However, as followers of ARPN well know, the challenges of detangling supply chains and decoupling from adversary nations, i.e. China, are immense, and warrant a comprehensive all-of-the-above approach to mineral resource security.

A recent policy event in Washington, DC has brought the focus back to an area that holds great promise for the U.S. as it seeks to re-shore its critical mineral supply chains: Alaska.

A two-day summit hosted las week by the Department of Energy Arctic Energy Office, the Wilson Center, Rand Corp. and the University of Alaska entitled “Critical Minerals in the Arctic: Forging the Path Forward” brought together state and federal policy leaders – including ARPN’s Dan McGroarty, who served as co-moderator of one of the non-public panels — to advance “policy recommendations for development of critical mineral resources in the Arctic, in the context of U.S. national security, energy, climate, and technology goals.” 

The event built upon an inaugural August 2022 conference entitled “Alaska’s Minerals: A Strategic National Imperative” hosted by the University of Alaska, U.S. Arctic Research Commission and the Wilson Center, which coincided with a USGS announcement that the state was slated to receive more than $6.75 million in funding for geologic mapping, airborne geophysical surveying, and geochemical sampling in support of critical mineral resource studies in the state.

The funding has merit.

As Brett Watson, assistant professor of applied and natural resource economics at the Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of Alaska, Anchorage, Steven Masterman, affiliate of University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and Erin Whitney, Director of the Arctic Energy office, U.S. Department of Energy wrote in a “read ahead document” for the event,

“Alaska’s complex geological history has led to formation of a wide array of mineral deposit types containing commodities many list as critical. Alaska either has, is, or could produce almost all of the commodities on the US Geological Survey’s 2022 list of critical minerals. Alaska is the largest producer of zinc in the nation, contains the nation’s largest graphite deposit, is the state with the only domestic tin resources and, has been a producer of critical minerals in times of national need, e.g. During WWII Alaska contributed tin, PGE’s, chrome, tungsten and antimony for the war effort. Most of the commodities produced to support the war effort have not been significantly produced since, and the resources remain in place, creating a ripe environment for meeting the nations need for these critical minerals.”

Keynoting the event’s second day, Alaskan U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski cited China’s recent decision to impose export restrictions on gallium and germanium as a real time example of critical minerals really being our nation’s “Achilles Heel.”   While acknowledging that progress has been made – Murkowski cited the U.S. government’s Critical Minerals List and key pieces of federal legislation such as her American Mineral Security Act, the bipartisan infrastructure package, some “gentle” permitting reforms of which we need more, the Inflation Reduction Act and the Defense Production Act of 2022 — but acknowledged that all of these steps are merely a beginning, and that more must be done.

Chiefly among the things that need to be done, according to Murkowski, are more mapping, more permitting reform, “opening more valves of federal support,” and “maybe learn[ing] on the fly when it comes to processing and refining.” Perhaps equally important, she said, was turning the tide of public opinion, which too often is “agnostic or downright hostile to mining.”

Murkowski cited the example of natural graphite, for which the United States has long been 100% import dependent as one of the promising opportunities Alaska holds for reducing our overreliance via the Graphite Creek deposit owned by Graphite One, Inc., which USGS has deemed the largest U.S. graphite deposit and among the largest in the world.  With Alaska home to many critical minerals, the Senator called on stakeholders and the policy community to engage in more dialogue and devise ways in which federal policy could support and strengthen projects like Graphite One’s, because the issue of critical mineral resource security is “too key to Alaska’s future, it’s too key to our country’s future.” 

Here’s hoping that stakeholders are listening.

The Wilson Center provides publications related to the conference, as well as complete video streaming on its website and on its YouTube channel, and will make proceedings from the tabletop exercise and briefs from the working sessions publicly available once finalized. 

The post Alaska Holds Key to Addressing Our Nation’s “Achilles Heel” – Conference Shifts Policy Community’s Focus on Critical Minerals in the Arctic appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

As Australia’s Financial Post reports, the Australian government has completed a mapping project of sites containing mine waste with reprocessing potential.

