tin

In a new piece for The Economic Standard, ARPN’s Daniel McGroarty argues that while the “intellectual shrug” of “who could have seen this coming” tends to be a common reaction to our new normal of sheltering in place and social distancing, there were warning signs for a coming crisis we failed to recognize for what they were, and act accordingly.

McGroarty tells the story of what he calls a “Red Swan” based on COVID-19’s point of origin in Wuhan, China — a leaked classified cable sent by the U.S. State Department in 2010 revealing “Critical Infrastructure/Key Resources” outside of the U.S. “whose loss could critically impact the public health, economic, and/or national and homeland security of the United States.” On it, under the heading for China: “Polypropylene Filter Material for N-95 Masks” — which, as McGroarty points out, are “[p]recisely the ones the federal government and states are scrambling to source right now. […] The U.S. Government knew in 2009 that N-95 masks were critical, came from China… And did nothing about it.”

However, and this is where followers of ARPN may perk up, this is not all.  

As McGroarty writes, the classified list in the cable also included a series of mines in China that were deemed critical, developing critical materials ranging from fluorspar and germanium over graphite to Rare Earths, tin and tungsten — for all of which the United States is greatly import-dependent, with degrees of reliance ranging from 63% for tungsten to 100% for fluorspar, graphite and rare earths. 

Writes McGroarty:

“As a warning unheeded, the cable makes for interesting reading in light of today’s COVID pandemic – and as U.S. policymakers embark on a rolling series of multi-trillion dollar spending bills, the next of which will include infrastructure projects. 

At issue is not just one but three layers of risk:  Maybe the metals and minerals produced by the Chinese mines will be withheld in time of conflict, as Beijing seeks to leverage access for American concessions. Maybe the metals and minerals will soon be prioritized for internal Chinese consumption, under its Made in China 2025 program to drive Chinese technology dominance, with little left for export to the U.S. or elsewhere. 

Or maybe – as the leaked cable presciently notes – the Chinese mines will be disrupted by a pandemic, slamming on the supply chain brakes for a U.S. economy dependent on critical materials that go from arriving “just in time” to “not at all.”

In any case, the warning could hardly be more clear. The U.S. has a choice:  It can take immediate steps to reduce its dangerous dependency on a Chinese supply chain for critical technology metals. Or we can hope COVID 2.0 will not disrupt supply in a second global shut-down – or that Beijing won’t one day decide to curtail access to these critical materials in time of crisis.

But here’s one thing we can no longer do:  If an act of nature or of man cuts off U.S. access to vital technology materials, we can’t claim to be surprised by the appearance of a Red Swan. We’ve seen it coming.”

We appreciate them for their traditional applications, but metals like Copper and Tin are far more than your mainstay materials.  We discussed their Gateway Metal status here, but it’s not just the fact that their development yields access to some of the most sought-after tech metals that makes them so indispensible – it’s advances in materials science that elevate their critical mineral status.

One of the latest examples comes to us via Science, which earlier this month discussed the development of a new cheap chemical catalyst that is able to mimic parts of the photosynthetic process, using solar generated electricity to split CO2 into energy-rich carbon monoxide (CO) and oxygen.

Researchers have long been studying various catalysts that enable CO2 splitting, among them most prominently a mix of Copper and oxygen called copper oxide.  In light of its shortcomings – the catalyst splitting more water than CO2, thus making a less energy-rich compound – a grad student at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne last year added a layer of said catalysts on a tin oxide–based electrode.  The new catalyst generated almost pure CO.  The research team went to work making some tweaks to their electrodes – with great success, according to Science:

“As Graetzel’s team reports this week in Nature Energy, the strategy worked, converting 90% of the CO2 molecules into CO, with hydrogen and other byproducts making up the rest. They also hooked their setup to a solar cell and showed that a record 13.4% of the energy in the captured sunlight was converted into the CO’s chemical bonds. That’s far better than plants, which store energy with about 1% efficiency, and even tops recent hybrid approaches that combine catalysts with microbes to generate fuel.” 

To date, these efforts remain “squarely in the realm of basic research,” because these newly developed catalysts are still a far cry from generating fuel cost-efficiently.  However, at the pace materials science has been transforming the world we live in, it is not out of the question that this discovery might one day in the not-too-distant future lead to “methods for making essentially unlimited amounts of liquid fuels from sunlight, water, and CO2.”

It is developments like these that show that old paradigms are out the window.

Copper is no longer just a mainstay metal and conductor of electricity.  Aluminum is more than just a building material. And Tin is more than just a food container.  They are Gateway Metals yielding access to some of the so-called “minor” metals that are quickly becoming the quintessential building blocks of our 21^st Century high-tech and sustainable energy future and manufacturing renaissance. And they have found and are still finding new important and versatile applications at a rapid pace, with the potential of altering both supply and demand pictures drastically.

Meanwhile, our import dependence for many materials remains high – and needlessly so, as for many we have significant deposits beneath our own soil.

Take Copper, for example: With estimated reserves of 33 million metric tons of Copper, the United States would be well positioned to close our Copper Gap – recently pegged at more than 600,000 tons per year. However, we are still importing 34 percent of the Copper we consume.

Given the pace of materials science, isn’t it time that we adjust our mineral resource policy and build a framework that unleashes our nation’s vast mineral potential?

It’s that time of the year again.  And as people are gearing up for the New Year, we are taking the opportunity to take stock of the last twelve months, and want to highlight a few select notable developments of relevance to ARPN followers. From a mineral resource policy perspective, we saw some positive developments [...]

Over the course of the past few months, we have featured two classes of metals and minerals, which we believe deserve more attention than they are currently being awarded.  Expanding on the findings of our 2012 “Gateway Metals and the Foundations of American Technology” report, in which we focused on a group of five “Gateway” metals which [...]

The following is an overview of our “Through the Gateway” informational campaign, in which we outline the importance of Gateway Metals and their Co-Products. Here, we expand on the findings of our “Gateway Metals and the Foundations of American Technology” report, in which we focused on a group of five “Gateway Metals,” which are not only critical to manufacturing and [...]

While not as flashy as some other metals, Tin’s versatility will continue to drive demand.  We are familiar with its use in food preservation.  Meanwhile, ITRI, the tin industry’s UK-based trade association, highlights the “storage, generation and conservation of energy as key drivers for new applications for the metal over the next 3 to 30 years.” Coupled with its [...]

Throughout ARPN’s work, we have consistently highlighted the geopolitical dimension of mineral resource policy.  Where we source (or fail to source) our metals and minerals is an often forgotten – or ignored – factor, with implications for our domestic manufacturers, and, at times, even for our national security. Case in point – and in keeping [...]

Here we [Pokémon] go again.  It’s only been a couple of weeks, and we find another reason to talk about an augmented reality game that has taken the world by storm. But there’s a good reason: Pokémon Go may be giving us a glimpse into our future, or more precisely, the future of smartphone technology.  [...]

Compliance with federal law and a new SEC rule regarding the sourcing of so-called conflict minerals — Tungsten, Tin, Tantalum and Gold from the Eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and surrounding regions — remains challenging. For U.S. manufacturers to navigate and properly follow the new guidelines is just one piece of [...]

After a few-month-long hiatus, it is time to bring back our Metals of the Month feature on the blog. In its context, we have been highlighting the breadth of our mineral needs and potential by showcasing the utilities of metals and minerals for which the United States is largely import-dependent, as well as associated challenges. [...]