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Amidst election chaos and surging coronavirus case numbers, we got a piece of good news early this week when pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and BioNTech announced that a vaccine candidate they had developed was found to be more than 90% effective in preventing COVID-19 in study participants in their first interim efficacy analysis.

Great news indeed – to the point that it had the United States’ top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci declare that “[the coronavirus crisis is] not going to be pandemic for a lot longer because I believe the vaccines are going to turn that around,” at an event hosted by think tank Chatham House earlier this week.

Fauci cautioned, however, that while the virus would likely cease spreading around the world at the pace it currently is, “it could circulate quietly below the surface, at least in certain areas.”

“Putting it to rest doesn’t mean eradicating it,” he said. “I doubt we’re going to eradicate this, I think we need to plan that this is something we may need to maintain control over chronically, it may be something that becomes endemic that we have to just be careful.”

And COVID-19 notwithstanding, experts are cautioning that deadly infectious disease outbreaks could become more common. Faced with an unavoidable future full of global pandemics, prevention and preparation will be key.

Enter antimicrobial copper.

Followers of ARPN will know that we have touted copper’s antimicrobial properties in the fight against COVID-19, and have highlighted how its application in hospital settings has proven to significantly reduce bacteria and thus and acquisition rates for hospital acquired infections.

Specifically looking at coronavirus, a new clinical study conducted by National Institutes of Health, CDC, UCLA and Princeton University scientists and published in The New England Journal of Medicine earlier this spring confirmed that while SARS-CoV-2 was stable “for up to 24 hours on cardboard and up to two to three days on plastic and stainless steel,” it was only detectable on copper surfaces for four hours.

We have featured several new ideas on how to harness copper’s properties in the fight against coronavirus ranging from the development of copper-infused fabrics to copper-alloyed cell phone cases, and the introduction of legislation at the state level calling for all new construction projects receiving state funding to use copper alloy touch surfaces – including door handles, bathroom fixtures, bed rails and handrails.

The latest example of copper finding its way into the fight against the current and future pandemics comes to us via our neighbors to the north in Canada:

As part of a partnership with Vancouver-based Teck Resources and Vancouver Coastal Health, the City of Vancouver is installing anti-microbial copper surfaces in its public transit system – specifically on two Sky Trains and two trolley buses. The TransLink pilot project explores whether the materials could be “effective in ensuring a safer transit system in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

According to the Vancouver Sun, the copper surfaces will be installed at high-touch points on board the two trains and two buses and will be swabbed twice a week. At the end of one month, they will be assessed for durability. Upon conclusion of the pilot, findings and results of the pilot program will be shared widely.

Cautious optimism in light of this week’s vaccine news may be in order, but the fight against infectious diseases more closely resembles a marathon than a sprint. As ARPN’s Dan McGroarty pointed out earlier this year:

“Now is the time for smart moves to respond to this threat and prepare for future ones. New public spaces—and particularly the touch-points of human contact within those spaces—must become our first line of protection. Anti-microbial metals like copper are an indispensable weapon in this war.”

According to NASA, the Hubble Telescope earlier this month collected imagery of an asteroid “so rich in metals that its worth puts our global economy to shame.”

Already discovered in 1852, the celestial body is located in the Solar System’s main asteroid belt, roughly 370 million km from Earth. The object, which has been called 16 Psyche, is composed almost entirely of nickel and iron. A planned NASA mission to study the asteroid’s properties is set to launch in August of 2021, with a planned arrival at the celestial body in 2026. As Mining.com notes a little tongue-in-cheek, “[i]f the mission could kindly bring the asteroid back to Earth, every person on the planet — all 7.8 billion of us — would get roughly $1.2 billion, based on current metal prices.”

It’s a fascinating development, and harnessing the metal potential 16 Psyche would certainly take care of a looming nickel shortage some have been warning of — one of many mineral resource challenges we are facing and the extent of which has been brought to the forefront by the current coronavirus pandemic.

However, at least at this point in time, all talk about and funding/legislation for asteroid mining aside — space mining is little more than pie in the sky thinking.

Meanwhile, on Planet Earth, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring a critical minerals national emergency aimed at expanding terrestrial, i.e. U.S. domestic production of rare-earth and other critical minerals in an effort to reduce dependence on China. Among other things, the order directs the Department of the Interior to explore the application of the Defense Production Act — used earlier in the year to accelerate production of medical supplies in the context of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic — to promote domestic resource production and development.

