In a piece posted at Oilprice.com Mark P. Mills (via Zerohedge) takes a deep dive into this question.  As Mills points out, with America’s longstanding bond with cars showing no signs of weakening in spite of soaring cost, the push towards widespread adoption of EVs is running into significant challenges in practical application and underlying physics, and, as followers of ARPN well know, a complex mix of chemistry, geology and geopolitics.

Mills laments that the underlying premises of the “ostensible inevitability, the enthusiasm, the subsidies, and the mandates for EVs are anchored in (…) claims (…) that are simply wrong ” –  EVs are not simpler than conventional cars, they just have a complexity of their own, they do not entail less labor to build but rather shift where the labor takes place, and the upstream supply chains, i.e. the sourcing of material inputs, happens “elsewhere since the mines and refineries are not in America.”

Meanwhile, the mineral challenges are significant, says Mills:

“While copper is the long pole in the tent, it is only one of the mineral challenges. The realities of costs and emissions for EVs is dominated by a simple fact: a typical EV battery weighs about 1,000 pounds to replace the fuel, and the tank weighing together under 100 pounds.  That half-ton battery is made from a wide range of minerals including copper, nickel, aluminum, graphite, cobalt, manganese, and of course, lithium. And to get the materials to fabricate that half-ton battery requires digging up and processing some 250 tons of the earth somewhere on the planet. Those numbers, it’s important understand, are roughly the same no matter what the specific battery chemical formulation is, whether it’s lithium nickel manganese, or the popularly cited lithium iron phosphate.”

As the piece points out, the sheer quantity of materials needed “has led proponents to claim that there are, after all enough minerals on the planet and there’s nothing to worry about” – an argument that becomes irrelevant when you consider that “the data show that, overall, the mines operating and planned can’t supply even a small fraction of the 400% to 7,000% increase in demand for minerals that will be needed within a decade to meet the ban-the-engine goals.” 

Ultimately, Mills concludes, that “the realities of physics and engineering mean that politicians pushing for an all-EV future run a high risk. Quite aside from the eventual discovery that EVs will disappoint with only a tiny impact on global CO2 emissions, the bigger impacts will come as consumers find vehicle ownership costs and inconveniences both escalating.”

While this may be true, it appears that, to stay with transportation analogies, the train has left the station.  Politicians are all in for the EV revolution — but to lessen the blow to consumers, they will need to embrace frameworks that will bolster the domestic supply chains for the critical minerals underpinning this shift, across all segments of the value chain.

As the horse and carriage gave way to the “motor carriage” with its superior horsepower, EVs are inexorably redefining the driving experience, even as internal combustion engines co-exist in some manner.  The pace of change will certainly rest on the understanding of the role a host of Critical Minerals play in this transformation – and the willingness to extract them in ways old and new.

The post The EV Transition is Here – But Its Enthusiasts Ignore Its Political and Economic Implications appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

Copper prices may have dropped, however demand for the metal, which is not only a key mainstay metal, but also an indispensable component in green energy technology, is expected to increase drastically to keep pace with the material requirements of the global push towards net zero carbon emissions.

According to the Financial Times, its growing application in this field will result “in it being dubbed the ‘metal of electrification’, with forecasts that it will double to a 50mn tonne market by 2035 compared with 2021 levels, according to S&P Global, which predicts a ‘chronic gap’ between supply and demand.”

While U.S. import reliance for copper hovered around 30 to 35 percent in the 2010s, that number has gone up to more than 40 percent in the 2020s, according to the USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries. 

Miners are pointing out that a confluence of complex permitting timelines, rising inflation and the fact that the commodity is “harder to find in high quantities in the ground” may have led to a situation “where it’s likely there won’t be enough copper to meet decarbonization goals in the next few decades.”

As the Wall Street Journal outlined earlier this month, these circumstances have prompted mining companies to target “a new but also old source – closed mines, also known as brownfield sites.” The Wall Street Journal points to Sweden-based miner Bluelake Mineral, seeking to reopen a mine site in northern Norway that closed 25 years ago, as well as to Rio Tinto’s Resolution Copper project near Superior, Arizona, which is considered one of the most significant undeveloped copper deposits in the world and would reuse the historic Magma Mine which started production in 1910 and operated until 1996. While the project has strong support from the surrounding community, and began the permitting process in 1997, it is still awaiting permits to begin operation.

