Latest news with #VBM
Global News
21-06-2025
- Business
- Global News
Ontario city skyline to undergo drastic change after ‘iconic' landmark toppled
For years, residents and visitors to Sudbury, Ont., knew they were approaching the Nickel City when they saw the Inco Superstack. 'For us, it's a beacon in our community,' Sudbury Mayor Paul Lefebvre told Global News. 'You see Superstacks, you're near home, right? You're almost there because you can see it from pretty far away.' But the skyline of Sudbury is undergoing a drastic change as plans are underway by current owner Vale Base Metals (VBM) to tear down the structure, as well as its neighbouring copper sister. The company has made the Superstack and its little copper sister obsolete by finding more environmentally friendly way of dealing with emissions. Before the arrival of the chimney, which residents refer to as 'the Smokestack,' Sudbury was known as an environmental disaster, as spewing toxins made vegetation and wildlife in the area disappear. Story continues below advertisement 'Vegetation could not survive,' Lefebvre said. 'And certainly in the Copper Cliff area (where the mine is located) was really bad.' Then came the Superstack in 1972. Standing more than 1,250 Ft. high, it was, for a short time, the largest freestanding structure in the Western Hemisphere until it was surpassed by the CN Tower. Until it disappears, it will remain the largest chimney in Canada. 'If you look at the history of why it was built, it was just to get the sulphur to go further instead of having it landing right beside the community,' Lefebvre said. Get breaking National news For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you when they happen. Sign up for breaking National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy He noted that while that was a major innovation for its time, things have continued to evolve. In 2010, VBM, which acquired Inco in 2006, first announced the Clean AER Project, which would see the towering chimneys replaced with environmentally friendly and efficient methods of dealing with nickel extraction. 'The Superstack and Copperstack have been iconic landmarks in Greater Sudbury for decades,' said Gord Gilpin, director of Ontario operations for VBM. 'While we appreciate that the city's landscape will look different after these structures are dismantled, our business has evolved and improved over time and this project is part of that evolution. We are modernizing our facilities and reducing our environmental footprint and, in so doing, laying the groundwork to ensure that our next century of mining in Sudbury is as successful as our first 100 years.' Story continues below advertisement The company says the move will eliminate 100,000 metric tonnes of sulphur dioxide emissions each year (equivalent to 1,000 railway tanker cars of sulphuric acid). It will also see the end of the Superstack and its copper counterpart, as they were decommissioned in 2020, and have been dormant ever since. The company is just about finished with the demolition of the smaller Copperstack and is expected to turn its attention to the Superstack this summer. 'It's a massive undertaking of how they're going to do this,' Lefebvre said. 'They had to prep for it the last five years and here we are, we're on the cusp of it.' The company says it will take about five years to pull down the towers and while some have argued that the towers should remain as a tribute to the city's mining history and effort to clean up, the mayor said that is not a realistic option. 'There are some folks in the community that think we should keep it, but again, it's not ours, right?' he said. 'It's the company's and it's a liability, because if they just leave it there, the whole thing will rust and the inside will, then it becomes a liability.' Lefebvre also noted that the structure sits atop an active nickel mine, so there is no way it could ever be an attraction for people to visit and would be something that would need to be admired from afar. Story continues below advertisement While he is sad to see it go, the mayor noted that it is a weird twist that a place that once held such a bleak landscape would hold such an important stake in the world's environment. 'The irony of all this is now Sudbury, that was one of the most polluted places back in the '30s, '40s, '50s and '60s, is now obviously contributing enormously with our critical minerals to our environment,' he said. 'All electric vehicles and all battery, it needs nickel and we are the ones providing that across our entirety in the world.'
