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American Resources Policy Network
Promoting the development of American mineral resources.
  • Green Energy Shift Requires a Revolution in Materials Science

    As the global push towards a carbon neutral future accelerates, it is also becoming increasingly clear that the green energy shift will be mineral intensive, as a score of critical metals and minerals underpin 21st Century green energy technology. It’s not too much to say that shifting green depends on a revolution in materials science.

    Acknowledging their responsibility, the mining sector and associated industries have made significant capital investments and have been harnessing the materials science revolution to meet increased expectations of consumers, society and governments to sustainably and responsibly support the shift.

    On a broader level, in a recent post, Seeking Alpha points to the European Copper Institute having found that the “copper industry reduced CO2 emissions by 60% from 1990 to 2020 by investing in efficiency and reducing energy consumption.”

    The post adds: “(…) the green initiatives have just started: nowadays, mining of ‘green’ metals (which are metals produced with renewable energy sources and sustainable practices) is a new way to address emissions in the sector,” and points to low-carbon aluminum produced using mostly renewable energy sources, as well as low-carbon nickel.

    Meanwhile, a significant disconnect persists in certain circles about both the importance of the mining industry in the green energy shift, and the strides companies have made to reduce their environmental impact. Overcoming that disconnect is the main reason ARPN continues to highlight specific sustainability initiatives in extractive and associated industries. These range from overhauling supply chain policies to ensure suppliers conform to certain environmental and social standards, to incorporating renewable power sources into their operations to offset some of the carbon costs of resource development. (Take a look at our latest roundup here.)

    As Congress is weighing legislation that could bring significant changes for critical mineral resource policy, the time has come for another roundup:

    • U.S. miner Alcoa has partnered with Alumtek Minerals, a Brisbane, Australia-based company that has developed a a process to extract critical minerals including gallium, vanadium, hafnium and rare earths from bauxite tailings. Having received a grant from the Australian government, the companies will collaborate with a Western Australian government research hub in the hopes to advance the processing technology from proof of concept to full production.
    • As part of its full-value mining initiative, global miner Rio Tinto is also targeting waste tailings as a source for critical minerals and other useful consumer products. According to Bloomberg, the company is “currently figuring out ways to extract up to ten so-called critical minerals from copper waste at its mining facility in Utah,”  and in Australia, has partnered with the University of Queensland and Queensland Alumina to bioengineer bauxite residue known as ‘red mud’ into an eco-friendly plant-sustaining soil. Meanwhile, to reduce its carbon footprint, the company is looking to construct a brand new [additional] solar plant at is Weipa bauxite site, in Queensland, Australia. Contracting with energy supplier EDL, the company aims to triple North Queensland local solar power generation with the new plant.
    • According to Engineering and Mining Journal, “Rolls-Royce and Flanders Electric have agreed to develop a retrofit solution for hybridizing mining-class haul trucks with mtu [motor-and-turbine union] engines, batteries and hybrid control systems, and Flanders drive train solutions.” A recently-signed Memorandum of understanding between the two companies enables them to “offer a scalable retrofit kit for hybridizing mining trucks in a wide range of mining applications.”
    • In its efforts to operate more efficiently and sustainably, China-focused mine Silvercorp began constructing a one million tonne-per-year waste rock treatment plant which turns waste produced at its flagship Ying multi-mine project into aggregate. The company is further exploring the use of mine tailings in the manufacture of ceramic products.

    These examples provide just a single snapshot into sustainability initiatives underway at this point in time, but of course more can, should, and is being done. Count on ARPN to continue to feature these initiatives going forward.

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  • McGroarty on Critical Minerals: “It’s Not Your Grandfather’s Infrastructure”

    The New Year is now a little over a week old and the inauguration of the 45th President of the United States is just around the corner.  And while some are still dwelling on 2016 (we offered our post mortem at the end of the year), the time has come to look at what’s in store.

