ABSTRACT
Critical factors to Alaska's mineral development include: mineral commodity prices, costs of energy, cost of labor, infrastructure—mainly transportation corridors, utilities, and development sites, and timing of market availability. Except for far northern Alaska and a few interior basins, most of Alaska potentially has metal-bearing mineral deposits. Further, the distribution of the federal conservation lands and checkerboard pattern of federal-state and Native lands vastly complicate the development of infrastructure in the largely undeveloped state. The attitude of individuals toward mineral development is as complex as the land patterns. Restrictions on development of over half the federal land in Alaska undoubtedly inhibit mineral development, both by direct withdrawal of the resource base and by the imposition of land barriers to transportation. The attitude toward large scale corporate mining development, however, varies from one of support by some state and Native corporation leaders to uncertainty and even hostility in some rural areas.
