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United States Businesses

US Minerals Industries Are Booming (technologyreview.com) 21

A recent set of sweeping US laws have already kicked off a boom in proposals for new mining operations, minerals processing facilities, and battery plants, laying the foundation for domestic supply chains that could support rapid growth in electric vehicles and other clean technologies. From a report: That's by design. A stipulation in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), enacted last year, restricts EV tax credits to vehicles with batteries that contain a significant portion of minerals extracted or refined within the US, or from countries that have free-trade agreements with it. Manufacturing the batteries that power these vehicles requires significant amounts of finished materials such as cobalt, graphite, lithium, manganese, and nickel. Today these often come from other nations, particularly China.

Billions of dollars of investments in battery materials have been announced in North America since the IRA passed, according to BloombergNEF. The "domestic content requirements" helped spark or accelerate those plans, observers say. But it's still not clear which nations will qualify for providing the processed materials, and some allies have accused the US of providing unfair advantages to its own industries. Some experts also worry that the requirements, which become stricter over time, are so stringent they could have the unintended effect of actually slowing the shift to cleaner technologies. After all, it takes years to get new mines and plants running under the best of circumstances, and the permitting process for major projects in the US is notoriously slow. Adding to the potential delays, some communities are already pushing back on certain proposals, citing environmental impacts, indigenous land concerns, and other issues.

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US Minerals Industries Are Booming

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  • Some experts (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Monday March 13, 2023 @02:30PM (#63367491)
    Are those "experts" getting a bit of money from the countries that will be affected by a shit to internal sources?

    Seriously - we can't do quick startups? Yes we can.

    Regardless, unless the supply of inexpensive oil is nearly infinite, we need to do something, and with domestically produced components, it's a win all the way around. Jobs and a market less affected by global politics and supply disruption.

  • Wheel of History (Score:5, Informative)

    by sonlas ( 10282912 ) on Monday March 13, 2023 @02:45PM (#63367539)

    This is a topic where the study of history is very interesting.

    During the first half of the 20th century, the USA was at the forefront of rare earth minerals extraction (Mountain Pass mine in California for instance). Then, people realized that mining is a dirty industry, which causes a lot of pollution (to the water tables, the surrounding environment, etc...). Environmental laws were passed to fix that, but they made mining those minerals more and more expensive.

    Come China, who very happily agreed to open mines on their soil, and provide those minerals for a fraction of the cost it was now going for when mined in America. Because environmental laws was/is not really an issue in China (that was true at the time, even though recent China seems to take small, very small, steps to make the situation better). As we needed those minerals for our computers, our cars, our smartphones, we basically offshored the extraction of those minerals out of our sight, so we could pretend to ignore the environmental damage it was causing. Out of sight, out of mind.

    Nowadays, China effectively controls 95% of the rare earth minerals mining, which puts them in a situation of dominance. And they also control the actual industries that make use of those minerals (solar panels, batteries, EV, even nuclear plants now). We forfeited that to them, because we wanted cheap stuff, and we didn't want to pay the environmental price for it ourselves. Short-sighted.

    It seems politicians have started to notice that, but my feeling is that it will be hard to get ourselves out of this situation. It is not a new problem either, this article [defensenews.com] was talking about that back in 2019.

    • Re:Wheel of History (Score:4, Interesting)

      by ranton ( 36917 ) on Monday March 13, 2023 @03:03PM (#63367621)

      We forfeited [the rare earth mining industry] to them, because we wanted cheap stuff. [...] my feeling is that it will be hard to get ourselves out of this situation

      It will be even harder because we got used to those lower prices. Part of what is causing today's inflation is a move towards more local supply chains. We saved money by going to the lowest bidder, and if we are going to make more strategic decisions it won't come for free. If we want to pay for locally sourced minerals, that will be one more thing pushing prices up.

      I'm convinced a primary reason we haven't seen run away inflation for the past 30 years of poor fiscal policy is because we kept getting cheaper goods and services from overseas. If that is true we have decades of inflation to "make up" for.

      • I interpret things differently. I think we probably should have seen a few brief periods of deflation due to cheap goods from overseas, but the Fed happily forced 2-3% inflation on the economy by making capital cheaply available to banker friends, and patted themselves on the back for being geniuses.

        I happen to believe that the dangers and benefits of a little inflation or a little deflation are typically vastly overstated. But few will discuss this topic in an evenhanded manner, most especially the "expe

    • by Ogive17 ( 691899 )
      Economically and strategically, it makes sense to pay less for raw materials to someone else and save your own resources for when there's an advantage to using them.

