arctic

The global race for resources has countries look for new ways to meet their mineral resource needs. We’re now used to seeing headlines about mineral riches in the Arctic, beneath the ocean seabed, and even asteroid mining. The latest region in the cross-hairs is Antarctica, with – you guessed it – China aggressively pursuing its interests in the region.

Though the area is technically off-limits for mining under the Antarctic Treaty, experts say there is increasing pressure to change the policy and the ban may be overturned within decades.

A familiar occurrence around the globe, China is enlarging its footprint in the region, and has stepped up investment in Antarctica from $20 million in 2003 to $55 million in 2012. There is also speculation whether the country is looking to “expand its presence from three to four permanent bases on the ice.”

Expect the debate over the Antarctic riches – which are said to comprise copper, coal, chromium and natural gas, as well as iron ore – to heat up, and other nations stake their claims should the mining ban get close to being overturned.

While Antarctic mining is not a near-term scenario, the United States should use these developments in the Southern hemisphere as impetus to step up and formulate a coherent and comprehensive critical mineral strategy, as the rest of the world won’t wait for us to get off the starting block in the global race for resources.

A first important step in that direction may have been made with the launch of DoE’s new critical minerals research hub, but a broad inter-departmental approach is needed for the sake of our strategic and economic future.

E&E reporter Manuel Quinones explores U.S. mining interests in the Arctic and related geopolitical and legal issues in a piece for GreenWire. Portraying the region as a hotbed of territorial disputes precisely because of its mineral potential, Quinones quotes American Resources principal Daniel McGroarty, who points to the pivotal role Alaska can and must play in the United States’ efforts to stake its claim in the Arctic as other nations try to leverage the Law of the Sea treaty to advance their positions:

“Alaska is America’s foothold in the Arctic. …This will prove incredibly important. We don’t see it now, but the strategic resource value of this single state could drive U.S. growth and competitiveness in the decades ahead.”

Unfortunately, this realization has yet to sink in in the United States, at a time when even non-Arctic countries like China have their eye on the Arctic’s natural resource treasures and are making their presence felt. The bottom line according to McGroarty:

“We need to be more serious. The resource wars of the mid-21st century are already under way in the Arctic.”

Click here for the full piece (subscription required), and here for more background on the race for the Arctic’s resources.

The race for Arctic riches is getting more crowded, with another player throwing its hat into the ring via Greenland as point of entry. According to a Reuters news story, a Korean state-owned company has inked an agreement with a Greenland mining firm “to seek opportunities for joint minerals projects, exploiting deposits of rare earths [...]

While many of us in the continental U.S. are enjoying record-breaking temperatures this March, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton probably needed her down coat as she embarked on her new mission: laying the groundwork for a common EU policy on the Arctic. Traveling near the North Pole earlier this month, Ashton made a case [...]

Having intensified over the past few months with Russia reportedly willing to risk a new “Cold War” over the area’s vast resources, the geopolitics of the Arctic’s race for mineral riches has just been elevated to a whole new level with China having thrown its hat into the ring. According to the Wall Street Journal’s [...]

A handful of countries situated near the top of the world are racing to firm up their territorial claims to untold amounts of oil, natural gas, gold, zinc, copper and other metals. A new piece from the U.K. Guardian highlights this renewed scramble for resource rights beneath the Arctic icecap. I treated this story in [...]