In the context of the executive order, efforts to bring critical materials into the U.S. supply chain are currently underway. Here are a few examples, some of which draw on close cooperation with trusted allies Canada and Australia:

• Only days after the executive order, the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) announced the U.S. government’s taking of a $25 million equity stake in Dublin-based battery metals miner TechMet as part of the president’s push to reduce our nation’s over-reliance on supply chains dominated by China. The investment will help the company develop a nickel and cobalt mine in Brazil.
• Later in October, the United States Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) awarded American Manganese (AMY) a grant to perform work on the United States Government’s manganese ore stockpile located near Wenden, Arizona, with the goal of producing electrolytic manganese metal (EMM), a form currently on the U.S. National Defense Stockpile purchase list.

• In light of the closure of the last domestic titanium sponge plant in August, the U.S. is looking for a way to re-establish its titanium supply chain via Australian mining explorer Tao Commodities acquiring an option on a titanium and zircon project in Tennessee. The project site is only minutes away from one of the world’s largest titanium-consuming pigment plants. The owner of said facility, U.S.-based Chemours, has also opened a new facility in Georgia which will produce titanium dioxide (TiO2) pigment, as well as zircon.
• And moving from titanium to equally critical co-products, an example of reducing vulnerabilities at the processing level of the supply chain comes to us via our allies to the North, where global miner Rio Tinto has developed a way to extract scandium from waste tailings in the titanium dioxide production process in one of its production facilities in Quebec, Canada.

Perhaps unlike any other event in recent history, the coronavirus pandemic has put a magnifying glass over the United States’ supply chain vulnerabilities in the context of a globalized world.

The fate of the most recent executive order on critical minerals hangs in the balance in the wake of the Presidential election — an incoming Biden Administration may alter or rescind the executive order altogether, and we may see some policy shifts.

However, in the grand scheme of things, with the order being a direct response to our increasingly obvious over-reliance on foreign (and especially Chinese) critical minerals, and China’s penchant for playing politics when holding leverage over its adversaries, the push to reduce our mineral resource vulnerabilities will continue, irrespective of who will occupy the White House — and we at ARPN will be here to keep track.

While it seems that for weeks, all eyes have been on the Presidential elections in the U.S., earlier in October, our friends of Benchmark Mineral Intelligence hosted its Washington DC Summit 2020, which brought together U.S. Government representatives and industry stakeholders to discuss materials challenges — specifically in the realm of lithium ion battery technology, (…) more

Beijing’s threat to withhold potentially life-saving medical supplies and medications in the middle of a global pandemic, during which China has “taken control of [respective] supply chains around the world as part of its quest for global domination,” were a wake up call, write U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Gov. Mike Dunleavy (R-AK) in (…) more

Three weeks ago, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring a critical minerals national emergency aimed at expanding domestic production of rare-earth and other critical minerals in an effort to reduce dependence on China. Among other things, the order directs the Department of the Interior to explore the application of the Defense Production (…) more

Against the backdrop of a new presidential executive order declaring a critical minerals “national emergency” for the United States, Benchmark Mineral Intelligence will host its “Washington DC Summit 2020 – Online” on Tuesday, October 20th, at 1p.m. EST. This year’s virtual summit will bring together U.S. Government representatives and industry stakeholders to discuss materials challenges (…) more

From a U.S. perspective, arguably the biggest news in the critical minerals sector in recent weeks has been U.S. President Trump’s latest executive order on critical minerals, which, according to analysts, is the first one in this field “that has the potential to bring some meaningful changes.” Aside from calling on the Department of the (…) more

At last week’s RealClearPolitics panel discussion sponsored by the National Mining Association, speakers discussed the extent of our nation’s critical mineral resource supply chain challenges. During the first panel, U.S. Reps. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), and Guy Reschenthaler (R-Penn.), who recently launched the bi-partisan Critical Materials Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives, made the case (…) more

Hours after President Donald Trump issued a new executive order declaring a national emergency on critical minerals, the U.S. Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support received testimony from Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Ellen M. Lord on the integrity of America’s critical minerals supply chains. Kicking off the hearing, (…) more

In perhaps the strongest acknowledgment of the urgency of our critical mineral resource woes and over-reliance on foreign (and especially Chinese) supplies to date, U.S. President Donald Trump this week triggered rarely-used emergency government powers to address the issue. On his way to a campaign rally in Minnesota, the president on Wednesday signed an Executive (…) more