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  • Pages
  • Editions
01 Cover
02 Welcome Letter / Sections
03 Introduction
04 Introduction to Arizona
05 Challenges in Leading the Green Revolution
06 Arizona Mining Association Interview
07 AMIGOS Interview
08 Arizona State House of Representatives Interview
09 Expert Opinion Article by Haley & Aldrich
10 Production, Development and Exploration
11 Infographic: Map of Main Producing Mines in Arizona
12 Copper Production
13 Freeport-McMoRan Interview
14 Hudbay Minerals Interview
15 Resolution Copper Interview
16 Florence Copper Interview
17 Arizona Sonoran Interview
18 Copper Exploration
19 Copper Fox Metals Interview
20 Faraday Copper Interview
21 Critical and Energy Minerals
22 Energy Fuels Interview
23 Western Rare Earths Interview
24 Precious Metals
25 Elevation Gold Interview
26 Arizona Silver Exploration Interview
27 Explorers: Leveraging existing assets to make new discoveries
28 Consultancies and Engineering
29 Environmental Regulation: Navigating Uncharted Waters
30 WSP Interview
31 Civil & Environmental Consultants Interview
32 Expert Opinion Article by SRK Consulting
33 Home-grown Solutions: Catching Up in Automation Adoption
34 Stantec Interview
35 Ausenco Interview
36 New Technologies & Services
37 Clearing the Hurdles on the Way to Automation
38 Hexagon Mining Interview
39 Strayos Interview
40 MMR Constructors Interview
41 Caltrol Interview
42 Dyno Nobel Interview
43 Western Cast Parts Interview
44 Company Profiles
45 Freeport-McMoRan Profile (Sponsored Content)
46 Stantec Profile (Sponsored Content)
47 Article & Interview Directory
48 Credits

Resource Nationalism: US Dependency on Foreign REEs

EXPERT OPINION ARTICLE BY:

Eric Mears,

Vicepresident,

Haley & Aldrich

The US is blessed with abundant mineral resources. We enjoy a well-educated workforce, reliable transportation, robust infrastructure, and reasonably predictable political and legal systems. We also have a diverse economy, a fair tax structure, and strong manufacturing and business sectors. When compared to other mineral producing regions across the globe, the US is easily one the most attractive locations for mineral exploration and the development of mining projects.

Yet, mineral production in the US is not keeping pace with world markets or our own domestic demands for minerals. Consequently, our exponential growth in technology, defense, housing, green energy, and infrastructure has become alarmingly dependent on critical minerals produced overseas, even when the resources we need are in our backyard.

Why is this a problem?

Many of the critical minerals used in manufacturing today are sourced from non-democratic countries; extracted from poorly regulated mines that exploit children or slave labor; enrich despots, terrorists, or other criminals; or decimate natural resources, native people’s lands, and wildlife habitats. And although US mining, defense, and manufacturing leaders have been waving red flags for several decades, consumers are largely unaware of the geopolitical implications of sourcing critical minerals outside of the US. Most consumers know more about where their broccoli is sourced than virtually every critical mineral used in electronics and clean energy, defense, and manufacturing products – so there is no demand for change.

Why haven’t we addressed the problem?

Aside from consumer indifference, we don’t produce more of our own resources because well-meaning political, legal, and regulatory systems have been misused to the point where it becomes easier for mining projects to be offshored to less regulated, more politically pragmatic, and less litigious mining jurisdictions. In 2010, the federal government acknowledged that the rapid expansion of materials-intensive industries like clean energy and defense put critical materials at “risk of unpredictable moments of short supply,” and more recently, the government has placed emphasis on understanding and addressing vulnerabilities in our critical minerals supply chain. However, despite this acknowledgement and emphasis, actions have been taken by all levels of government to systematically dismantle policies, agency actions, and programs that held promise for fairly regulating and streamlining critical mineral permitting and entitlement efforts such as the transparency and predictability of the National Environmental Policy Act review and authorization processes. Unsurprisingly, even when projects have government support, economic and political issues get in the way of their coming to fruition. The current administration recently highlighted its support and funding for a multibillion-dollar research and development effort to determine if lithium can be extracted from geothermal brines in Imperial County, California. Before a single pound of lithium has been extracted, a newly authorized Lithium Valley Commission is already developing a royalty structure to collect profits from its future operations, and the California legislature hurriedly imposed an industry crushing tax on lithium production.

What can we do?

The reality is that the US can only reduce its dependence on foreign critical minerals when domestic mines capable of producing critical minerals are routinely permitted and operational. This means that consumers need to care about the ethics of mineral sourcing, that permitting agencies must be appropriately staffed and directed to efficiently permit mines, that non-governmental organizations have to collaborate more and litigate less, and that the government needs to dedicate more resources to cultivating a critical industry rather than creating additional obstacles to shut it down.

In other words, we have to dig our own way out of this problem.

Image courtesy of Freeport

Next:

Section 2: Production, Development and Exploration