Michigan.
So one of the things that we think
the legislators and the
gubernatorial candidates need
to do is actually talk to some of
the political leaders, say in Lake
Michigan, because
there we don't see that kind of
political divide that we see here in
Wisconsin.
I'm not sure why that is,
but we can look at that operation
up and meet. Up in Michigan, the
Eagle Mine, it's got a stellar
environmental track record and
it's the only operating nickel mine
in the U.S.
When you look at the
political situation in Wisconsin, is
it a case of if you could extract
the knee-jerk partisanship
that there are facts over
here that you feel confident
both sides would agree on, but
it's just extracting it from
that initial reaction of
just partisan lanes?
Yeah, that's exactly
right. What we're attempting
to do is get factual information
into political leaders' hands.
And I think when people look at
facts,
hopefully they can look at things
objectively then.
Greenlight, I'm learning about
this, technically a junior mining
company, is that correct?
That's correct.
So explain to me what that means.
So junior mining companies are
where most exploration work
takes place today in North
America.
There was a time when the
larger operating mining
companies did a
lot of greenfield exploration
work, which is what Greenlight is
doing today.
That model's kind of faded
away. And now most greenfield
explorations, which is, what is
taking place here in Wisconsin
today.
That's done by junior mining
companies, which get listed
on the financial exchange up in
Canada, which is the premier
exchange for junior
mining companies to raise capital
to actually go out and do the
exploration.
Those junior mining company
typically do
the exploration and the
initial project evaluations, and
then the larger companies will come
in and joint venture with them, or
potentially buy the company out.
So that's.
That's the direction that this is
going.
And that's obviously a good thing if
that happens. That's correct.
Good.
But that brings you back to what you
said at the beginning of that you
recently had another round of
investment.
So clearly, someone believes that
you're on the right track here?
Sure.
So the company completed its
first drill campaign in
August of last year and those
results were released to
the financial exchange
which is required and
from that those results
were very positive and it allowed
the company to go and raise another
round of financing to
finance this next round
and rounds of drilling that we're
going to be engaged in this
next year.
And so obviously, if that hadn't
happened, I mean, is there a chance
that if you hadn't found stuff that
interested them enough, then?
Yeah, it's possible.
That does happen.
So when, I mean, so
I guess when I've been telling
people about this story that I'm
working on, like the first
question I'm sure is what you get
locally is like, well, is there
gonna be a mine? Is it gonna happen?
And how do you,
like, do you put percent odds on it?
Or is it just, is it impossible to
say? It's like, it looks like it
could be, or is it, how
do describe?
Well, can't
put percent odds on it.
That's tough to do.
But what I can
say is that there's been
a ton of historic drilling in
Wisconsin, and there are
economically viable resources
in this
state. And if you look at these
types of belts across
the world, this is one of the
larger, undeveloped
belts of its type in the world.
So from that perspective,
I think very confident that
there will be mining again
in Wisconsin and we're
very confident that we're going to
be able to find those resources,
create a package of resources,
regional mill operation, identify
a location that looks very
attractive to develop and
can be done responsibly
from the standpoint of protecting
the environment.
So if you will give me a few of the
facts and figures of the bed deposit
because there's a lot of overburden
and there's bedrock and then we get
to the actual. So what are some of
the, how deep is it and how big?
Thank you.
Yeah, so there's probably about 50
to 100 feet of glacial overburden
sitting on the Precambrian bedrock.
And then the
ore zone or the mineralized
zone, which is where we see
the higher concentrations
of copper and gold and things like
that, that tends to sit in a
sliver of the rock that's
near vertical, okay?
So originally, think of
a sandwich, a bologna sandwich.
Piece of baloney was in the sandwich
and it was flat on the ocean floor
and then the whole thing tilted
up and so the
surface of the mineralized
zone is right below the overburden
and then that mineralized zone
goes down maybe
fifteen hundred two thousand feet.
And that's possible to get to.
That's possible to get through via
underground mining methods, yes.
But is that considered deep in the
mining world, or is that an average?
Well, it's not shallow, I wouldn't
necessarily say it's deep, there's
certainly underground
mines that go much deeper than that.
I mean, in terms of excitement,
like when you start doing these,
then you get the results.
Like, what's that feeling for you
and your crew when you're like, we
think it's there, and you're getting
evidence back?
It's pretty exciting.
It's just neat to drill a
hole, you know, 1,500 feet
deep, pull the rock out and
see that mineralization
that you think is there.
You see it in the rock.
And then to get the confirmatory
test data back, it's pretty excited.
So for you, what will
it mean to push this
through?
Part of what the Green Ledges are
trying to do is that it's more
Wisconsin-based people.
It's not just people parachuting
in from out of state or another
country.
So what does it mean for you
personally to see something like
this succeed?
Yeah, so me personally,
I've lived
most of my life in
Wisconsin.
I was born in Minnesota.
When I was about midway through high
school, my parents moved to
Wisconsin, finished high
school in the state here, and then
went to the University of Wisconsin
system, UW Madison,
for my undergraduate and graduate
degrees.
I grew up in an area where,
because I was born in Duluth and
so I always saw the oar boats.
Going out of the harbor there.
Mining has always been
a part of the industrial
fabric and social
and cultural fabric of
the upper Midwest.
