Today is American Thanksgiving – a celebration of the blessings afforded by our forefathers as they overcame adversity in a new land, laboring to obtain from the resources around them the necessities of life:  food, shelter, and warmth against winter’s cold.

Since that first winter, the bounty of Thanksgiving has become a symbol of the abundant resources the New World provided.  From the raw materials that built our modern cities to the energy that has powered innovation in all its variety, these resources have enriched the lives of millions of people in America and around the world – making possible a way of life those who gathered around that first Thanksgiving table could never have imagined.

Even today, of course, we know that too many are still doing without the basic necessities of life.  And yet the resources around us – those literally under our feet – remain plentiful.  All too often complacency and ideology lock us into inaction, blocking us from making use of the still-rich resources of this new world. Minerals, metals, fuel and timber that could create jobs, opportunities, and rewards for the American people are left untouched.

Our forefathers understood privation and want.  They understood that nature sometimes rewards tireless work with a poor harvest.  But they also understood nature’s bounty.  What they would find beyond comprehending in our day is the willful failure to use resources we have at hand to ease hardship and make a better life for ourselves and for others.

On this Thanksgiving, as we give thanks for our many blessings, may we also remember the lessons dating back to Plymouth Rock, that teach us to use our resources and resourcefulness to make an even newer and better world.

The post The Blessings of a New World appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

The New Year is now a little over a week old and the inauguration of the 45^th President of the United States is just around the corner.  And while some are still dwelling on 2016 (we offered our post mortem at the end of the year), the time has come to look at what’s in store.

One of the key buzzwords, particularly if you’re looking for an issue that transcends party lines these days is “infrastructure” – an area where broad consensus on the need for significant overhaul exists.  What is often overlooked, however, is that our infrastructure today comprises of far more than just bridges, roads, and tunnels.  As our very own Daniel McGroarty outlines in a brand new piece for Investor’s Business Daily,

“[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 are as diverse as they are real, and dealing with them will require 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 21^st Century infrastructure that is competitive and can withstand threats from the outside and within.

As followers of ARPN are aware, we are subject to a significant degree of import-dependence for the above referenced materials, as well as for many others.  With there being more to infrastructure than “cement trucks and Jersey Barriers”, it’s time for an approach conducive to unleashing our arguably vast domestic mineral potential.

Explains McGroarty:

“It means getting over the pernicious mindset that 2017 America lives in a postindustrial age, a time when Americans are all ‘symbolic analysts,’ tapping away at keyboards, creating wealth from ones-and-zeros, live-blogging streaming video and the like, no longer dependent of transforming real raw materials into things. That messy business has been off-shored to other places, happy to sell us what we need.” 

This leaves us at the mercy of the rest of the world — and needlessly so. Concludes McGroarty:

“Word is that the new infrastructure bill will exceed $1 trillion. Shoring up our infrastructure — broadly understood — is essential, and not just for jobs and GDP, but for the stuff modern dreams are made of — everything from the gadgets we use to occupy our time to the high-performance materials that power the weapons platforms that keep us safe.

If we approach the Great Infrastructure Debate in this spirit, we could do even more than rebuild our roads, bridges and tunnels. We could build the foundation for a new American Century.”

The post McGroarty on Critical Minerals: “It’s Not Your Grandfather’s Infrastructure” appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

The larger question is how the world will source these metals – and how the U.S. will continue to enjoy surety of supply.   Today, “Resource Wars” is a metaphor.  If we don’t press forward with domestic resource development, get ready for a world where Resource Wars are the real thing.

The post Copper Month is over but copper’s rise continues appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

WASHINGTON, D.C. 10/26 – The National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) has announced that it will hold a conference to examine the link between rare earths, critical metals, energy, and national security. The event, entitled Rare Earths, Critical Metals, and National Security will take place on Wednesday, November 2, and is the first metals conference to focus on national defense.

“It’s time to bring the national security side of critical metals into the discussion,” said Daniel McGroarty, president of the American Resources Policy Network, which is co-sponsoring the conference.  “Security of resource supply is critical to our competitiveness, our technological advancement — and to the weapons systems on which the U.S. depends.”

McGroarty, Gareth Hatch and Kent Butts, American Resources experts, will attend the conference as moderator and panelists, respectively. McGroarty will moderate a panel entitled “Specialty Metals: Assessing Strategic Need” on which Butts will serve as a panelist, while Hatch will serve as a panelist on the “Rare Earth Elements” panel.

The featured speaker is Dr. David Diamond, Team Leader of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Critical Materials Strategy Report, who will present his lecture, “Energy Security as National Security.” Other speakers include individuals from the Department of Defense’s Logistic Agency, the Department of Energy, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the Boeing Corporation.

Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) will deliver the luncheon keynote, while Congressmen Mike Coffman (R-CO) and Doug Lamborn (R-CO) will also appear to discuss strategic resource supply with regard to current legislation.  All three legislators have pending congressional bills relating to critical metals or rare earths.

Rare earths are essential components of our national defense systems and can be found in items ranging from surveillance devices to weapons technology. Despite their widespread application, a 2010 U.S. Defense Stockpile report states, “[U.S.] defense leaders do not necessarily know exactly which minerals they use in which systems in what amounts, [and] where the minerals came from…”

That the U.S. is almost entirely dependent on China for these materials is also a major cause for concern. The NCPA conference will be critical in exploring a long-term solution for these issues.

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“Rare Earths, Critical Metals, and National Security” will be held on November 2 in the Capitol Hill Hyatt Regency in Washington D.C.  To register to attend, please contact Carolyn Needham at 202.220.3195 or Carolyn.needham@ncpa.org

The post National Center for Policy Analysis to Hold Capitol Hill Conference appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

Sarasota County’s (FL) Herald Tribune this week features a story of an arrest of 62 people for stealing anything from air conditioners to copper wiring to plumbing parts. West Virginia’s Westport News reports the arrest of two suspects on charges of stealing aluminum lightning rods and copper from a hospital roof.  And according to the Greefield Reporter, two Pima County men were arrested for having stolen storm drains and other metals in Tuscon, AZ.

It may not be making national headlines, but local media reports are full of stories about scrap metal theft – an increasing problem that has law enforcement on their toes, and is causing massive damage for businesses worldwide.

In Europe, the railway system is bearing the brunt of metal theft, with copper wiring being a particularly popular target. Germany’s national rail provider Deutsche Bahn (DB) for example reported more than 1,400 cases of iron and non-ferrous theft in the first four months of 2011 alone, with the cost to DB amounting to millions of euros, not counting the damage caused to the company’s image in light of cancellations and delays due to missing cables.   The German weekly Der Spiegel has the story.

With record commodity prices and demand still expected to outpace supply for metals like copper, which some see as a new leading economic indicator, don’t expect metal thieves to retire anytime soon.

The post Metal theft rampant in light of record commodity prices appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

Whether rockers- and other music listeners- will pay more to hear their favorite music, or companies will compromise on “low-fi” substitutes remains to be seen…

Either way, we’re all about to learn hard lessons on the many metals and minerals that make our every-day life what it is, and what happens when demand exceeds supply.

The post Could ‘Rock’ suffer from Rare Earths shortage? appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.