With Copper becoming increasingly critical in the context of decarbonization efforts – the material has not (yet) been added to the overall U.S. government’s critical minerals list, the Department of Energy recently designated the material a critical material as part of its 2023 Critical Materials Assessment – and with geopolitical volatility reaching heights not seen in decades with this month’s Hamas assault on Israel, securing key mineral supply chains becomes all the more pertinent, and U.S. stakeholders should look to embrace domestic opportunities to unleash our mineral potential where possible.

The post More Mines Needed to Provide Enough Copper, the “Metal of Electrification,” for Green Energy Shift appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

In a new opinion piece published last week, editors argue that while the environmental benefits of the United States’ green energy shift stand to be significant, the geopolitical risks are not to be dismissed – particularly as China dominates key segments of the critical minerals supply chain for many of the materials underpinning clean energy technology.

To minimize reliance on China, the editorial board suggests that stakeholders should “keep calm” and work towards mitigating possible supply shocks by strengthening stockpiling and recycling efforts.    Marking an important shift in the public discourse, which long been rife with hesitation to embrace increased domestic resource development, the Washington Post editors call for a strengthened commitment to U.S.-based mining and mineral processing to reduce geopolitical risk while also demanding permitting reforms to accelerate and update the permitting “red tape.” 

Followers of ARPN well know that the most prudent approach mineral resource security is a comprehensive all-of-the above approach – one that strengthens domestic capacities along all segments of the supply chain while leveraging partnerships with friendly nations.   The Washington Post editors agree – arguing that further friend-shoring deals along the lines of those ARPN has regularly discussed on our blog (see for example here, here and here) could “create and coordinate a free flow of critical minerals among like-minded countries.” 

The authors further invoke a new Aspen Institute task force report which suggests that clarifying standards for prior consultation with tribal nations could help resolve many concerns surrounding domestic resource development, which is preferrable to relying on countries with poor labor and environmental standards.

As the editorial board states:

“Environmentalists should remember: The question is not whether mining will occur but where. If not under regulated conditions in this country, it could well be in places such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, the world’s leading cobalt source. Though companies there have cleaned up their acts recently, working conditions remain poor, and a significant minority of the substance still comes from artisanal mines, often dug by children.”

We hear a great deal about concerning ourselves with our carbon footprint.  Perhaps it’s time to focus on the human rights footprint of the metals and minerals that make our modern world work.

The post Washington Post Editorial Board Calls for All-Of-The-Above Approach to Mineral Resource Security appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

The annual report assesses the criticality of materials to the supply chains in the renewable energy technology sector and focuses on key materials with high risk of supply disruption.

The incorporation of copper into this year’s list marks the first time a U.S. government agency has added the material on one of its official “critical” lists.

While copper is included in several other national lists, including India’s, Canada’s, South Africa’s, and Brazil’s, as well as the European’s most recent critical minerals list, the official comprehensive U.S. Government Critical Minerals List, last updated in 2022, has yet to incorporate copper.

This is not for the lack of pushes to afford the material “critical minerals” status — ranging from public comments submitted to USGS during the drafting process (see Daniel McGroarty’s submission here) over congressional lettersand legislation.

As such the inclusion of the material in the DOE Critical Materials Assessment list represents an important acknowledgement of copper’s key role in 21^st Century technology and the green energy transition.

As Copper Development Association (CDA) CEO Andrew G. Kireta, Jr. said in a statement on the announcement:

“Copper is a major contributor to US economic and national security, and with copper demand projections doubling by 2035, primarily due to plans for the clean energy transition, electrification and clean water infrastructure. The nation would be defenseless without electricity and copper’s vital role in its generation, transmission, and distribution.” 

So copper is now a DOE Critical Material – but not (yet) a U.S. Government Critical Mineral: A bureaucratic distinction that ARPN will watch with interest, as copper demand in a net zero world continues to rise.

The post Bearing Testimony to Its Importance to the Green Energy Shift, DOE Adds Copper to Department’s Critical Materials List appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

However, one of the key components of 21^st century renewable energy technology, copper, often continues to fly under the radar — possibly because many of us take it for granted as a mainstay metal, and because the U.S. Government does not consider copper a Critical Mineral.