The “Atlas of Australian Mine Waste“ was launched this week by Geoscience Australia in partnership with RMIT University, the University of Queensland, as well as geological surveys across the country.

As Minister for Resources and Northern Australia Madeleine King stated, “[s]ome of the minerals we need now, and into the future, may not just be in the ground—they’re also in rock piles and tailings on mine sites around the country.”

She added:

“These minerals might not have been of interest when first extracted but could now be in hot demand as the world seeks to decarbonize—for example, cobalt in the tailings of old copper mines.”

Acknowledging the potential held by mine waste and tailings, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) earlier this spring solicited proposals for FY2023 grants to collect data on mine waste, using funds from Bipartisan Infrastructure Act in the context of the Earth Mapping Resources Initiative (Earth MRI).

Earth MRI provides more than $74 million in new mapping funding each year to “modernize our understanding of the Nation’s fundamental geologic framework and improve knowledge of domestic critical-mineral resources both still in the ground and in mine waste.”

As announced this May, more than $5.8 million will go towards mapping critical-mineral resources in Alaska in partnership with the Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys. Minerals included in the context of USGS and the Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Survey research projects Alaska are: Arsenic, antimony, bismuth, cobalt, graphite, indium, platinum group metals, rare earth elements tantalum, tellurium and tin.

Miners have long realized the potential of reprocessing tailings, and have already “made a business out of reprocessing old mine waste to extract metal, as part of a mine remediation process,” as the Financial Post reports.  Many efforts have sprung up in recent years, and we’re featuring a few examples below:

In Australia, New Century Resources currently owns and runs the largest tailings retreatment operation at its zinc tailings retreatment operation in Queensland.

In the rare earths realm, Reuters lists six major projects outside of China aimed at extracting the critical minerals from waste or byproducts, including Iluka Resources Ltd’s and VHM Ltd’s operations in Australia, Rainbow Rare Earths Ltd’s endeavor in northeast South Africa, Swedish state-owned LKAB’s plans to extract REEs from two existing mines, and two U.S. operations:

Phoenix Tailings, a privately held U.S. company plans to launch operations using waste materials from a former iron ore mine in New York using its own processing technology.

U.S. Energy Fuels, originally focused on uranium production, started acquiring monazite, a byproduct of mineral sands, to extract REEs with plans to open its own separation plant by 2024.

Global miner Rio Tinto began producing tellurium at its Kennecott copper operation in Utah, where roughly 20 tons of the material are generated from by-product streams generated during the copper refining process. As America’s oldest copper mine, now in its 117^th year of operations, there’s no telling how many critical minerals may reside in Kennecott’s historic waste piles.

In addition to recovering tellurium from Kennecott, after commencing production of battery-grade lithium from waste rock at a lithium demonstration site at its Boron mine site in California in 2021, the company last fall began partnering with CR Minerals Co. LLC in an effort to extract a material called pozzolans from the facility’s tailings, which can be substituted for or combined with cement to decarbonization construction materials. Meanwhile, in Canada, the miner is producing scandium from titanium waste, becoming the first North American producer of scandium in the process.

As the materials science revolution marches on and continues to unlock new technologies allowing for the safe and commercially viable recovery of mine waste tailings, harnessing this – to date largely untapped — potential could play a significant role in a comprehensive “all-of-the-above” approach to bolstering critical mineral supply chains.

The post Turning the Same Stone Twice: Governments, Miners Turn to Mine Tailings to Bolster Critical Mineral Supply Chains appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

Followers of ARPN have long known that the path to net zero leads through the critical minerals sector, and U.S. stakeholders have begun to realize that there is no greening our energy future without vast amounts of rare earths, the “battery criticals” lithium, cobalt, graphite, nickel, and manganese (as well as scores of other metals and minerals once considered mainstay or niche).   These “super-criticals” – the five battery materials, plus a sub-set of five rare earths required for permanent magnets (neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, terbium and samarium) – comprise a group of 10 Criticals within the 50 Critical Minerals on the official U.S. Government list.

