Free Republic

The U.S. aims to cut its greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 as part of its commitment to tackling climate change, but might be lacking the critical minerals needed to achieve its goals.The American green economy will rely on renewable sources of energy like wind and solar, along with the electrification of transportation. However, local production of the raw materials necessary to produce these technologies, including solar panels, wind turbines, and electric vehicles, is lacking. Understandably, this has raised concerns in Washington.In the graphic below, based on data from the U.S. Geological Survey, Visual Capitalist's Bruno Venditti lists all...

President Trump signed an executive order declaring a national emergency in the mining industry, ordering the Interior Department to increase domestic production of rare-earth materials to reduce the country’s dependence on China. The order states, “our Nation’s undue reliance on critical minerals, in processed or unprocessed form, from foreign adversaries constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat, which has its source in substantial part outside the United States, to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States. I hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat.” The US imported 80 percent of its rare-earth materials and...

A simple visit to an obscure factory by Chinese President Xi on Monday is all it took to raise the specter that China could be contemplating cutting off supply of critical materials to the U.S. and potentially crippling large swathes of its industries. Also, fueled by political innuendo in Xi’s recent call for a new “Long March” in reference to a key founding tenet of the Chinese Communist Party, speculators are growing increasingly wary of Chinese export restrictions to the U.S., including rare earth minerals. As the world’s largest producer, the Middle Kingdom has a vice-like grip on rare earths...

It was recently reported that US President Donald Trump wants to buy Greenland, but what would he actually be getting for his money? Umar Ali takes a look at Greenland’s mineral resources, whether they are worth mining, and why the US could want them. The Kvanefjeld project Greenland currently only has one major mining project, the Kvanefjeld rare earth project launched in 2007. The project is centred on the Ilimaussaq alkaline complex in southwest Greenland, measuring approximately 8km x 15km, it is being developed by Australian company Greenland Minerals. The Kvanefjeld project is thought to be one of the world’s...

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...