Followers of ARPN well know that copper is an irreplaceable component for EVs wind turbines, solar panels, the electric grid and other green applications. Its Gateway Metal status (see ARPNs gateway metal report here) coupled with the material needs in the renewables sector have led to projections that ““[t]he world will need the same amount of copper over the next 25 years that it has produced in the past 500 years if it is to meet global demand.”

A recent Wall Street Journal “News Explainer” video clip, accessible here, explores why copper is crucial to the global economy, and how its availability — or, more precisely, looming supply shortage — threatens the green tech transition.

Meanwhile, in spite of numerous pushes for copper’s addition to the United States government’s Critical Minerals List  – including ARPN’s Daniel McGroarty’s Public Comment responding to the Department of Interior’s draft Critical Mineral List — the United States Geological Survey (USGS) has thus far opted against affording the material “critical mineral” status.

Following the most recent USGS rejection, House Republicans from Western mining states set out to achieve “critical mineral” designation for copper via legislation.  As the WSJ explainer makes clear, the coming supply crunch puts an exclamation point on the case for copper as “critical.”

The post WSJ News Explainer: Looming Copper Shortage Threatens Green Tech Transition appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

If finalized, the proposed rules would require automakers to reduce carbon emissions by 56% in their 2032 models compared to 2026 models.  The expectation is that with the rules in place, 67% of new light-duty car purchases will be electric by 2032.

The move comes at a time when geopolitical and trade tensions between the United States and our allies on one hand, and China on the other are soaring, and observers argue that the ambitious plans could play into Beijing’s hands.

While the United States has taken several important steps to decouple its critical mineral supply chains from China, Beijing, having systematically built out its dominance across the entire value chain from mining over processing to manufacturing, still has a chokehold on the EV battery supply chain, and the latest USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries report confirmed that for all of the recent U.S. policy efforts, our dependencies still persist.

In case anyone needed a reminder, here is an infographic from last November, compiled by our friends at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence clearly visualizing China’s dominance of the battery supply chain.

The Biden Administration has, in recent weeks, stepped up its friend-shoring initiatives to bolster U.S. supply chains, with recent trade deliberations having yielded a free trade Critical Minerals agreement with Tokyo and a likely similar accord between the U.S. and EU. U.S.-Canadian critical minerals cooperation has also seen a boost.

Embedded into a comprehensive “All of the Above” strategy, these friend-shoring initiatives can play an important role in strengthening critical mineral supply chains.  And yet there are mounting concerns that the Biden Administration, in spite of verbal affirmations of wanting to responsibly expand domestic resource development and processing, continues to cater to the “not-in-my-backyard” sentiment, which still runs strong in discussions on resource development.

This brings us back to the “inherent irony” or “paradox of the green revolution” Reuters columnist Andy Home has invoked in several instances when covering critical mineral resource supply chains for the very materials underpinning the green energy transition — the paradox that “public opinion is firmly in favour of decarbonisation but not the mines and smelters needed to get there.”

It’s not that there is a lack of promising domestic resource development projects, especially for the Battery Criticals — lithium, cobalt, graphite, nickel, and manganese.

ARPN recently looked at each of these materials, now deemed under President Biden’s DPA determination to be “essential to the national defense,” and the U.S.-based projects working to urgently needed new supply into production. [See our discussions linked here: Lithium, Cobalt, Graphite, Nickel, Manganese]

And let’s not forget copper, which has increasingly been recognized – most recently by the EU — as a critical raw material in light of its key role in the green energy transition, and for which a push to have the metal added to the U.S. Government Critical Minerals List is currently underway.

As ARPN has previously pointed out, lofty goals of net carbon neutrality – and that includes the just released proposed EPA emission standards –  will not be achievable if we don’t embrace a push to secure critical mineral supply chains from “soup to nuts” to borrow a term used by Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm.

After all, as we’ve noted often at ARPN, the first word in supply chain is… supply.

The post As Biden Administration Doubles Down on EV Adoption Push, U.S. Must Double Down on Comprehensive “All-of-the-Above” Critical Minerals Strategy appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

Two weeks into the new year, the green energy transition continues to gain steam.  However, as Morgan D. Bazilian of the Colorado School of Mines and Gregory Brew from the Jackson School of Global Affairs at Yale University argue in a new piece for Foreign Affairs, while this general trend represents

“welcome and overdue progress, (…) implementing plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions could be stymied in part by a material obstacle: the procurement of critical minerals such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, and copper that are essential to clean energy systems.” 

