Budget 2024: $500 Million to Map the Entire Continent of Australia for Critical Minerals

The process to map the entire continent will take 35 years.
Budget 2024: $500 Million to Map the Entire Continent of Australia for Critical Minerals
This picture taken shows a bucket-wheel dumping soil and sand removed from another area of a coal mine in Newcastle, Australia, on Nov. 5, 2021. Saeed Khan/AFP via Getty Images
Rex Widerstrom
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The Australian federal government has committed $566.1 million over ten years to “progressively map Australia’s potential for critical minerals, alternative energy, groundwater and other resources, providing scientific information to guide future investment.”

The move could subject every square centimetre of a 7,688,287 square kilometre continent to geological mapping in the hope of finding mineral deposits, despite a thousand mining companies (766 of which are large enough to be listed on the ASX) already in operation doing similar activities.

Rex Widerstrom
Rex Widerstrom
Author
Rex Widerstrom is a New Zealand-based reporter with over 40 years of experience in media, including radio and print. He is currently a presenter for Hutt Radio.
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