Posted on 02/13/2018 7:38:56 AM PST by Kaslin
Why is the United States reliant on China and Russia for strategic minerals when we have more of these valuable resources than both these nations combined?
This has nothing to do with geological impediments. It is all politics.
This is an underreported scandal that jeopardizes American security. As recently as 1990, the U.S. was No. 1 in the world in mining output. But according to the latest data from the U.S. Geological Survey, the U.S. is 100 percent import dependent for at least 20 critical and strategic minerals (not including each of the "rare earths"), and between 50 and 99 percent reliant for another group of 30 key minerals. Why aren't alarm bells ringing?
This import dependency has grown worse over the last decade. We now are dependent on imports for vital strategic metals that are necessary components for military weapon systems, cellphones, solar panels and scores of new-age high-technology products. We don't even have a reliable reserve stockpile of these resources.
Fortunately, the Trump administration is working to reverse decades of policies that have inhibited our ability to mine our own abundant resources, mostly in the western states -- Montana, Colorado, Wyoming and the Dakotas. In December the Trump administration issued a long-overdue policy directive designed to open up federal lands and streamline the permitting process so America can mine again.
No nation on the planet is more richly endowed with a treasure chest of these metals than the U.S. The U.S. Mining Association estimates there are more than $6 trillion in resources. We could easily add $50 billion of GDP every year through a smart mining policy.
Environmentalists are threatening to file lawsuits and throwing up other obstacles to this pro-economic development mineral policy -- just as they oppose more open drilling for oil and gas. The stupidity of this anti-mining stance is that the green energy sources that they crave -- solar and wind power -- are dependent on rare metals to be viable.
Rare earth minerals are the seeds for building new technologies, and a strong case could be made that these strategic metals are the oil of the 21st century.
The suite of 15 primary minerals -- which the U.S. has in abundance domestically -- has been referred to as "the vitamins of chemistry." They exhibit unique attributes, such as magnetism, stability at extreme temperatures, and resistance to corrosion: properties that are key to today's manufacturing. These rare earth elements are essential for military and civilian use for the production of high-performance permanent magnets, GPS guidance systems, satellite imaging and night vision equipment, flat screens, sunglasses and a myriad of other technology products.
Thanks to hostility to mining, huge portions of public lands in the west have not been explored or mapped in nearly enough detail to satisfy the hunt for minerals. It takes seven to 10 years to get mining permits here, versus two or three years in Australia and Canada. The nation must also map and explore again as was done in the Old West, when mining for gold, copper, coal and other resources was common.
Mineral imports from China and Russia are providing enormous geopolitical leverage to these countries at precisely the wrong time in global events. China, Russia and others have used their mineral wealth to hold importing countries hostage. Do we want Vladimir Putin to hold the commanding heights on strategic minerals?
We need a change in strategy and philosophy when it comes to mining. For federal land development, the 20th-century philosophy of "lock up and preserve" needs to be replaced with an ethic of "use and explore." We have hundreds of years of these resources with existing technology.
China's leaders have been known to boast that the Middle East has the oil and China has the rare earth minerals. But that's false. We do. With a pro-mining policy, we can make America a mineral-exporting superpower, not an importer reliant on our adversaries. This strategy has worked like a charm when it comes to energy; it should be employed to yield the same America First results for strategic minerals.
Welp...Uranium is out...gave it all away I heard.
Bill Clinton shut down the largest US deposit of anthracite coal at the behest of his Indonesian donor at the time; he also forced the closure of a US company mining rare earths, turning the whole area into a park or some such, off limits to development - the Chinese then assumed the lead.
The only thing the US does not have in abundance is titanium, which comes from Russia.
“Why is the United States reliant on China and Russia for strategic minerals when we have more of these valuable resources than both these nations combined?”
Until it becomes untenable (like Saudi Arabia) why not use up their resources? I think there is a better case for minerals to be a finite resource than there ever was for peak oil.
Because it makes us a dependent nation rather than an independent nation. And I'd bet the mineral resource situation would develop just as the energy resource situation developed in the past few decades. New technology and further exploration would find large and previously unknown, or unreachable mineral resources that could be mined.
And there was that story a few months back that coal ash contains rare earth minerals.
Did we mine out all our SW copper, or just shut down ?
And their was a story a year or so ago that coal might make a great semi-conductor or have other uses in that arena rather than burning it. We haven’t even scratched the surface on that one. We’d be king of everything for a long time if that one is a new frontier...
Maybe you dont know or forget the oil embargo?
bkmk
“Did we mine out all our SW copper, or just shut down ?”
Naaagh. It just took ten years for Mccain and Flake to trade private land for public land to give ownership/control of over 25% of US copper to the Aussies (via Clinton Foundation Bill’s best buddy, since 2006, Aussie Alexander Downer(yep, the Russia Russia Russia Downer)):
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3631368/posts?page=232#232
I say we should use all of theirs up first - as long as the prices are reasonable.
Ping.
What does OPEC refusing to sell oil to the US have to do with using other countries’ resources before our own? Sure, the early 70s were a nightmare, but there were more reasons for the economic crash than oil prices going crazy. And the US was able to bring production on pretty quickly, all things considered (see oil price crash in the 80s).
I’m just saying that it is a strategic decision. Using / getting contracts with other counties for their resources also ties up those resources / deprives countries we do not like of access.
And finally, knowing that we have the resources here, while using other countries’ resources means that should those countries go belly up because of some stupid political problems well, it is easier to leave. Although this one cuts both ways, because if we were not using their material we would not be interested in their defense even a little bit.
Still waiting for us to back off of defending / being allied with Saudi Arabia...the source of Wahhabis.
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