In an increasingly volatile geopolitical environment, critical mineral security is more than just a gateway to the green energy transition, it is also a national security imperative.  While the United States is fortunate to have vast mineral riches beneath our own soil, we have fallen behind in the global race to secure supply chains and have yielded much ground to adversary nations like China who have cornered many segments of the value chain.

First steps to decouple supply chains from China have been taken, but more must be done.

Tying into this context, the White House has explicitly acknowledged the importance of developing critical minerals and cutting greenhouse gas emissions while promoting Indigenous rights, national security and the environment in its recently-released National Strategy for the Arctic Region — a region rich in metals and minerals to which the United States stakes its claim via Alaska, which in turn is home to many of the materials deemed “critical” by the U.S. Government.

According to the National Strategy, U.S. Government agencies “will seek to strengthen the resilience of U.S. supply chains by exploring the potential for sustainable and responsible critical mineral production in Alaska while adhering to the highest environmental, labor, community engagement, and sustainability standards.” In the broader Arctic region, agencies “will work with our allies and partners—including through the potential use of relevant U.S. Government mechanisms and development programs, such as the Export-Import Bank, U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, and U.S. Trade and Development Agency—to expand private sector-led investment and pursue sustainable economic development in the Arctic, including in critical minerals.” 

While both U.S. Senators from Alaska lament that the National Strategy falls short (both point to the fact that recent Administration decisions regarding specific Alaska resource projects run counter to the expressed strategic goals), the fact that critical mineral security is considered a formal strategic objective, is a positive development on which stakeholders can build.

With geopolitical tensions rising and climate pressures mounting, the focus on the Arctic — a region in which Russia accounts for half of the landmass — is both unavoidable and highly warranted.  The United States Government would be well advised to follow through on the strategic objectives outlined in the strategy, and harness the vast mineral potential it can unleash in Alaska.

A case in point, as we recently outlined:

“Right now, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, the U.S. is 100% import-dependent for graphite.  But that’s not for lack of known graphite resources.  As USGS noted in February 2022 in its updated U.S. Mineral Deposit Database, Graphite One’s Graphite Creek deposit near Nome, Alaska is America’s largest graphite deposit.  If U.S. Government efforts to develop an American-based EV and lithium-ion battery supply chain have any hope of succeeding, looking for ways to help projects like Graphite Creek down the path to production will be, in a word…. Critical.”

***To keep up with Alaska critical mineral developments, be sure to follow North of 60 Mining News’s Shane Lasley, whose work ARPN has featured frequently.***

The post Critical Minerals and the National Strategy for the Arctic Region appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

Following on the heels of the Biden Administration invoking the Defense Production Act for the “Battery Criticals” – lithium, cobalt, graphite, nickel and manganese – the energy provisions in the just passed Inflation Reduction Act are indications that this urgency has begun to resonate with U.S. policymakers, and sends a strong signal to investors that the U.S. is serious about “building the secure, responsible industrial base our economy and national security needs.”

Faced with mounting pressures in the global push towards renewable energy, automakers have been taking steps of their own to build out American EV battery manufacturing.

Toyota, which is building a cell-production facility in North Carolina, has announced an additional investment of $2.5 billion on top of the already committed $1.3 billion.  South Korean battery maker LG and Japanese automaker Honda have announced an investment of $4.4 billion into a joint venture in the United States, with mass production of advanced lithium-ion battery cells to start by the end of 2025.  Panasonic is considering a $4 billion investment into constructing a plant in Oklahoma, and north of the border, recent public filings indicate that Tesla is looking to set up a new advanced manufacturing facility in Canada.

Friends of ARPN can guess what comes next.  As the Wall Street Journal’s Stephen Wilmot wrote last week, “[a]ll this means car makers can perhaps start to relax where they will get EV batteries. The tougher question now is where they will get battery materials.” He adds: “[a]nother wave of investment in inputs such as processed lithium and nickel needs to follow – and with a new urgency.”

