Two of Blue Origin’s earliest employees, former president Rob Meyerson and chief architect Gary Lai, have started a company that seeks to extract helium-3 from the lunar surface, return it to Earth, and sell it for applications here. The company has been operating in stealth since its founding in 2022, but it emerged on Wednesday … Read more
LA PARAGUA, Venezuela — Families and friends began burying loved ones on Thursday who were among at least 16 people killed in the collapse of an illegally operated gold mine in a remote area of central Venezuela. The tributes come as anger mounts at the government’s slow response helping the injured and recovering bodies from … Read more
Activists at a “Look Down action” rally to stop deep sea mining, outside the European Parliament in Brussels on March 6, 2023. Kenzo Tribouillard | Afp | Getty Images It’s likely only a matter of time before scraping the ocean floor for valuable metals becomes a reality, according to the head of the International Seabed … Read more
Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch Space. We’re just two days away from Intuitive Machines’ first-ever mission to the moon. Pro-tip: If you haven’t already, check out this ultra thorough press kit on the mission — the company goes into a ton of detail about the lander architecture, the payloads on board and everything that will … Read more
Interlune, a stealth startup headed by ex-Blue Origin executives, is focused on mining the moon for a rare isotope of helium that could be used to scale quantum computing and eventually even fusion power, TechCrunch has learned. Regulatory filings reported here last week showed that the company recently closed $15.5 million in new capital; before … Read more
An array of bitcoin mining units inside a container at a CleanSpark facility in College Park, Georgia, on April 22, 2022. Elijah Nouvelage | Bloomberg | Getty Images Bitcoin miner CleanSpark climbed on Tuesday after the company said it will acquire new mining facilities that will give it the power and infrastructure to potentially double … Read more
Japan recently became the fifth nation to successfully complete a soft landing on the moon’s surface, joining a select few countries — the U.S., Russia, China and India — in accomplishing this feat. But moon landings are likely to become more common over the next few years. Globally, more than 100 lunar missions, both by … Read more
In a memo published in November 2023, Norwegian law firm Wilkborg Rein said that passing the bill with an inadequate environmental assessment could violate not only the country’s own laws on environmental protection, but also European and international laws. Local communities or NGOs could therefore sue, says Elise Johansen, a partner at the firm who … Read more
But deep-sea mining is considered a risky business not just because of environmental concerns. Norway’s startups are betting on an industry that doesn’t yet exist. “It could end up not becoming an industry at all because the resources are not there or the technology’s not good enough,” says Håkon Knudsen Toven, spokesperson for the industry … Read more
Saudi Arabia nearly doubled the estimate for the value of its mineral resources and is seeing lucrative deals signed during its Future Minerals Forum held in Riyadh this week, ministers told CNBC. Estimates for the kingdom’s untapped mineral reserves have jumped from $1.3 trillion in a 2016 forecast to $2.5 trillion, according to Saudi Mineral Resources … Read more