Unfortunately, the industry
has kind of been scared out of,
out of a country, okay, over
the last 25, 40
years.
Now we're in a predicament.
The country is, because we don't
have access to the critical metals
that we need and
I don't care what side of the
political spectrum you're on, we're
all using them.
If you drive an electric vehicle,
that copper in there came from a
mine.
So if we're going to
address things like data
centers, if we are going to address
things, like electric vehicles, we
have to be able to develop
mines.
We have to do it responsibly,
we have to bring that industry back
here to Wisconsin.
We have a little flag,
state flag, sitting behind us.
And on that state flag is
a minor.
So that's been part of the state's
history for a very long time.
Challenge for us is to not
separate into camps
and just make accusations against
each other. That's not gonna solve
any problems.
We need to work collaboratively
with local units of government,
other interested organizations,
state government.
And do what's responsible and
recognize that we have public
policy success here in the state
already with our mining law.
We know it works.
So let's put it to work and let's
put that miner back to work on the
state flag.
I want to check my notes real quick.
I wrote down some of the stuff that
I had in my interview,
I want to make sure I give you a
chance to respond to everything you
may say.
I think we got to most of
this.
Yeah, I guess the only other,
oh, go ahead.
No, it's fine.
I'll just let her pass.
Um, yeah, so I think we kind of
addressed this, but the other thing
that, one of the arguments why it's
not necessary for this to happen is
that the 98%
waste and 2% copper, that the
vast, the percentages are
off compared to what can be
found elsewhere, and that just,
even if it's economically viable to
a company investing, then it's
Yeah, I think his math is
off there.
Because these VMS type deposits
that we're looking at, they
tend to be much more concentrated in
copper. What we're seeing is about
2% to 3% copper in the ore,
or what we would call ore.
If you look at the average
deposit that's being mined in
the world, it's maybe half a
percent.
So these are more concentrated
mineral occurrences.
Which makes them valuable because it
ultimately shrinks the footprint of
the project. I think that makes it
more viable from both an
economic standpoint and
an environmental footprint
standpoint. It's a better type of
deposit to mine.
And then one last question, explain
the tellurium, is that?
Tellurium
So that's a new one for a lot of
people.
What is it and how is it you?
So, tellurium,
when Greenlight, the
geologist, started looking a
couple years ago at some of the
historic data, they came across some
USGS publications
that said these types
of deposits in Wisconsin could
potentially contain economic
grades of telluria.
And tellurum is a rare earth
type element, and
it's critical in the manufacture
of solar panels.
So a lot of people think we need to
be constructing more solar panels.
It is the metal that, in essence,
is converting solar energy
into electricity.
So you can't have a solar panel
without tellurium.
Most of the solar panels that we're
using in the U.S.
Today are coming from China.
So again, it's that strategic
issue that
we keep coming up against that the U
S, if we don't want
to be dependent on adversaries
for these critical medals.
We're going to have to do it here
domestically.
In the drill program that was
completed this past summer, the
assay data indicated about
340, 350
grams of tellurium
per ton in the
material. And that's pretty high
grade tellurum.
It's higher than what
you see in most mines that are
producing telluriums.
As one of their products.
So we're in the early days
on that. There's more work to
be done, because you have to
identify if it's there and
then how do you get it out from a
processing standpoint.
But that certainly adds
to the excitement of what
we're seeing here and the potential
of what these
deposits could mean for
the local economy, the state
economy, and the national economy.
340 or 50 grams per
ton is the ratio.
And I'm assuming I'll find tellurium
on the periodic table of elements.
Thank you.
It's T, capital T, small e,
yes.
I mean, how much, when
you talk to the public, I mean
people know what gold, silver, I
mean they've heard of all those
things, like in tellurium, like is
that exciting to them?
Hey, there's a new thing that you've
probably never heard about unless
you're really into geology.
Yeah, so when we've
talked to the public about this,
I'll bring up tellurium and
I'll say, how many people have heard
of tellurum? Put your hands up and
nobody puts their hands up.
And then I say, okay, tellurian,
what's it used for?
Solar panels, et cetera.
And then people go, oh,
they start thinking about it
and can see the wheels going around
in their head.
I do think with the
public, Because
I've been in this industry for 35
years, and I've going
to local meetings and
things like that and have seen kind
of what the temperature can be in
some of these local meetings.
And I would say 30 years ago,
the temperature was a little higher,
okay, than what we're seeing today.
I think people are recognizing
the situation that the country
is in with regards to
access to critical metals.
And so they're listening.
About what the proposal
is with a
different mindset.
And they're realizing we
can't just kind of retreat
to a corner and say, not in
my backyard.
Because if we keep doing that, we're
gonna find that we're completely
dependent on China in 20 years,
and nobody wants to go there.
Anything else you want to add?
I think that's probably good.
Can I ask you to say and spell your
name and give your title?
My name is Steve Donahue,
spelled D-O-N-O
H-U-E, and I am on the
Board of Directors of Green
Light Metals.
And I also work
at Foth Infrastructure and
Environment in De Pere, Wisconsin,
where I've been working in the
mining industry on these types of
projects for 35 years.
So is it possible Nina Foundry
is making stuff that's going to go
into the car? It could be, it could
be. That's kind of like that full
cycle thing.
Yeah, yeah.
I think we're good here, thank you.
I find it fascinating that...