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
With Iveco Defence up for sale, Italy may lose a key military supplier
ROME — Prospective buyers are lining up to acquire Iveco Defence Vehicles - Italy's biggest military vehicle maker - and the Italian government may struggle to stop it being sold overseas, a source has told Defense News. The chief supplier of fighting vehicles to the Italian army, IDV could be sold by year's end by its parent company Iveco, which is owned by the Exor Group, which is the largest shareholder in car maker Stellantis and controlled by the Italian Agnelli family. On May 15 Iveco said IDV would be spun off this year, with a possible sale to follow. 'By the end of the year the spin-off will start and in the meantime offers to buy the firm will be evaluated,' said a spokesperson. 'We have had preliminary offers from various strategic players,' said CFO Anna Tanganelli. Last year IDV saw revenue rise by 15% to €1.1 billion ($1.3 billion) as land-warfare budgets grow around the world in response to the Ukraine war. One firm has publicly thrown its hat in the ring to date. On May 8, the CEO of Italian defense giant Leonardo, Roberto Cingolani, said Leonardo had put in a joint offer with Germany's Rheinmetall. Leonardo and Rheinmetall are already in business with a joint venture announced last year to build 1,050 new infantry fighting vehicles for the Italian army based on the Rheinmetall Lynx and 132 tanks based on Rheinmetall's under-development Panther KF51. IDV also has a slice of the huge Italian vehicle order. In December it said it had signed a deal with Leonardo to take 12-15% of the development and production work on the deal, which has been valued at €23 billion. Leonardo and IDV already had a longstanding joint venture in place, called CIO, which builds VBM wheeled fighting vehicles and wheeled Centauro tanks for the Italian army. An industrial source said Leonardo offered to buy IDV for €750 million last year but was turned down. 'They could have had it if they'd offered a billion, but they didn't,' said the source. Meanwhile, numerous firms from around the world are reportedly ready to put in offers for IDV, with Spanish media suggesting Spain's Indra is ready to pay €1 billion, while U.S. funds and French-German consortium KNDS also reportedly keen. BAE Systems will be seen as possible bidder after it announced on Thursday a partnership between BAE Systems Hägglunds and IDV to offer its BvS10 all-terrain vehicle to the Italian army, with design and manufacturing to happen in Italy. BAE already builds amphibious vehicles with IDV for the U.S. Marines. The industrial source said however that given IDV's ties to the Italian military and to Leonardo, there would be reluctance to see it sold to an overseas buyer. 'The Italian army and members of the government would like IDV to stay Italian,' said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. But Cingolani has suggested Leonardo will be reluctant to pay top dollar just to keep IDV Italian, and Exor will likely be seeking maximum profit on the sale of a firm which is flush with work, knowing the firms outside Europe are increasingly interested in buying EU businesses as the bloc builds up its defense war chest. One solution being touted in the Italian media is that the Italian government use its so-called 'Golden Power' law, which can be used to control or block the sale of strategic Italian firms. But an Italian expert on the law said it might not be applicable in the case of IDV. 'The law is usually used to impose conditions for a new buyer, as occurred when GE bought Italian firm Avio Aero, or to stop a purchase by a buyer considered potentially hostile. But there has never been a case when it was used to exclude one or more bidders in a group of bidders,' said the source, who declined to be named. 'If the Italian government, which has a controlling stake in Leonardo, blocks a sale to Indra for example, could that be legally challenged as market interference? Indra is not China,' said the source.
Chicago Tribune
11-04-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
Mark Batinick: Illinois Republicans must embrace vote by mail or be left behind
Four years ago, the Illinois General Assembly passed Permanent Vote by Mail, or VBM. I cringed — not because of fears over fraud, ballot harvesting or cheating, but because I knew Republicans had been conditioned to reject voting by mail. That might not matter much in a presidential election, when most motivated voters show up, no matter what. But in lower-turnout contests — such as midterms and especially consolidated local elections — Democrats have a massive advantage because they've built a reliable VBM voter base. Last Tuesday, my worst fears came true: Republicans lost seats they've held for decades. If you hold any influence in the Illinois Republican Party, now is the time to act. We must start promoting voting by mail to our base — because if we don't, the Illinois GOP risks near extinction. I've seen this problem coming for over a decade. Back in 2012, after a rough night for Republicans, I remember someone at a watch party saying we'd need at least a 1,000-vote lead before the clerk dropped the vote-by-mail results. That stunned me. Fewer people voted by mail back then, but we had already accepted defeat in that category. I made a decision that night: I would learn the VBM rules and never be a helpless victim of the process again. In 2013, I helped organize VBM operations for two dozen candidates in consolidated elections — and we won big. Many races flipped after the late-arriving VBM ballots were counted. It can work. Republicans can win with VBM. In 2014, I applied the same strategy to my own race for state representative. In a three-way contest, I took 57% of the vote. In my 2018 general election, with no support from the statewide mail-in program, I built my own last-minute effort targeting low-propensity voters. While other suburban Republicans were getting crushed in late VBM returns 75% to 25%, I held my margin to just 54% to 46%. I won that race by just over 500 votes. Then came 2020. President Donald Trump told Republicans not to vote by mail. Combine that with high presidential-year turnout, and I scaled back my VBM strategy and hoped for good weather. Ten days out, I checked the forecast: dry and upper 50s. I thought, 'Maybe I've got a shot.' On Election Day, it was calm and sunny — a Chicagoland November miracle. If it had been a typical cold, wet November day, I might have lost. But hope is not a strategy. If you believe in personal freedom, lower taxes, safe streets and better schools, it's time to face reality. Republican voters must embrace voting by mail — not because we love the system, but because we can't change the rules unless we win elections. And we won't win enough elections unless we play by the current rules and compete in every part of the process. We don't have to like it. But we do have to win. Mark Batinick served in the Illinois General Assembly from 2015 to 2023, representing the 97th District. He was the Illinois House Republican floor leader from 2019 to 2023. He works in political consulting and polling with M3 Strategies.