As ARPN already pointed out, the Inflation Reduction Act’s requirement that will exclude EVs with material inputs from “foreign entities of concern” from eligibility for the $7,500 tax credit included in the bill, poses a serious challenge because the auto industry is so heavily reliant on battery materials and components from China.  With China being the global hub for battery-mineral refining, says Wilmot, “this will be hard for automakers to work around.”

Not surprisingly, automakers are increasingly lobbying governments to reform the U.S. mine permitting system.  Metal Tech News’s Shane Lasley points to a recent letter penned by Ford Motor Company’s chief government affairs officer Christopher Smith to the U.S. Department of Interior, in which he laments that “[t]oday’s lengthy, costly and inefficient permitting process makes it difficult for American businesses to invest in the extraction and processing of critical minerals in the United States.” Smith calls on the federal government to alleviate the challenges within the U.S. mine permitting framework, which Ford considers “unacceptable and well beyond the requirements facing Australian and Canadian companies, where responsible mining is a given and a prerequisite for obtaining mining permits.”

However, this is far from the only challenge automakers and the mining sector are faced with in their quest to support the green energy transition, as an inter-departmental “tug-o-war” is adding fuel to the fire.  As Lasley writes in an equally insightful piece:

“While the departments of Commerce, Defense, and Energy are forging ahead with programs and investments aimed at ensuring America has the minerals and metals needed to support the clean energy objectives outlined by the White House, and enabled by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act, DOI is pumping the breaks on a domestic project that would produce the requisite raw materials.

The Interior Department’s yanking of the permits to build a road that would connect the rich deposits of cobalt, copper, zinc, and other metals in Alaska’s Ambler Mining District to markets demanding sustainable supplies of these mined materials underscores a disconnect within the Biden Administration.”

Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy had lamented DOI’s lack of acknowledgement of Alaska as a potential source and blasted the Ambler Mining District decision and called for federal permitting reform during the recent critical minerals summit held in Alaska, which we covered here:

“This administration must speak with one voice. It wants critical minerals, or it doesn’t. It wants the lower energy prices, or it doesn’t.  It wants to create jobs in the U.S. or it doesn’t.  It wants to protect the environment or it doesn’t. It cares about human rights, or it doesn’t. (…) The disjointed federal permitting process doesn’t just hurt Alaskans (…), it hurts every industry, and every state. (…) 

If we set ambitious goals for EVs or renewables without permitting the production of critical minerals here, those minerals will still be produced, they just won’t be produced in here in America or Alaska, they’ll be produced by child labor, potentially, they’ll be produced without environmental standards, potentially, they’ll be produced at the expense of the American worker, to the benefit, potentially, of our adversaries.”  

As for the IRA bill, the Wall Street Journal points out, “[h]ow far and how fast EV and battery makers need to scramble [to meet the law’s requirements] depends on how the Treasury Department interprets the Inflation Reduction Act. This process, which will be subject to intense lobbying over the coming months, could weaken some of the strings attached.”

However, the pressure to diversify supply chains away from adversaries is here to stay – and with that, the federal government will have to take steps to foster greater predictability in the mining sector to unleash the United States’ mineral potential.  As U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski told attendees of last month’s Alaska critical minerals summit, the rest of the world won’t wait for us, and “other countries” are moving now to implement “longer-term policies that allow them to focus on what it means to be sticking with a policy, and a view, and a vision towards dominance.”

The post As Automakers Scramble to Build Out EV Manufacturing, Calls for Mine Permitting Reform Get Louder appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

Entitled “Alaska’s Minerals: A Strategic National Imperative,” the summit addressed ways in which Alaska’s vast critical mineral potential, which ARPN has frequently pointed to, could be harnessed to diversify America’s critical mineral supply chains.

U.S. Senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan kicked off the proceedings, arguing that Alaska has many of the metals and minerals deemed critical by the U.S. government, while stressing the need for federal permitting changes for Alaska to be able to supply the materials underpinning the sought-after green energy transition.   Said Sen. Murkowski:

“We have the resources. We have resources other states clearly don’t have….  What we need is the ability to be able to access those resources in a way that allows us to be competitive.”

