Archive | United States Mining

https://www.bloomberg.com/

James Stavridis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is a retired U.S. Navy admiral and former supreme allied commander of NATO, and dean emeritus of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

You could be forgiven if you are confused about what’s going on with rare-earth elements. On the one hand, news reports indicate that China may increase production quotas of the minerals this quarter as a goodwill gesture to the Joe Biden administration.

But other sources say that China may ultimately ban the export of the rare earths altogether on “security concerns.” What’s really going on here?

There are 17 elements considered rare earths — lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, promethium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium, lutetium, scandium and yttrium — and while many aren’t actually rare in terms of global deposits, extracting them is difficult and expensive. Continue Reading →

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — Joe Biden’s ambition to make the U.S. less dependent on other nations for rare earths and minerals critical to the clean energy transition will take years to accomplish.

A review of the U.S. critical minerals and rare earths supply chain that the president ordered this week is likely to show that even with sweeping changes the nation is at least a decade from becoming self sufficient.
That will mean turning to countries such as Canada, which has the the largest number of rare earth projects in the world, according to Gareth Hatch, managing director of Strategic Materials Advisors Ltd. Continue Reading →

https://www.spglobal.com/

In a signal of how the Biden administration will tackle U.S. mining, U.S. Energy Secretary nominee Jennifer Granholm voiced unerring support for marshaling the powers of the federal government to ensure steady domestic supplies of critical minerals, including lithium and cobalt.

Granholm, a former governor of a state legendary for its auto industry, said at her Jan. 27 Senate confirmation hearing that she was “enthusiastically supportive” of policy efforts geared toward boosting U.S. mining of materials integral to national security, including those used to produce lithium-ion batteries.

Her words echoed a national policy first set forth under the Trump administration then enacted by Congress to bolster domestic supplies of minerals in order to combat foreign influence over supply chains. Continue Reading →