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Members of the U.S. Congress are returning to Washington, D.C. – the Senate is already back while the House will return next week – to tackle a hodgepodge of unresolved federal issues. While, as it does so often, an impasse on federal spending with a looming government shutdown stands to dominate the news cycle, lawmakers may also, as E&E News Daily phrased it “see if they can fit in progress on a compromise to accelerate permitting for energy projects.”

The June debt ceiling deal included several permitting reform provisions, among them most notably time and page limits on for Environmental Impact Statements (EISs) and Environmental Assessments (EAs).

With that, however, while talks are ongoing, some involved in the negotiations worry that the momentum for broader changes may have been blunted.

Whether or not lawmakers on Capitol Hill are able to overcome their differences on permitting reform remains to be seen — however, experts caution that it takes more to deliver a clean domestic energy supply chain.

As Elizabeth Wilson, professor of environmental studies at Dartmouth College, Simon Lomax, program manager at the Payne Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines, and Morgan Bazilian, former lead energy specialist for the world Bank and the Director of the Payne Institute write in the New Hampshire Union Leader, beyond permitting reform, “[g]rassroots support is also essential, and that means overcoming decades of public ambivalence – and hostility – towards U.S. mining projects. “

After decades wrought with challenges, they say, “[t]oday, (…) there’s an opportunity to write a new chapter for the U.S. mining sector, in which more of the raw materials for advanced energy technologies are produced here, under the most protective standards in the world.”

However, Wilson, Lomax and Bazilian say, this can’t happen without strong public support or, “the social license to operate.”

In order to receive this social license to operate, they suggest stakeholders pursue at least these four approaches:

1. Prioritize local concerns.  Open lines of communication and thoughtful interaction with the locals are key when looking to advance resource projects. The authors point to NioCorp’s efforts to mine EV battery materials in Nebraska, where NioCorp has emphasized other uses for the materials, especially in the U.S. military thus appealing to a prevailing local sense of patriotism. 
2. Embrace full-value mining.  Identifying innovative ways to process rocks to extract other metals and minerals from existing mines, like Rio Tinto has successfully done with its tellurium extraction process in the context of its Kennecott copper operations in Utah, can help reduce waste and improve economics. 
3. Harness tailings and waste streams. Technologies like those developed by companies like Nth Cycle and Phoenix Tailings enable miners to extract critical minerals from discarded rock and other mine waste streams, allowing for the strengthening of domestic supply chains while improving remediation efforts.
4. Confront the past to build the future. With between 68% and 97% of U.S. cobalt, copper, lithium and nickel reserves located within 35 miles of Native American reservations, meaningful ongoing engagement with Native American communities, who suffered in the 19^th and early 20^th century quest for mineral wealth, cannot be sidestepped.

As Wilson Lomax and Bazilian say:

“A domestic supply chain for critical minerals cannot be built from Washington, D.C., with the stroke of a pen. It requires strong state and local engagement too.” 

Thankfully, the U.S. mining industry has already begun to embrace and implement these concepts and can build on them going forward. (See ARPN’s recent coverage on the industry’s effort to “turn the same stone twice” here and here). In the meantime, policy stakeholders must do their part to devise a policy framework conducive to harnessing our nation’s vast mineral resources.  Permitting reform is an important part of this, but so is promoting and fostering a pro-mining culture among their constituencies.

After all, as the authors close:

“It’s not a one-way street. Consumers and communities who demand clean energy technologies should also care about the supply chains for those technologies.

Support for climate action is support for mining — it’s just a matter of where, when and how that mining takes place.”

The global push towards net zero carbon emissions against the backdrop of rising geopolitical tensions and associated supply chain challenges has undoubtedly directed stakeholder attention to the need to reduce vulnerabilities associated with an over-reliance on metals and minerals from adversary nations, especially China.

Of course, the challenges of detangling supply chains and decoupling from China, which has long controlled various supply chain segments of many metals and minerals deemed critical are immense, and warrant a comprehensive all-of-the-above approach to mineral resource security.

Thankfully, the United States is home to vast mineral resources. Technological advances in the context of the materials science revolution allow the mining sector to efficiently and sustainably harness this often untapped potential – and as ARPN has reported, the U.S. Government has taken several important steps to support these important efforts.

A notable example of such efforts is the series of (Defense Production Act) DPA Presidential Determinations involving specific Critical Minerals, beginning with President Trump’s July 2019 designation of the Rare Earth permanent magnet supply chain as being “essential for the national defense,” followed by President Biden’s designation of what ARPN calls the “Battery Criticals” as DPA Title III eligible in March 2022, followed by Platinum and Palladium in a DPA Presidential Determination in June 2022.  Earlier this spring, two further Presidential Determinations (February 27, 2023 Presidential Determination, and DPA Presidential Determination (2023-5)), effectively created an entirely new category of critical minerals – “Defense Criticals” as ARPN calls them – by way of designating airbreathing engines, advanced avionics navigation and guidance systems, and hypersonic systems and their “constituent materials” as priority DPA materials.