Senator Sullivan looked back to an earlier Critical Minerals summit in Alaska in 2012 – Sullivan was at that time Alaska’s Commissioner of the Department of Natural Resources – and cited our ARPN Risk Assessment, a sober reminder that while momentum is building in 2022, it has been a long journey bringing critical minerals into the public consciousness and public policy debate.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy, keynoting the event on Tuesday, echoed this sentiment his remarks while highlighting specific projects in the state that could play a vital role in “securing our national security and economic growth by providing the critical minerals needed for the energy transition that we see is well underway.”

While welcoming President Joe Biden’s invocation of the Defense Production Act to spur domestic development of the “battery criticals” – lithium, cobalt, graphite, nickel and manganese — the governor lamented the Administration’s lack of acknowledgement of Alaska as a potential source of critical minerals for securing U.S. supply chains, along with an earlier Administration decision to suspend a previously granted federal right-of-way for a prominent Alaskan mining project.

Governor Dunleavy added:

“This administration must speak with one voice. It wants critical minerals, or it doesn’t. It wants the lower energy prices, or it doesn’t.  It wants to create jobs in the U.S. or it doesn’t.  It wants to protect the environment or it doesn’t. It cares about human rights, or it doesn’t. (…) The disjointed federal permitting process doesn’t just hurt Alaskans (…), it hurts every industry, and every state. (…) 

If we set ambitious goals for EVs or renewables without permitting the production of critical minerals here, those minerals will still be produced, they just won’t be produced in here in America or Alaska, they’ll be produced by child labor, potentially, they’ll be produced without environmental standards, potentially, they’ll be produced at the expense of the American worker, to the benefit, potentially, of our adversaries.”  

Sen. Murkowski suggested that the federal government take steps to foster “predictability” in the mining sector to unleash the state’s mineral potential, arguing that “other countries” would “in place longer-term policies that allow them to focus on what it means to be sticking with a policy, and a view, and a vision towards dominance.”

ARPN’s Daniel McGroarty, speaking on Monday, also offered his thoughts on the current critical minerals policy discourse.

As a coda to the conference, on the same day the sessions wrapped up, the U.S. Geological Service announced that Alaska will receive more than $6.75 million in funding for geologic mapping, airborne geophysical surveying, and geochemical sampling in support of critical mineral resource studies in the state.

Here’s hoping this is another signal that more positive change is on the way — because, as Senator Sullivan’s reference to our 2012 ARPN Risk Report made clear, while progress has been made, much more remains to be done, and the rest of the world will not wait for us.

For a webcast of Day Two of the event, click here.  (We will update this post once Day One video coverage, which will include McGroarty’s remarks, becomes available as well.)

The post Alaska Critical Minerals Conference: Stakeholders Welcome Progress Thus Far, Call for Federal Permitting Reform and More Predictability in the Mining Space appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

As the stakes for supply chain and mineral resource security continue to rise, ARPN’s Daniel McGroarty will discuss the strategic implications and opportunities to alleviate our over-reliance on supplies from adversary nations during a panel at a  two-day conference hosted by the University of Alaska, in partnership with the Wilson Center and US Arctic Research Commission, held August 22 – August 23.

The two-day summit for policy makers, agency representatives and industry leadership entitled “Alaska’s Minerals: A Strategic National Imperative” will discuss on Alaska’s vast critical mineral potential, which ARPN has frequently pointed to, and will outline the steps needed to harness that potential.

Monday’s panels will focus on “national needs for critical minerals, Alaska’s investment climate and an overview of Alaska’s critical minerals resources,” while Tuesday’s discussions will revolve around “current research in Alaska related to critical minerals and industry needs for development, including workforce and infrastructure.”

ARPN’s McGroarty will share his thoughts with co-panelists from DOE, DoD and an American EV association. Alaska’s U.S. Senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, both of whom have been strong advocates on Capitol Hill of a comprehensive approach to mineral resource security for the United States, will speak, as will as Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy, arguably America’s leading state executive on critical mineral development.

To register for a free livestream provided by the Wilson Center in partnership with the University of Alaska, click here.

