Posted on 04/03/2022 5:51:39 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
Whether President Joe Biden’s Defense Production Act works as intended and jump-starts the mining of metals for batteries crucial to the country’s clean energy transition won’t be known for years, according to industry experts.
But it is already stoking unrest among environmental groups that have expressed concerns about mining on U.S. soil.
The Biden administration announced in an executive order Thursday that the president had invoked the act, which could boost mining by directing the Defense Department to support feasibility studies for mining projects.
Finding the raw metals needed to produce batteries is quickly becoming a key bottleneck in the supply chain for electric vehicles and other battery-intensive technologies key to the energy transition, experts said. The hunt for battery metals has already sparked recent investment.
Simon Moores, the chief executive officer of Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, a company that tracks data on the electric vehicle supply chain, said it takes about seven years to develop a lithium mine, but only 21 months to build a battery plant. As the industry scales up, that dynamic has constrained demand for raw metals like graphite, lithium, cobalt, nickel and manganese.
“It’s going from a niche industry to mass market,” Moores said. “The raw materials aren’t growing anywhere near quick enough.”
Some environmental groups have expressed opposition or wariness over the measure.
“The clean energy transition cannot be built on dirty mining. Earthworks strongly opposes the employment of the Defense Production Act to bolster mining because it adds to the generational trauma experienced by mining affected communities, particularly Indigenous communities,” wrote Lauren Pagel, the policy director for Earthworks, in a news release, adding that the administration should focus instead on acquiring minerals through recycling and by building a circular materials economy.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
batteries....you mean for all those millions of cars that are filled up with electricity which comes from a key and a kite.
Well, gosh, there’s always the super mine and refinery that Trump midwifed into existence and that was almost EPA approved when he left office. It could have supplied most of our domestic needs. Whatever happened to that?
The problem with metals like the “rare” earths is not that they’re rare. They aren’t. It’s that the process of refining them requires lots of acid washes. Whereas those acids are just dumped in places like Africa and China, they must be handled in an environmentally friendly way (meaning expensively) here.
All contracts must have a "10% for the Big Guy" clause.
“...by building a circular materials economy....”
Using environazi circular logic?
America must rid itself of the antimining mentality and of the antimining nabobs. They are an existential threat
Maybe Obama’s heavy metal contaminated water release into that river would come in handy now.
Obama/Biden shut down lead
I believe that the opening of old, closed mines can take place quickly.
In nearby Scott County Virginia lithium was mined for years and operations ceased when it became available at a cheaper price.
Earthworks strongly opposes dirty mining in US; but they are ok with dirty mining in other countries that will produce the batteries for their desire for electric cars. Hypocrits.
There is a video on YouTube about cobalt mining in the Congo.
Natives digging it out of ground by hand in these wildcat mines.
In the same village is a huge open pit mine run by the Chinese. The dust from the mine covers the ground and foliage of everything.
They started noticing that children were being born with all sorts of birth defects.
Missing limbs, cleft palates in a much larger percentage than before the mine existed.
It made me sick to watch.
Every time someone mentions how great electric cars are I tell them to watch this video
The biggest talent that Biden has is talking out of both sides of his mouth at the same time
I don’t think it’s this one but Niocorp in Nebraska is trying to raise funds to start a rare earth mine.
Numerous Members of Congress, their family and staff members, have surely already purchased stocks in the companies that stand to benefit from Brandon’s Battery Boost.
How else are you going to get fleet averages up to 49mpg than to use vehicles that get infinite miles per gallon? [we can look past that silly little issue of where electricity comes from - I just flip a switch and the lights come on.]
Where exactly is all of this "clean energy" supposed to come from? You can't even have squirrels running around cages because they produce methane.
See?
Rather than be concerned with the standards, America should and in fact must direct all concern towards exterminating all who strangle us with their ridiculous standards
If they are gone, then there will be no standards
“Whereas those acids are just dumped in places like Africa and China, they must be handled in an environmentally friendly way (meaning expensively) here.”
Unless it is the EPA doing the dumping as they did in the Animas River.
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