As followers of ARPN well know, 2022 saw several important developments to boost domestic critical mineral supply chains.  (See our Year in Review post here.). And we can’t resist noting that copper – rightly referenced by Bazilian and Brew as an essential material for clean energy applications – is not officially a Critical Mineral, despite ARPN’s consistent case for copper’s criticality.

In any case, with demand outpacing supply for many of the metals and minerals underpinning the pursuit of net zero carbon emissions, Bazilian and Brewer lament that “[t]he way the United States seems intent on obtaining these minerals (…) is myopic.”

They argue that “[t]o win the energy battle of the twenty-first century, the United States must avoid repeating the policy mistakes of past eras and focus on increasing domestic production and advanced manufacturing at home, while establishing secure and resilient supply chains with allies—and even foes—abroad.”

As Bazilian and Brewer outline, the level of supply production needed to implement plans to reduce emissions “does not yet exist. New mines will have to be dug, and processing and refining industrial complexes will need to be built—both exceedingly difficult to do with existing permitting rules. The existing facilities, moreover, are almost entirely outside the United States. The production of critical minerals is concentrated in a handful of countries. 

Against the backdrop of heightened geopolitical competition, they say, “Washington should avoid the counterproductive strategies of the oil era and adopt a varied approach combining domestic policy options with a flexible foreign policy. The goal should be to build a secure position for itself and its allies, reduce dependence on Chinese supplies, and recognize the competitive environment without resorting to brute force or nationalistic tendencies.”

Specifically, they suggest the United States should:

• accelerate the development of its domestic critical mineral resources and streamline the mining permitting process to further expand mining capacity;
• work with allies to develop supply chains for critical minerals;
• and work with allies to regulate critical mineral markets to reduce volatility to encourage investment and prevent disruptions due to price spikes.

To be sure, progress has been made on several fronts. As ARPN outlined in our 2022 recap, President Biden invoked the Defense Production Act to spur domestic resource development and Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act in August, both of which have sent strong signals to investors and industry that the United States is serious about confronting the critical minerals supply chain challenge head-on.

At the same time, as scholars at the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Center have pointed out, “the Biden administration’s efforts to free up federal funds for domestic mining activities has highlighted the inherent conflict between accessing the minerals needed for climate action and the administration’s commitment to environmental and social justice.”

Developments like the recent Biden administration halt on progress on the Ambler Road project in Alaska, which proponents say would unlock access to critical minerals and create new jobs, point to conflicting viewpoints between the President’s stated objectives and his Administration’s policy.

Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy lamented the Administration’s Ambler Mining District decision during a 2022 critical minerals summit held in Fairbanks, 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.”  

The stakes are high, and the Wilson Center Environmental Change and Security Program believes that “Critical Minerals and Energy Security” will be one of the top three issues in the coming months as 2023 promises to be a “pivotal moment for U.S. foreign and domestic policy on critical minerals.”

We are here for it, and ARPN will be documenting and analyzing the developments and decisions that will “determine national fortunes and human progress in decades ahead.”

The post Winning the “Energy Battle of the Twenty-First Century” Will Take More Than “Myopic” Policy Approach appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

For most of us, the first week of January means it’s time to go back to the grind after an extended period of family time, food coma, rest and – hypothetically, at least — reflection.  It also means trying shake the brain fog and mental rust that has settled in order to dive back into the swing of things.

Today, it’s time to meet 2023 head-on.

If you could use a refresher to get you up to speed on where we are in the critical minerals space, take a look at our “Year in Review” post, especially if you missed it amidst the pre-holiday craziness in December.

In it, we argued that in some ways, 2022 was the year in which strengthening supply chains moved from “rhetoric to reality” as much progress was made, including important groundwork to build out a secure North American critical minerals supply chain.  However, we also cautioned that much more remains to be done, and to overcome the many challenges, new alliances will need to be forged.