The post ARPN’s Daniel McGroarty to Discuss Critical Mineral Policy at Alaska Critical Minerals Conference appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

Thankfully, as Sen. Cruz and Gov. Dunleavy point out, the Trump administration began taking steps towards prioritizing critical mineral resource policy and re-shoring these supply chains in 2017, and has stepped up its efforts once more with the signing of a new presidential executive order declaring a critical minerals national emergency at the end of September of this year.

The task, as the authors point out, is “exponentially more difficult” than keeping existing supply chains in the United States, because China recognized the importance of critical minerals for high-tech economies well before other global players, and has been jockeying for the global pole position in the space ever since. Write Cruz and Dunleavy:

“Bringing the supply chain to the United States requires granular knowledge of the industry, because investors are sitting on the sidelines of the critical minerals industry for different reasons than they’re sitting on the sidelines of the pharmaceutical industry. To fix this, we have to convince investors to get into a market where they are justifiably afraid China will undermine them at every point of the supply chain.”

They point to Sen. Ted Cruz’s ORE Act and Gov. Dunleavy’s executive action to provide financing for REE mining projects in Alaska as examples of market-based incentives which, coupled with regulatory reform can jump-start the much-needed buildout of our nation’s crucial mineral supply chains.

The ORE ACT “provides tax incentives for buying American mined rare earths and battery minerals and metals; strengthens requirements for the Pentagon to source these critical mined materials from the U.S.; and establishes grants for pilot programs to develop these materials in the U.S.”

Sen. Cruz and Gov. Dunleavy insist that “the entire country has a role to play” in the effort to build out a comprehensive domestic critical minerals supply chain – “from the reclamation of mines and reprocessing of mine waste rock in Appalachia, to mines in Texas, Alaska, California and Wyoming. In Alaska alone, 30 of the 35 critical minerals identified by President Trump are available for extraction, as well as tremendous amounts of commercial-grade graphite, lead, zinc and copper.”

Efforts like the ORE Act are gaining traction in Congress, and Alaska – rich in metals and minerals (with 30 of the 35 deemed critical by the Department of the Interior in 2018 available for extraction) — is assuming a leadership role at the state level.

We don’t have a moment to waste. As Sen. Cruz and Gov. Dunleavy argue:

“At any time, China could cut off our access to rare earth elements and critical minerals. We need to act now to establish a critical mineral supply chain in the United States, and to make sure we can manufacture defense technologies and support our military. Our national security depends on it.”

Click here to read the full op-ed.

The post U.S. Senator and AK Governor for The Hill: With China Having Taken Control of Critical Mineral Supply Chains, We Need to Act Now appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

As followers of ARPN may recall, the agency’s 2014 decision represented an unprecedented early action to derail the development of the so-called Pebble Deposit.  In spite of the fact that no permit application or specific plans had been submitted, the agency released a cursory review of the Bristol Bay Watershed in Alaska which sounded the alarm on the possible impact of hypothetical mining – even though previous EPA assertions of such preemptive power had been rebuffed in federal court.

The EPA’s decision to preemptively veto the project before any application had been filed represented a unilateral expansion of EPA powers under section 404(c) of the Clean Water Act.

According to the EPA press release, “the agency can continue its focus on fulfilling its responsibilities under the Clean Water Act to work with the Army Corps to review the permit.”

The release goes on to say:

“Today’s action does not approve Pebble’s permit application or determine a particular outcome in the Corps’ permitting process. Instead, it allows EPA to continue working with the Corps to review the current permit application and engage in the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process.”

As ARPN’s principal Dan McGroarty stated last year : 

“With the growing recognition that the U.S. is dangerously dependent on foreign supply for scores of critical minerals and metals, the need for a predictable permitting process has never been greater. The pre-emptive veto of the Pebble Project casts a chilling effect over resource development in the U.S.  […]to allow a pre-emptive veto to stand is ‘contrary to the spirit of our environmental protection laws, to due process, and to basic fairness.”  

Thus, seeing the preemptive determination revoked is a positive development that will allow due process and a rigorous review to take its course. 