    One of the key buzzwords, particularly if you’re looking for an issue that transcends party lines these days is “infrastructure” – an area where broad consensus on the need for significant overhaul exists.  What is often overlooked, however, is that our infrastructure today comprises of far more than just bridges, roads, and tunnels.  As our very own Daniel McGroarty outlines in a brand new piece for Investor’s Business Daily,

    “[t]oday, our infrastructure extends to the national power grid — currently a patchwork of lines, nodes and often antique switching towers we rely on to move energy to where we need it — to the internet itself, which has a physicality we easily overlook in this Age of the Cloud and Wireless. These systems, marvels that they are, come closer to tin-can-and-string contraptions than the modern version we would build if we began the work today. 

    Threats against our infrastructure are as diverse as they are real, and dealing with them will require a comprehensive approach.  Securing access to Copper, Graphite, Cobalt, Manganese, and Rhenium may not be the first things that come to mind when we think critical infrastructure protection – but they, and many other tech metals and minerals, have to be on our shopping list if we’re serious about a 21st Century infrastructure that is competitive and can withstand threats from the outside and within.

    As followers of ARPN are aware, we are subject to a significant degree of import-dependence for the above referenced materials, as well as for many others.  With there being more to infrastructure than “cement trucks and Jersey Barriers”, it’s time for an approach conducive to unleashing our arguably vast domestic mineral potential.

    Explains McGroarty:

    “It means getting over the pernicious mindset that 2017 America lives in a postindustrial age, a time when Americans are all ‘symbolic analysts,’ tapping away at keyboards, creating wealth from ones-and-zeros, live-blogging streaming video and the like, no longer dependent of transforming real raw materials into things. That messy business has been off-shored to other places, happy to sell us what we need.” 

    This leaves us at the mercy of the rest of the world — and needlessly so. Concludes McGroarty:

    “Word is that the new infrastructure bill will exceed $1 trillion. Shoring up our infrastructure — broadly understood — is essential, and not just for jobs and GDP, but for the stuff modern dreams are made of — everything from the gadgets we use to occupy our time to the high-performance materials that power the weapons platforms that keep us safe.

    If we approach the Great Infrastructure Debate in this spirit, we could do even more than rebuild our roads, bridges and tunnels. We could build the foundation for a new American Century.”

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  • ARPN’s Daniel McGroarty in the Wall Street Journal

    ARPN’s Dan McGroarty reports a worrisome development in the saga of EPA’s unprecedented use of pre-emptive veto power to stop Alaska’s proposed Pebble Mine even before a mine plan is presented for review: Anti-mining activists are urging EPA to dust off its veto pen again. And again. Noting a common thread between new pushes for [...]
  • Op-ed: How the EPA Sticks Miners With a Motherlode of Regulation

    The following op-ed by American Resources Principal Dan McGroarty was published in the Wall Street Journal on January 3, 2014. The original text can be found here. How the EPA Sticks Miners With a Motherlode of Regulation The years-long wait for mining permits in the U.S. is the worst in the world. On Dec. 13, [...]
  • Op-ed: A Potential Copper Bonanza Runs Afoul of the EPA

    The following op-ed by American Resources Principal Dan McGroarty was published in the Wall Street Journal on July 5, 2013. The original text can be found here. A Potential Copper Bonanza Runs Afoul of the EPA The metal is essential for wind turbines, but a proposed mine in Alaska has set off Keystone-like alarms. By Daniel [...]
  • “Can we keep U.S.-mined minerals for exclusive use in this nation?” – A question that misses the mark

    In a letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal, a reader from Arizona responds to American Resources Principal Daniel McGroarty’s op-ed “America’s Growing Minerals Deficit.” Citing Canada-based Augusta Resources’ Rosemont copper mine project in southern Arizona as an example, the reader alleges McGroarty “overlooks one very important consideration. There isn’t any assurance that [...]
  • American Resources Principal discusses mineral resource supply issues in context of White House initiatives in Wall Street Journal

    In a column for the Wall Street Journal, American Resources Policy Network president Dan McGroarty acknowledges some positive signs coming from the Obama Administration indicating an increased focus on access to critical metals and minerals, but underscores that the “situation is actually more acute.” Citing General Electric as an example of a manufacturer that uses [...]
  • Op-ed: America’s Growing Minerals Deficit

    The following op-ed by American Resources Principal Dan McGroarty was published in the Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2013. The original text can be found here. America’s Growing Minerals Deficit The U.S. is now tied for last, with Papua New Guinea, in the time it takes to get a permit for a new mine. By [...]

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