Kamala Harris doesn’t just want to build more factories in the US if elected president. She also wants to help secure steady supplies of materials to fuel them.
A recent promise that embodies this approach is her proposed establishment of a “national reserve” of [critical minerals](https://www.energy.gov/cmm/what-are-critical-materials-and-critical-minerals) such as cobalt, lithium, and nickel — the crucial building blocks in everything from electric vehicle batteries to jet engines to medical devices.
dormidormit on
Outsourcing failed. We’ve known this since the 40s when most raw minerals started to be replaced wtih foreign substitutes. It’s why the California Mother Lode boom popped hard, and couldn’t recover despite Uranium speculation. Now we don’t even have a stable Uranium supply for our weapons. We need to change, heavy industrial and machine work must be protected. Mining and, conversely, materials recycling is the most intensive effort at this. The actual materials are only half the equation here – the other half are the railroads, barges, machinery, and laborers actually required to do these jobs in rural Nevada, Alabama, Tennessee and New Mexico. Banks refuse to pay for this or lend capital for it, the government must do the job itself at cost.
NebulousNitrate on
Is this the same type of reserve the Harris/Biden administration and the few before it have been drawing down via sales for years?
gdazInSeattle on
This makes sense. Many of these minerals are a relatively small part of semiconductor products, but they’re necessary (i.e., without them nothing works). It makes sense to strategically hold some in reserve. What we reserve needs to be planned and executed thoughtfully. Harris strikes me as someone who can be thoughtful (and is competent). The other guy running for president, not so much.
WeCanHearYouAllNight on
Whatever helps Elon Musk keep going, I’m on board.
Panda_tears on
just like the strategic oil reserves we refuse to fully replenish, k…
6 Comments
Excerpt:
Kamala Harris doesn’t just want to build more factories in the US if elected president. She also wants to help secure steady supplies of materials to fuel them.
A recent promise that embodies this approach is her proposed establishment of a “national reserve” of [critical minerals](https://www.energy.gov/cmm/what-are-critical-materials-and-critical-minerals) such as cobalt, lithium, and nickel — the crucial building blocks in everything from electric vehicle batteries to jet engines to medical devices.
Outsourcing failed. We’ve known this since the 40s when most raw minerals started to be replaced wtih foreign substitutes. It’s why the California Mother Lode boom popped hard, and couldn’t recover despite Uranium speculation. Now we don’t even have a stable Uranium supply for our weapons. We need to change, heavy industrial and machine work must be protected. Mining and, conversely, materials recycling is the most intensive effort at this. The actual materials are only half the equation here – the other half are the railroads, barges, machinery, and laborers actually required to do these jobs in rural Nevada, Alabama, Tennessee and New Mexico. Banks refuse to pay for this or lend capital for it, the government must do the job itself at cost.
Is this the same type of reserve the Harris/Biden administration and the few before it have been drawing down via sales for years?
This makes sense. Many of these minerals are a relatively small part of semiconductor products, but they’re necessary (i.e., without them nothing works). It makes sense to strategically hold some in reserve. What we reserve needs to be planned and executed thoughtfully. Harris strikes me as someone who can be thoughtful (and is competent). The other guy running for president, not so much.
Whatever helps Elon Musk keep going, I’m on board.
just like the strategic oil reserves we refuse to fully replenish, k…