The post EPA Withdrawal of Preemptive Veto of Alaska Strategic Mineral Mining Project Positive Development for Due Process appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

As followers of ARPN know, many of these issues are in fact home-grown, as the United States is home to vast mineral resources beneath our own soil.  In fact, as North of 60 Mining News Editor Shane Lasley pointed out as part of his “Critical Minerals Alaska” feature series, several parts of which we have featured on our blog over the past few months:

“At least 29 of the 35 critical minerals and metals identified by the U.S. Geological Survey – antimony, arsenic, barite, beryllium, bismuth, chromium, cobalt, fluorspar, gallium, germanium, graphite, hafnium, indium, magnesium, manganese, niobium, platinum group metals, rare earth elements, rhenium, rubidium, scandium, tantalum, tellurium, tin, titanium, tungsten, uranium, vanadium and zirconium – are found in Alaska.”

Coming as great news to those looking to get up to speed on the critical mineral issues, North of 60 Mining News is now offering a handy new resource (pun intended):  The publication has combined the individual segments of Lasley’s feature series investigating “Alaska’s potential as a domestic source of minerals deemed critical to the United States,” into a magazine (available as pdf here), and has also dedicated a separate page on its website to “Critical Minerals Alaska.”

The pdf and print version fo the magazine feature several bonus graphics, including a rundown of all the 35 metals and minerals that made the above-referenced Critical Minerals List released by the Department of the Interior in 2018. A second two-page graphic lists the individual rare earth elements – the 15 lanthanides as well as scandium and yttrium. 

It’s going to be a hot summer on the mineral resource issue front.  If you haven’t had a chance to read Lasley’s series, be sure to bookmark the page and grab your own copy of the Critical Minerals Alaska magazine.

The post Resource Alert:  North of 60 Mining News Has Launched “Critical Minerals Alaska” Magazine and Dedicated Webpage appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

Standouts among Niobium’s properties are its “toughness, resistance to corrosion and high melting point [which] makes it an important alloy to steel that will be used in situations where durability is vital.” Its extreme heat resistance when alloyed with steel makes it a key ingredient for superalloys in jet engines, rockets, gas turbines, and turbochargers.

Tantalum shares many of Niobium’s characteristics, but, as Lasley writes, it’s “its exceptional capacity to store and release energy” that sets this twin apart, and has resulted in the fact that “50 percent of the tantalum consumed in the United States was used in capacitors and high-power resistors for the electronics sector.”

Lasley lists several more of the twins’ properties, but for our purposes, suffice it to say they’re indeed quite “indispensable.”

In spite of the fact that the United States is home to both Niobium and Tantalum deposits, neither of them has been produced domestically since the 1950s.  As a result, the U.S. 100% is import dependent for both, with Brazil (pegged at 72 percent for Niobium, 40 percent for Tantalum minerals) and China (pegged at 23 percent for Tantalum metals) listed as lead suppliers by USGS — leaving domestic industries vulnerable to supply disruptions.

Thankfully, there is domestic resource potential that – if properly harnessed, could alleviate these vulnerabilities. Lasley points to several deposits in Alaska that show great potential for domestic development of both Niobium and Tantalum, as well as a number of other metals and minerals deemed critical from an economic and national security perspective.

Whether or not these specific deposits are economically viable remains to be seen, but the fact of the matter is that we need a framework conducive to unleashing this kind of domestic resource potential.

As Mark J. Perry, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a professor of economics and finance at the University of Michigan’s Flint campus recently wrote for the Washington Examiner:

“More than ever before, our political and business leaders need to make it clear that foreign dependence is neither the right nor the necessary way, and exposes the U.S. economy to great and unnecessary risks. An ideal minerals policy would limit regulatory intrusion, promote economic growth, and enable U.S. companies to compete in international markets. Environmentalists will likely resist any regulatory rollbacks. But so profound is the case for strengthening U.S. mining of minerals and metals that our highest priority should be the security and economic dividends from a pro-competitiveness agenda.”

The post The “Indispensable Twins” of Critical Minerals – Niobium and Tantalum appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.