As Shane Lasley argues in Critical Minerals Alliances 2022, a magazine covering 29 metals and minerals (when counting rare earths as 14)  deemed critical to North American supply chains as well as related policy issues:

 “The optimum solution to laying the foundation for the next epoch of human progress will only be discovered through the forging of unlikely alliances between the woke and old school, environmental conservationists and natural resource developers, liberals and conservatives, national laboratories and private sector entrepreneurs, local stakeholders and global mining companies, venture capitalists and innovators, and everyone else with visions of a cleaner, greener, and high-tech future.”

Now the question is, what lies ahead?

As we look at overall trend lines in the critical minerals space, we see the following themes emerge:

• A focus on the Super Criticals (see our Year in Review post for more info);
• the growing importance of geopolitics, with China taking center stage and alliances and partnerships continuing to be forged to reduce reliance on Beijing;
• the acceleration of the green energy transition which will require vast amounts of critical minerals;
• as well as industry’s efforts to sustainably green our future by harnessing the materials science revolution.

All of these themes are intertwined, and more may emerge in the coming months, but rest assured that ARPN will be covering these issues extensively as we go forward.

Of course, we are not the only ones to have paused and reflected on what’s to come in 2023.  In a new piece for InvestorIntel.com, editor in chief, critical minerals, Jack Lifton stipulates that “2023 is a breaking point if there is to be an EV revolution/transformation.”

Arguing that “[i]t is not at all certain that high-tech, critical minerals producers and processors, will be ready or even existent by the time the minerals can be delivered to their end-user manufacturers,” Lifton says that “[i]t’s time that car makers performed a due diligence on the critical minerals’ supply space.”

In his view, car makers must — specifically for minerals, metals and manufactured components dependent upon lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite, manganese and the rare earths —

• “[a]scertain whether or not the supply of finished components necessary for the assembly of motor vehicles (…) can meet current and all future demand;
• and predict and mandate price maximums for critical minerals that they can afford if their products are to be sellable.”

Benchmark Mineral Intelligence’s Simon Moores says that “2023 will be the end of the start up phase for electric vehicles and battery supply chains” as we are “entering scale up.” He adds: “This may seem like demand (which industry could not fulfill) is falling when it’s high and volatile. A sky high but bumpy ride ahead.”

In the waning days of December the stage was set for 2023 with decisions to come standing to determine national fortunes and human progress in decades ahead.

As 2023 rolls down the runway, it’s time to buckle up.

The post 2023 – Trend Lines and Breaking Points – It’s Time to Buckle Up (Especially in the EV Space) appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

Not surprisingly, many of these efforts are focused on what ARPN has dubbed the “super-criticals” – the five battery materials, plus a sub-set of five rare earths required for permanent magnets (neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, terbium and samarium), which altogether comprise a group of 10 Criticals within the 50 Critical Minerals on the official U.S. Government list.

With the new sourcing requirements in the energy provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act mandating that to be eligible for the EV tax credits contained in the package, qualified cars must be assembled in North America, and adhere to “escalating levels of critical minerals to be sourced from the U.S. or a country with a free-trade agreement with the U.S,” car and battery makers are being forced to rethink their supply chains.

LG Energy Solutions’s (LGES) just-signed offtake agreement for the purchase of battery-grade lithium carbonate from U.S.-based Compass Minerals is a case in point for companies adapting to “recent regulatory changes and intensifying competition over key battery raw materials.”

The companies have entered into a six-year term agreement under which LGES would receive 40% of Compass Minerals’s anticipated annual production from its lithium brine development project located on the Great Salt Lake in Ogden, Utah.

With Compass Minerals having adopted a low-carbon profile for its operations — the company recently announced it will rely on Energy Source Minerals’s direct lithium extraction (DLE) technology to remove lithium with superior absorption and minimal environmental impact, using a solar evaporation process projected to produce significantly lower rates of greenhouse gas emissions — the partnership will tie into the overall push towards net zero carbon emissions.

As ARPN has frequently pointed out, the mineral intensity of the green energy transition dictates that the pathway to net zero carbon leads through the mining sector — which, thankfully, is ready to meet the challenge of striking a balance between modern mining practices and environmental protections.

In this context, the LGES and Compass Minerals partnership is another example of the mining sector harnessing advances in materials science and technology to do its part to sustainably green the future while securing critical mineral supply chains underpinning 21^st Century technology.