      China has now wised up to this practice and is making it more difficult to export raw resources cheaply. Now it makes sense for the US to utilize our vast natural resources.
      • Well, that depends on if you have the knowledge, skills, and technology to extract this stuff. I somehow doubt the USA has kept this knowledge etc.
        • by Ogive17 ( 691899 )
          So you don't believe there are any mines left in the US?
          • I believe people don't realize what it actually means yet:
            - higher prices (I am pretty sure China miners are not paid as much as USA miners)
            - higher constraints regarding environmental issues (mining is dirty, not just the mining part, but also the chemical part afterward, that you need to extract the actual minerals from the tons of rubbles you extracted)
            - health impacts, scandals, etc...

            To quote the article:

            After all, it takes years to get new mines and plants running under the best of circumstances, and the permitting process for major projects in the US is notoriously slow. Adding to the potential delays, some communities are already pushing back on certain proposals, citing environmental impacts, indigenous land concerns, and other issues.

            Where I agree with you, is that at some point developped countries who made the choice to externali

    • Re:Wheel of History (Score:5, Interesting)

      by VeryFluffyBunny ( 5037285 ) on Monday March 13, 2023 @03:51PM (#63367773)
      The USA can't even maintain its roads, bridges, & railways. They're crumbling & there's little to no attention to safety or environment, e.g. the toxic train crashes & fires in recent years. "Light touch" regulation essentially means no regulation & it shows. How are they going to safely build out & maintain the infrastructure for large-scale mineral extraction & processing? Does the USA even have the skilled manpower for that stuff anymore?
    • China effectively controls 95% of the rare earth minerals mining

      70% [statista.com]

      • Thanks for correcting me.

        The figure I had in mind was for Europe (I am from there) with 98% of rare earths used in the EU in 2021 imported from China [statista.com].

        • This is done because China produces REs the cheapest. They do this by treating entire towns/populations as expendable assets, polluting rural areas and water tables. https://www.statista.com/stati... [statista.com]

          • Yes they do. That's my point. Because they do that (ie: don't care about social/environmental impacts), they can produce cheap REs for us.

            They also have the biggest RE reserves (44 million metric tons, compared to the US 2.3 million metric tons [investingnews.com]).

            The problem is that in our western society, people want cheap things, and most of the time, cheap is not compatible with environmental-friendly. Do you think people are/will be willing to pay more for the same thing, or that they will just buy the cheapest smartphon

            • The problem is that in our western society, people want cheap things

              No, the problem is that our governments have not placed proper import controls on products made in a harmful manner. Our governments have failed their people, nothing more, nothing less.

              • Meh, I find it too easy to blame the governments. Too easy to blame the governments after years of taking advantage of the situation, when shit starts to hit the fan. Studies about mining impacts, greenhouse gases emissions, environmental hazards, have been out for years.

                Governments are just the mirrors of our human nature. It is too easy to look the other way, and most people are happy to do so when given the choice. Panem et circenses.

    • "we basically offshored the extraction of those minerals out of our sight, so we could pretend to ignore the environmental damage it was causing. Out of sight, out of mind."

      Absolutely correct. My career started in extractive metallurgy, but Clinton, Gore, and Babbitt ended that for exact,y the reasons you give.

      Several University programs teaching mineral processing and mining engineering got shut down as a result of the jobs going away, Restarting those programs will not be easy. Most of the people who coul

  • If the people who wrote and passed this legislation put in a pro-"Free Trade Agreement" clause, then it sounds like they are once again favorable to making a free trade agreement.
  • The modern world runs on extracted resources, whether they're extracted from your back yard or somebody else's. In an increasingly frightening global community, being self-sufficient for most things just makes sense. Somebody might not like losing a mountain or two to strip-mining, but there are an awful lot of mountains.

    Actually, unless you're willing to go without, getting them within your borders doesn't have all that much downside. Having the effects local and visible might, in fact, change behaviour in

  • We can't mine for coal, or uranium, but we can mine for cobalt, graphite, lithium, manganese, and nickel. Wait a minute, what is graphite made from? Carbon? You mean like coal is made from carbon? I guess we will open up those coal mines again, but call them "graphite mines" to make all the tree huggers happy.

    Has anyone considered how much earth has to be moved to get at these minerals for alternative energy? And compared that to how much earth needs to be moved for nuclear energy? This comparison has

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