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You need “stuff” to make “stuff.”  It’s a simple concept, but one that is all too often forgotten. As ARPN’s Dan McGroarty wrote in a 2015 Forbes op-ed coauthored with then-CEO of mining advisory firm Behre Dolbear Karr McCurdy:

“[A]s a precursor to sound policy, the nation needs a change in mind-set: It’s time to remind ourselves that life as we know it is made possible by the inventive use of metals and minerals. Smart phones, the Cloud, the Internet: These things may seem to work by magic, but quite often the backbone of high-tech is mineral and metal, not fairy dust.”

While there has been some movement on the federal policy front since then, many still fail to fully grasp the above-stated fundamental. Against the backdrop of the current discussion over copper development in Minnesota, Jim Bowyer, an environmental consultant and emeritus professor in the Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering at the University of Minnesota, tries to set the record straight in a piece for the Star Tribune.

Writes Bowyer:

“In all of the discussion about copper mining in Minnesota, there is a remarkable lack of references to copper consumption within our state. At the same time that wind and solar energy expansion and electric vehicles are being enthusiastically promoted, the critical role of copper (and nickel) to these developments is never mentioned.”

He points to the increased usage of copper in renewable energy ranging from wind turbines over solar collectors to electric vehicles, all of which is fueling demand for the metal, and draws attention to our reliance on foreign supplies of copper.

Opponents of copper development projects, he argues, are quick to point to the environmental risks of copper mining, but “in none of [the states that are home to copper development], more anywhere else in the U.S., is there citizen opposition to copper consumption (…).”  Somewhat facetiously, Bowyer suggests that “[a] return to the Obama-era 20-year moratorium on copper mining in Minnesota, as advocated by some, should perhaps be accompanied by a 20-year moratorium on the development and adoption of renewable energy and electric vehicles, and by a concerted investment to find copper (and nickel) substitutes. 

His bottom line is that we can’t have our cake and eat it, too:

“Society must come to grips with its aversion to copper procurement even as it celebrates the promise of new copper-dependent products and technologies designed to protect and enhance environmental quality. While taking reasonable steps to protect our domestic environment, we must find a way to shoulder our fair share of risks in obtaining the copper we need — or we must take steps to create a future in which less rather than more copper is needed.”

Click here to read the full piece.

It’s that time of the year again – we load up our shopping carts with fireworks and burger buns, and gear up for parades to honor of the men and women who have fought, and continue our safeguard our freedom today. Many of us will have already traveled this week – and according to AAA, a record-breaking 46.9 million Americans are expected to travel 50 miles or more away from home this Independence Day holiday.

Holiday travel, as much fun as it can be, is often fraught with a certain level frustration, some of which may be owed to our crumbling infrastructure. Bridges, roads and highways have become the poster child – but they’re only the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

As ARPN’s Dan McGroarty wrote last year:

“[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, as we pointed out previously, are as diverse as they are real, and dealing with them requires 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.”

All of which brings us back to our Independence Day theme. Over the past few years, we have used the occasion of Independence Day to remind ourselves that “while we cherish the freedom we are blessed with in so many ways, we must not become complacent, as there are areas where we’re increasingly becoming less independent” – with our reliance on foreign mineral resources being a case in point.

We point now as in years past to a troubling trend, as for decades, our reliance on foreign non-fuel minerals has significantly increased both in terms of number and type, as well as percentage of import reliance.

Thankfully, this year’s narrative may be changing, as a comprehensive effort to reduce our often unnecessary and largely homemade mineral import dependence is underway. The recently-released Department of Interior list of 35 metals and minerals deemed critical for our national security is a good starting point,as is the attachment of the Amodei critical minerals bill as an amendment to the 2018/2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Unfortunately, the U.S. Senate has since passed NDAA language which excludes the Amodei amendment.

As the latest Senate developments show, much will depend on how policy makers and stakeholders follow through on their commitments. Paying mere lip service to previously stated lofty goals will not suffice. We can neither maintain our modern economy nor rebuild our infrastructure without a steady supply of metals and minerals. There are several reasons why we will likely never achieve full resource independence – but that does not mean we shouldn’t strive towards reducing policy barriers to the responsible harnessing of our domestic resources.

As Dan McGroarty put it several years ago:

“Those we do not possess here at home, we must source from other countries. But those we possess but choose not to produce perpetuate a needless foreign dependence – leverage that other nations may well use to America’s disadvantage.”

On the eve of this year’s Independence Day, the momentum for meaningful policy reform is finally here — and too much is at stake to let it slip.

Sometimes the title says it all: “Copper and cars: Boom goes beyond electric vehicles,” writes Mining.com contributor Frik Els. And indeed, while there is some uncertainty in light of the specter of a trade war looming between the United States and China, triggering a market pullback, the longer term outlook for Copper remains “rosy” precisely [...]

In his latest installment of “Critical Minerals Alaska” – a feature series for North of 60 Mining News that “investigates Alaska’s potential as a domestic source of minerals deemed critical to the United States,” Shane Lasley takes a closer look at Cobalt, one of the key metals underpinning the current EV technology revolution. Once an [...]

“Identifying which minerals are ‘critical’ is the easy part. Working out what to do about them is going to be much harder.”  – That’s the conclusion Reuters columnist Andy Home draws in his recent piece on the current Administration’s efforts to develop a strategy to reduce import reliance for metals considered “critical to the economic and [...]

Heavily quoting from ARPN’s statement on the issue, The Daily Caller’s Michael Bastasch earlier this month reported on the Department of the Interior’s finalized list of minerals deemed critical for U.S. national security. Writes Bastasch: “President Donald Trump’s administration’s release of a list of 35 critical minerals highlights just how reliant the U.S. is on [...]

At ARPN, we have long touted Copper’s versatility – its traditional uses, new applications and Gateway Metal status – but for those who still struggle to see more in Copper than your old school industrial metal, some visual help has arrived in the form of yet another impressive infographic from Visual Capitalist. The comprehensive infographic [...]

Last week, the Department of the Interior released its finalized Critical Mineral list. In spite of calls to include various additional metals and minerals (see ARPN principal Daniel McGroarty’s public comments on the issue here) DOI decided to stick with its pool of 35 minerals deemed critical from a national security perspective. “With the list [...]

The Department of the Interior released its final list of Critical Minerals today. The following is ARPN principal Daniel McGroarty’s statement on the list: “DOI issued its final list of Critical Minerals, unchanged at 35.  What we see is the degree of US dependency – the US is 100% import-dependent for 14 of the 35 [...]

While just a few short years ago, Rare Earth Element coverage dominated non-fuel mineral resource news cycles, it is the metals and minerals that fuel electric vehicle and battery technology that are making headlines these days. Here, the spotlight has been on Cobalt, Lithium, and, to a lesser extent, Nickel and associated supply and demand [...]