For more examples of initiatives by mining companies to significantly reduce carbon emissions or even “close the loop,” take a look here, here and here.

The post Sustainably Building Out Domestic Supply Chains — Auto and Battery Makers Rethink Their Value Chains in Wake of Recent Regulatory Changes and Intensifying Competition appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

The mass-adoption of green technologies, as followers of ARPN well know, requires drastically increased amounts of critical minerals, including the Rare Earths and mainstays such as copper, as well as, perhaps most notably, the so-called “battery criticals” lithium, cobalt, graphite, nickel and manganese — key  inputs for EV battery technology, which is at the heart of the green energy transition.

Randall writes that the U.S. has passed a “critical EV tipping point: 5% of new car sales powered only by batteries,”and argues that “[i]f the U.S follows the trend established by 18 countries that preceded it, a quarter of new car sales could be electric by the end of 2025.”

These emerging trend lines, along with the realization that supply chains for many metals and minerals leave us at the mercy of adversary nations like China who control much of the material supplies and processing capabilities, have prompted the Biden Administration and members of Congress to finally give the critical mineral supply chain conundrum ARPN and others have long warned of the attention it deserves.

Thus, in recent years, stakeholders began taking steps to strengthen domestic supply chains for critical minerals, with the supply chain chaos resulting from coronavirus pandemic and rising geopolitical tensions kicking these efforts into high gear in 2022.

Much of these efforts have focused on the rare earths and battery criticals, such as the March 2022 Presidential Determination to invoke the Defense Production Act for these materials, which grants the  federal government the authority to direct taxpayer funds to private companies for the extraction of said minerals.

However, untangling the supply chains is proving more difficult than some would have thought — and new sourcing requirements for the battery criticals contained in the energy provisions of the the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act may have added another layer of complications to an already challenging situation.

Earlier this summer, a RealClearInvestigations exposé discussed the alleged China connections of a domestic lithium extraction project in Nevada, where, as RealClear’s Steve Miller writes “a Chinese-dominated mining company has procured millions of dollars in American subsidies to extract lithium in the United States – but, given a dearth of U.S. processing capacity, the mineral is likely to be sent to China with no guarantee that the end product would return as batteries to power President Biden’s envisioned green economy.”   U.S. Senator Tom Cotton recently called for additional information from the Department of Energy regarding the alleged China connection of the project, which we  discussed here.

The Nevada project is is still in the permitting process, but similar scenarios have already unfolded elsewhere, such as in the case of rare earths magnets used in engine parts for F-35 fighter jets, where the U.S. Department of Defense has resorted to granting a waiver for sourcing requirements because at the current time acquisition of parts without Chinese components is not possible.  While the U.S.’s national security imperatives may make a rare earth waiver unavoidable, it should serve to turbo-charge domestic rare earth supply chain development to break the U.S. Armed Services’ Chinese rare earth dependency once and for all.

In the same vein, as Miller writes discussing the above-referenced project in Nevada, “critics say the scenario would increase U.S. energy dependence on a hostile power – one accused of using forced labor in the manufacture of both lithium batteries and solar panels – and undercuts the Biden administration’s emphasis on domestic sourcing of green energy,” experts have long warned that decoupling supply chains for lithium, for example represents a formidable challenge.

As Simon Moores, chief executive of Benchmark Mineral Intelligence argued in the wake of the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, “[c]onsidering it takes seven years to build a mine and refining plant but only 24 months to build a battery plant, the best part of this decade is needed to establish an entirely new industry in the United States.”

Both assertions are accurate — yet, as we previously outlined:

“Senator Cotton’s point [regarding the Nevada project] that questions of foreign control deserve to be fully investigated before the U.S. Government confers funding seems unarguable. Government programs intended to alleviate worrisome foreign resource dependencies should not unwittingly strengthen those dependencies at the expense of the American taxpayer – and American national security.”

As clean energy adoption reaches a “tipping point,” this is all the more reason for stakeholders to place an even stronger emphasis on formulating and implementing a comprehensive “all-of-the-above” strategy for domestic critical mineral resource supply chain security — today.

The post As Clean Energy Adoption Reaches “Tipping Point,” the Challenge of Untangling Critical Mineral Supply Chains Looms Larger than Ever appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.