EPA

The Indian Express ran an excellent article this week on India’s efforts to develop a mineral strategy.  The piece gives a broad overview on the global context of the critical mineral mining environment from an Indian perspective. It points out that China not only accounts for more than 90 percent of global REE supply, but is also among the top three producers of 10 out of the 12 “strategic minerals and metals” Indian planners have put into this category.

India’s first attempt at developing a cohesive mineral strategy centers around stockpiling, research and development, incentivizing by-product recovery, setting up a stakeholder network, and removing bureaucratic obstacles which are in large part to blame for India’s late start in the global resource game. As the Indian Express explains:

Lack of access to best-technology practices due to restrictive regimes, coupled with the larger problem of a protectionist environment that did not incentivise innovation, meant that critical strategic industries — nuclear, space, defence and communications — depended on high-technology imports which got progressively more difficult for largely non-economic reasons.

While overall circumstances may be different, unfortunately, part of this description rings all too familiar. Current attempts to make the U.S. a serious competitor in the global race for resources and to overhaul our own critical minerals strategy are up against similar “restrictive regimes” as the ones described by the Indian Express – an onerous regulatory framework to which the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) continues to add new layers, and a misguided “not-in-my-backyard” mentality.  India is looking to correct its past mistakes – are we ready to do the same?

Well, you won’t see that headline atop of pieces like this one in the Alaskan press, but it’s a logical extension of policy actions like the one proposed to stop a copper/gold/molybdenum mine in Alaska.  In this case, we’re told that we can either allow the mine to proceed – or we can save the salmon.

Is the choice really that stark and simple?  Is the situation so dire that EPA should step in to stop the permitting process, as at least one U.S. Senator now urges – or should we let the prescribed process run its course?  After all, it’s not as if the proposed mine is getting a free pass: As the article indicates, the current permitting process requires approvals from 67 different state and federal agencies.

Two facts to inject here:

1. As documented in the authoritative Behre Dolbear report, the U.S. currently ranks worst in the world – among the so-called mining nations – in the time it takes to permit a mine.
2. Copper – the primary product in this instance – is a critical technology-metal, no less than exotic elements like the Rare Earths.

Case in point:  A typical wind turbine uses between 3 and 4½ tons of copper.  That’s right: 3 to 4½ tons – per turbine.

Copper is also the source for Selenium – a little know metal that is key to next-gen solar power systems.

So would stopping a U.S. copper mine save salmon?  Or would it sacrifice wind and solar power we’re counting on to make the transition to a green economy?

Like so many other metals and minerals that the U.S. is blessed to have but fails to mine, we’re dependent on foreign-sourced supply, with all the attendant strings attached.

If U.S. mining companies operating under U.S. standards are sidelined, where will we get the metals and minerals we need for modern society?  As I testified in the U.S. House earlier this year, there are any number of countries that will be happy to feed our copper fix: We could buy copper from Russia, Angola, Afghanistan, DRC Congo, or China — including in all likelihood copper mined from reserves in the Tibet Autonomous Region.  There’s also copper in Pakistan and Iran.

Are we OK with “blood copper” supporting our windmills, our solar panels and our cellphones?  Do we think these mines would pollute less or be policed more stringently than U.S. mines?

This is the serious discussion we need to have – not feel-good policy-posturing.