Those DPA actions, funded by Congressional appropriations, are now producing Department of Defense funded projects to encourage domestic development of these “defense criticals” and their supply chains.

Idaho-based Perpetua Resources, whose Stibnite Gold Project in central Idaho is home to one of the largest reserves of antimony – a critical mineral for which the U.S. is currently more than 80% import reliant — finds itself at the front end of DPA-funded projects. According to estimates, the project could conceivably supply about 35% of U.S. antimony demand during the first six years of production.

Having been awarded two grants of $100,000 from the DoD’s Defense Logistics Agency to support efforts to evaluate whether antimony from stibnite can meet military specifications for use in munitions, Perpetua Resources later became the first recipient of a critical minerals award through the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Industrial Base Policy’s Defense Production Act (DPA) Investments Program, obtaining a $24.8 million grant to complete environmental and engineering studies necessary to obtain a Final Environmental Impact Statement, a Final Record of Decision, and other ancillary permits for its Stibnite-Gold.

With analysts reporting that Perpetua Resources is on track to successfully conclude the environmental impact statement process, earlier in August the company was further awarded a Technology Investment Agreement of $15.5M to develop a wholly domestic supply chain of antimony trisulfide of military-grade Stibnite ore.

While Perpetua Resources’ antimony project is at the front end of DPA-funded projects, others are also underway.

In June of this year,  the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Industrial Base Policy (OASD(IBP)), through its Manufacturing Capability Expansion and Investment Prioritization (MCEIP) office entered into an agreement with Jervois Mining USA, a subsidiary of Jervois Global Limited, to conduct feasibility studies to expand cobalt extraction in Idaho under Defense Production Act Title III authorities. A component of munitions and aerospace alloys, cobalt is also a battery critical used in high-capacity batteries for military and commercial electric vehicles.

One month later this summer, the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Base Policy, through its Manufacturing Capability Expansion and Investment Prioritization office awarded Graphite One, which seeks to advance its Graphite Creek project near Nome, Alaska to provide a fully integrated North American supply chain of the battery critical graphite, for which the U.S. is also currently 100% import dependent, a $37.5M grant under DPA Title III authorities to accelerate the feasibility study for the project.

While increased domestic production for critical minerals alone may not suffice to fully solve our nation’s critical mineral woes – hence ARPN’s support for an all-of-the-above approach to mineral resource security — there are promising domestic resource development projects that can go a long way to significantly reducing vulnerabilities in the short to medium term, and ARPN will continue tracking these DoD-funded projects as they begin to bear fruit.

Against the backdrop of surging demand in the context of the green energy transition and rising geopolitical tensions, India recently stepped up its critical mineral resource policy game. Along with releasing a comprehensive Critical Minerals List, consisting of 30 metals and minerals considered critical for India’s clean technology goals, the country’s government announced its joining of [...]

A new report released this month by the Energy Transition Commission, an international think tank comprising a coalition of leaders from across the energy landscape committed to achieving net-zero emissions by mid-century, has identified supply gaps for six materials key to green energy technology and calls for increased investment in the supply chain to stave [...]

As demand for the metals and minerals underpinning the green energy transition continues to surge, the pressure is on for miners to find, explore and develop scores of critical minerals.  Thankfully, the materials science revolution continues to bear fruit, allowing resource companies to employ cutting-edge technology in the quest to meet ever-increasing demand for electric vehicles, [...]

While lithium remains the poster child of the green energy transition, stakeholders and media have started to pay closer attention to the other four “battery criticals” graphite, cobalt, nickel and manganese (for more ARPN coverage click on the respective metal) — and rightfully so. However, one of the key components of 21st century renewable energy technology, copper, often continues to fly under the radar [...]

When it comes to the metals and minerals underpinning the green energy transition, Lithium, not surprisingly has become the obvious poster child. After all, one of the key technologies in the context of the EV revolution is lithium-ion battery technology. However, as followers of ARPN well know, there is more to the story, and more than [...]

It’s back to the grind. The parades, barbecues, pool parties and fireworks to mark this year’s Independence Day are over.  There’s much to be thankful for, especially at a time when the impact of Russia’s war on Ukraine, now in its second year, reverberates around the globe and geopolitical tensions continue to mount. ARPN has always used [...]

As nations all across the globe scramble to secure critical mineral supply chains against the backdrop of surging demand in the context of the green energy transition and rising geopolitical tensions, India is stepping up its critical mineral resource policy game. This week, the Indian Ministry of Mines released a comprehensive Critical Minerals List, consisting of 30 [...]

The West is getting serious about reducing its vulnerabilities against the backdrop of an increased threat of China weaponizing its control of critical materials supply chains. As the Financial Times reports, the Minerals Security Partnership, convened by the U.S. in June of 2022 which encompasses 12 countries plus the European Union, is planning to release by [...]