From the orange activist lawyer on anti-mining facebook page:
"The Norrbotten Nature Conservation Society has appealed the Land and Environmental Appeals Court's decision not to grant leave to appeal in the case of Talga's plans for a new mine at Nunasvaara Södra in Kiruna to the Supreme Court. We have now been granted a reprieve until October 26 to develop the basics."
Disappointing that obvious, malicious stalling tactics are tolerated. They must still develop the basics? Crazy. The silver lining is that we're at the tail end of this, which will undoubtedly be the hardest permitting process Talga will go through. Talga are one of the first movers in a system that for years has been set in its ways, ossified with an apathy toward extracting its own minerals outside of iron ore, more than happy to rely on China.
We know the world is changing - every single day there is a new media report with alarms being sounded. Yesterday it was France removing subsidies on dirty Chinese EVs, today it was US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm in a closed-door meeting with other high-level government officials, executives and academics from over 50 countries, all stating how serious a threat China's outsized position in critical minerals has become. The way the courts operate currently is because of the way the world used to work. A changing world means that the courts will soon operate differently, the mold just needs to be broken in. Talga, being one of the pioneers in the green transition, are moving their way through the sludge that is the old mindset of the Swedish permitting system.
Future expansions will be backed by the CRMA, with a streamlined process that will break the back of these delusional NIMBYS. At that point, the floodgates open, especially on a company specific level. Talga could draw on their environmentally sound stage 1 operation as evidence for future expansions, showing the court real world data on an even larger scale to the trial mines that no negative impact on environmental/reindeer herding occurred. The NIMBYs are aware of this, which is why you often see them complaining about 3 other mines not being looked at all in one permit.
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