critical minerals

Earlier last month, Australia’s Minister for Resources and Northern Australia Matt Canavan touted the recently-formalized critical minerals partnership with the United States to counter China’s stranglehold on mineral resource supply in an op-ed for The Australian.

In it, he stressed the importance of “developing mature and diverse supply chains of minerals critical to modern life”:

“It took about 1500 years from the end of the Roman Empire to the re-emergence of Rio Tinto as a modern mining company that helped fuel the industrial revolution. The resources industry remains critical to technological progress. The industrial revolution would not have been possible without copper, nickel and bauxite. Modern-day activists might like to campaign against mining, often using phones to communicate their propaganda, while not even realising without mining there would be no Whats­App or wind turbines.” 

To encourage these diverse supply chains of critical minerals and to support the partnership, Australia is looking to  implement several sweeping reforms.  According to the office of Minister for Resources and Northern Australia Matt Canavan, the country is launching the “Critical Minerals Facilitation Office” under the auspices of the Department of Industry aimed at providing assistance to miners as they look to secure investment, financing and market access for critical mineral projects.  The office is set to open on January 1, 2020 with the main focal point being on rare earth projects.

As we recover from collective food coma and return to our desks after a tumultuous Thanksgiving travel week, J. Winston Porter, a former EPA assistant administrator in Washington, reminds us of the importance of keeping the focus on the issues associated with our over-reliance on foreign mineral resources.   

In a new piece for InsideSources, Porter cautions that recycling is no panacea to our critical minerals woes and points out that we have put ourselves at the mercy of “untrustworthy countries for strategically important minerals.” For example, he says, we rely on Chinese imports for 26 of the 48 minerals for which our country is [more than 50%] import-dependent, and, according to the Commerce Department Russia is a significant source of U.S. uranium imports — import reliance for which currently stands at 93%, and may reach 99% by the end of this year.

He argues that we cannot postpone dealing with the problem — and thankfully, first steps are being taken, as followers of ARPN well know.

Responding to potential environmental concerns of new critical mineral mines, Porter points to the fact that mining is not your grandfather’s industry anymore, and that  modern mines “can be designed to protect groundwater quality and not harm the environment.”  He continues: “We will need more mines using improved designs and operating practices — coupled with appropriate regulations — in order to ensure that mining is safe.”

Porter points to Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski’s (R-Alaska) critical mineral legislation to revamp the mine permitting and regulatory process as an important step in the right direction. In closing, he asks (and answers) the overarching question that should guide policy deliberations going forward:

“Do we want China and other countries to control U.S. access to strategically important minerals?  I think the answer is no.”

Click here to read the full piece.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) has signed a project agreement with its Australian counterpart, GeoScience Australia, to jointly develop a “better understanding of both countries’ critical mineral reserves.”  The agreement is the result of ongoing agency-level talks between the United States and Australia and the recent announcement of a forthcoming formal roll out of an “action [...]

“With our eyes wide open, we are putting ourselves in the same vulnerable position [as we did with oil and gas decades ago] when it comes to these [critical] minerals,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) told the audience at “Minerals: The Overlooked Foundation of Our Future,” an event organized by RealClearPolitics in partnership with our friends [...]

While most of the headlines regarding the trade war between the United States and China — and, for ARPN followers, the underlying tech war over who which country will dominate the 21st Century Technology Age — focus on the main players in Washington, DC and Beijing, the ripple effects of this confrontation can be felt [...]

As the tech wars deepen, the United States is — finally — taking important first steps to secure critical mineral resource supply chains both domestically and through cooperative agreements with allied nations like Australia and Canada.  But while the U.S. gears into action, the global scramble for resources is in full swing.  Case in point:  [...]

As the “tech wars” gear up and the “battery arms race” shifts in to higher gears, efforts to promote the securing of domestic critical mineral supply chains are not only underway in policy circles in Washington, DC, but in the private sector as well.  Companies including the world’s top diversified miners are intensifying their R&D efforts [...]

In a recent piece for the Washington Times, ARPN panel of expert member and author of “Groundbreaking!: America’s New Quest for Mineral Independence,” Ned Mamula and columnist and consultant for FreedomWorks Stephen Moore zero in on Uranium. Embedding the discussion in the context of American mining and production of critical minerals in recent decades being “a self-inflicted wound [...]

Critical minerals are a hot button issue.  Materials that long seemed obscure like Rare Earths, Lithium, Cobalt, Graphite, and Nickel have entered the mainstream and are making headlines every day.   Against the backdrop of the ongoing materials science revolution and the intensifying battery arms race, it is only fitting that this month, three pioneers of Lithium-ion battery technology [...]

Earlier this week, ARPN’s Daniel McGroarty shared his views on the coming tech metal age and its policy implications at In the Zone 2019 – Critical Materials: Securing Indo-Pacific Technology Futures – a conference hosted in cooperation with the University of Western Australia to look at critical mineral resource issues through the prism of the [...]