American resources

A sad, but not surprising, news story made its way across the wires this morning.  North Korea’s Kim Jong Il has approved a swap of sorts with its northern neighbor, China. The agreement will bring Chinese fertilizer and corn to his country’s famine-ravaged Hermit Kingdom in exchange for ceding to China rights to develop North Korea’s Rare Earths deposits.  As the source commented, “It’s quite a profit for China….”

How soon new North Korean supplies will factor into rare earths production is not known. What is clear, however, is that China continues to seek new means to leverage its existing near-monopoly over a critical metal.  How will the U.S. and the world’s industrial democracies respond?

Earlier this week, ResourcefulEarth.org picked up on our initial calling out of a week-long campaign the environmental Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) Earthworks ran against the mining industry. Read our original post from August 12 here. The site’s follow-up post included a couple of take action items for its community, and we’d like to encourage our supporters to do the same.

Those who support exploring non-fuel mineral resources (that’s us!) deserve to present their factually-based information before the EPA and the Administration. Let’s be the voice of reason before the federal government by knowledgeably explaining that over-regulation is not the answer to providing mining jobs and national security.

Please take a few minutes to send a letter to the EPA on this issue. It is pre-written by the people from Resourceful Earth, and it clearly explains the situation. After taking the action, we would also encourage you to share this letter-writing campaign with your networks.

You may send a letter by email to the EPA Administrator, Lisa Jackson, by clicking here.

If you haven’t had the chance to visit our experts page yet, we’d like for you to meet two of the people who joined the American Resources panel of thought leaders and industry experts from the very start. Gareth Hatch is a founding principal of Technology Metals Research, LLC.  An authority in the area of [...]

Two Alaska mining projects may begin production ahead of schedule thanks to priority permits granted by the U.S. Forest Service. As reported by the website ResourcefulEarth.org, the agency approved exploratory drilling permits for Ucore Rare Metals Inc.’s Bokan Mountain site in Southeast Alaska, which is expected to develop rare earths as well as potentially high [...]

As reported by Resourceful Earth, two Alaska mining projects may begin production ahead of schedule thanks to priority permits granted by the U.S. Forest Service.  The agency approved exploratory drilling permits for Ucore Rare Metals Inc.’s Bokan Mountain site in Southeast Alaska, which is expected to develop rare earths as well as potentially high grade [...]

Making national headlines this week, the Elk Creek, Neb. rare earths and niobium prospecting site (we’ve talked about it here and here) may finally be getting the attention it deserves.  The Northwest Mining Association also recently covered this topic on their blog at TheMoreYouDig.com.  With all of this newfound attention, however, comes the larger issue [...]

A critical component for steel manufacturers to produce high strength, low alloy steels, niobium is making an entrance in the United States, as Canada-based Quantum Rare Earths is looking to develop the resource at its Elk Creek Carbonatite Project in Nebraska, which is also rich in rare earths. With niobium not having been commercially mined [...]

Citing a lack of technological and economic feasibility, experts, including American Resources expert Gareth Hatch, recently dispelled a myth created by some journalists that the solution to China’s stranglehold on rare earths lies in a REE discovery below the surface of the Pacific Ocean.  However, technical issues are just part of the story. Our very [...]

We have been fortunate to be able to announce several additions to the American Resources panel of experts recently, and this week is no exception: Dr. Robert Latiff, a retired U.S Air Force Major General, is Research Professor and Director of the Intelligence and Security Research Center at George Mason University.  In May, Dr. Latiff [...]

Arguing that China’s near-total rare earths monopoly is only the tip of the iceberg and an indicator of what’s to come, Michael A. Barry’s most recent edition of Morning Notes (a free subscription bulletin from DiscoveryInvesting), discusses “The Coming Resource Wars.” Barry quotes our very own Daniel McGroarty, who has said: But the Rare Earths [...]