Groundbreaking! America's New Quest for Mineral Independence by Ned Mamula

Scrambling for answers, the Biden Administration made a series of federal grants and contracts mostly linked to our defense, not energy.

But we have since ceded that expertise.Ĭhina now has a commanding chokehold on each of these steps producing the smartphones we hold in our hands, the Teslas zipping around our freeways, and the submarines and air fleet we rely on for national security. The original Silicon Valley hardware engineers understood how to apply mind-boggling characteristics of many minerals into the advanced technology we blithely use today. The foundational elements to build all of these “climate change fighting machines” like wind turbines and EV batteries require literally tons of minerals to be extracted, processed, shaped, shipped, combined, and finally formed into a final product. Proponents of mandating unrealistic policies and tight deadlines to fight climate change are finally having to confront the consequences of those sweeping decisions against a backdrop of an unreliable global supply chain impacting our national security. Tellingly, the press and public were excluded from discussions with Union guests. Newsom’s only credible assurance is to include labor standards, which President Biden also emphasized in the video conference highlighting just California’s contribution to the supposed nationwide effort to create a domestic supply chain for critical minerals. Accompanying tax credits and earmarking taxpayer dollars to fund investments questionable in their long-term viability aren’t surprising either. His February 22 formal statement is chock full of qualifiers: “could be,” “positions the state,” “experts estimate,” and “committed to.” Conveniently, results from this so-called green initiative won’t come due until after he has left office. Quite a spin of the facts, courtesy of his senior advisor Dee Dee Myers, previously of the Clinton Administration and advisor for the TV show The West Wing. It is no surprise that Governor Newsom’s recent promises of visionary breakthroughs in clean energy in Southern California comes with breathtaking assurances of game-changing technology plus equity for all.

Groundbreaking! America's New Quest for Mineral Independence by Ned Mamula