After the Union assault, environmentalist wacko assault and federal bureaucratic assault, it cheaper to get minerals from overseas.
I’m a mining engineer.
The cost of production in the U.S. Is too high due to excessive regulation, lawsuits of no merit by environmentalists, and dumping by China. Currently it takes over 10 years to get the necessary environmental permits for a mine and it’s just not cost effective to wait that long.
Don’t believe me? Do an Internet search for Rosemont copper mine or Resolution mine.
Three letters explain most of it:
E.P.A.
I once interviewed for an EPA job. I overheard the interviewer talking about a technical problem. As a recent grad school engineering graduate, I thought I could make points by telling them how to do it cheaper.
The response was a sneering “At the E.P.A., we are not concerned with costs.”
No primary or secondary lead smelters left in the U.S., either. I think the last one was shuttered a couple years ago in Missouri.
Some of the more valuable of the needed minerals are the rare earth elements. While the US does have a large rare earth mine in California, it has an enormous, untapped mine under an artificial lake in Texas.
Barringer Hill, underneath Lake Buchanan. Described by the United States Geological Survey as one of the greatest deposits of rare-earth minerals in the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barringer_Hill
We have EPA’d ourselves into being dependent upon China for a lot of the rare earth materials that we must use to build our high-tech weaponry. It is just shameful and very very dangerous.