Introducing “On The Green Road”: My Talk at the Great Western Minerals Group 2009 AGM

I have now in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, introduced a concept that I intend to develop as a documentary film series and also to use, from now on, to define the importance and the order of priority of the supply chain basics. These include and begin with hard rock mining for rare metals, and go on from there to list all of of the processes required to manufacture the high technology devices from them, upon which our technological civilization is more and more dependent.  Without the rare metals, most of those high technology devices simply could not be built.

I call the concept the journey “On The Green Road” to the sustainable energy future.

I formally introduced this concept last Thursday, September 10, 2009, at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of Canada’s Great Western Minerals Group (GWMG) in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. GWMG’s report to its shareholders, delivered prior to my talk by GWMG Chairman Gary Billingsley, and President Jim Engdahl, was a revelation to me of just how far GWMG has come on its own path, since the grim days of early 2009.

Not only has GWMG come back from a financial near-death experience, but it has been reborn with its debt under control; its shares trading at a velocity such that its entire float has turned over in the last 60 days (nearly 200 million shares traded when GWMG has a total of just that issued and authorized); and an outstanding portfolio of high grade rare earth deposits in Canada, The Republic of South Africa, and the United States that positions it, in my opinion, to be the first non-Chinese mining company ever to produce the heavy rare earths dysprosium and terbium outside of China.

As I have told you before, another very fine Canadian miner, Avalon Rare Metals, is also going to produce those heavy rare earths within 3 years, and I did write this summer that I thought that Avalon would be the first in the world, outside of China, to do so, but GWMG may well have taken the lead now. I will shortly write you a report on the GWMG AGM announcements that lead me to this handicapping conclusion, but today I want to direct you to the 3 videos below, of my talk at that meeting.

I promise in the videos to publish my definiton of The Green Road, which I read to the Saskatoon audience, and I will do that tomorrow, along with some of the text of that talk, which I think I would like you to be able to ponder leisurely.

The videos are from just the one talk, but the rules of the Internet required that they be broken into segments of 10 minutes or less. I thank Gord Dent, Communications Director of GWMG for posting them, and I thank Ron Malashewski, GWMG’s Investor Relations Manager for his participation in that decision.

If occasionally my civility slips for a moment when i am talking about the national governments of the USA and Canada I apologize. I also mean no disrespect to the very skilled chemical engineers and metallurgists who work at producing rare earths in the USA; they are very good at what they do and among the world’s best in their profession.