There are media reports that the epidemic relief bill signed by President Trump last month includes more than $800 million in funding for research on rare earths and strategic mineral materials, which is appreciated by mining companies. Some experts have pointed out that regardless of how U.S.-China relations develop, we should expect China to gradually reduce its exports of rare earths in the future amid rising domestic environmental awareness.
According to Reuters, the bill calls for better geological research on federal lands, funding for research on rare earth processing and recycling, and support for improvements in mining education programs. Mining companies applauded the passage of the bill and said it would help weaken China’s leadership in the field.
China has been a major exporter of rare earths, which are used as raw materials in the manufacture of electric cars and other environmentally friendly technologies and weapons. Because the rare earth production process is relatively environmentally damaging, domestic U.S. rare earth production has been gradually declining over the years, relying instead mainly on imports. With the deterioration of U.S.-China relations, restoring U.S. domestic production of rare earths has become a top priority for Washington.
June Teufel Dreyer, a senior fellow in the Asia Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a U.S. think tank, and a professor of political science at the University of Miami, noted at a Jan. 12 seminar at the institute that West Virginia University has a research project funded by the U.S. Department of Energy to extract economically and strategically valuable rare earth elements from pits in the Appalachian region. “It’s a brilliant idea,” The latest report, dated Jan. 8, shows that the research program has reached a new milestone in partially automating the rare earth recovery process and enhancing the purity of rare earth mining, “which is a good start on the technical side.” Kim said he hopes the program will be funded from the $800 million just passed.
However, Kim also said that how to make the rare earth supply chain with commercial benefits and avoid further damage to the earth’s ecology is still a big problem, and when fossil fuels are gradually replaced by the rise of environmental awareness, the fossil fuel industry workers face unemployment problem must also be solved. Not only the United States, China is also facing a similar dilemma.
According to statistics, the total global reserves of rare earths is about 126 million tons, China’s rare earth reserves account for 44% of the total global reserves. (AFP)
Jin De Fang stressed that we should expect China’s rare earth exports to continue to decrease in the future anyway, even if we remove the influence of the U.S.-China relationship, China’s rising domestic environmental awareness will induce China to reserve its production for its own domestic needs. The U.S. must address the issue of rare earths production, not as a matter of urgency, and “we need more sustained attention and government subsidies.
Also serving on the United Nations International Resources Committee, the University of Delaware Distinguished Professor of Energy and Environment Ali (Saleem H. Ali) said that the current United Nations Environment Assembly, although there is a resolution on the governments of Member States on the environmental and social performance of mineral resources governance to develop some kind of global standards, but there is no international treaty for national mineral governance. He believes that the importance of regulating mining governance through international agreements goes beyond environmental and social considerations. From a resource security perspective, countries need to reach a consensus on how to provide resources for infrastructure if they are to meet the carbon reduction targets under the Paris Agreement.
In response to the attitude of the incoming Biden administration, Ali pointed out that at least one person in the Defense Department will be familiar with energy and environmental issues in the personnel list recently announced by the Biden team. Goldfarb believes this issue does have bipartisan support.
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