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Americans are starting to see the results of the bipartisan infrastructure bill signed by President Joe Biden in 2021. Federal projects are upgrading America’s transit systems and power grids, including a proliferation of electric vehicles and charging stations. However, there’s a catch. All of these renewable technologies have spurred massive demand for key minerals and metals. But global supplies of these resources are dominated by the United States’ rivals.

The International Energy Agency estimates that demand for key minerals — such as lithium, cobalt and nickel — will grow 4,000% by 2040. However, the U.S. is falling woefully behind in the race to gather enough supplies. In fact, America’s reliance on imported minerals just hit another record, with China the largest supplier of these crucial building blocks.

The Biden administration knows it has a problem on its hands. Jake Sullivan — the Biden administration’s top national security adviser — recently said, “Clean energy supply chains are at risk of being weaponized in the same way as oil in the 1970s or natural gas in Europe in 2022.”

Sullivan says America’s dependence on China-dominated supply chains is unacceptable. And China’s use of forced labor, threats against Taiwan, and hoarding of mineral supplies as geopolitical leverage should be reason enough to take action.

Remarkably, though, the Biden administration has yet to use the best lever to address the problem. The administration is having the State Department fund mining overseas — including in Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. That’s particularly unfortunate because mining in the DRC is rife with child workers exposed to toxic dust.

Such disturbing practices contrast with much safer — and heavily regulated — mining in the United States. This matters because the U.S. possesses vast mineral supplies, including the resources needed for electric vehicle batteries.

#MAMA – Make America Mine Again – safer and environmentally benign methods.

MAKE AMERICA MINE AGAIN – #MAMA – NATIONALLY OR INTERNATIONALLY

Read more at: https://lasvegassun.com/news/2023/may/21/biden-must-embrace-domestic-mining/

According to the officials, the interim negotiation with Canada is “progressing fast” and the two countries may sign a deal in the second half of this year.

India and Canada may sign an interim free trade deal by this year, the precursor to a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), officials said after commerce minister Piyush Goyal and his Canadian counterpart Mary Ng reviewed the progress of ongoing negotiations for a free trade agreement between the two countries a day before the CEOs roundtable, held in Toronto on Tuesday.

Read more at: https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/india-and-canada-may-sign-interim-free-trade-deal-by-year-end-precursor-to-comprehensive-economic-partnership-agreement-101683746661784.html

Indonesia has emerged as the world’s second-largest supplier of cobalt, contributing to a sharp fall in the price of the battery metal and adding to western anxieties about Beijing’s dominance across the electric car supply chain. The south-east Asian country generated 9,500 tonnes of cobalt last year — 5 per cent of the global supply — up from minimal volumes before 2021, according to an annual market report by the Cobalt Institute, an industry group. That means it has overtaken established producers Australia and the Philippines.

The surge in the supply of Indonesian cobalt — a byproduct from its rapidly growing nickel industry — has helped drive prices down from $40 per pound in April last year to about $15, according to Fastmarkets.

Read more at: https://www.ft.com/content/aae97af3-02ac-4723-a6fd-dbb0e5de55ff

Oklahoma is seeing a sharp increase in foreign investment interest, especially in its renewable energy sector, and is on the cusp of signing large new deals with firms in Switzerland and Asia, Governor Kevin Stitt told Reuters on Wednesday.

“If you want a manufacturing center in the U.S., there’s not a better state to be located in than Oklahoma. We’re dead center located in the middle of the U.S.,” he said, citing a big push by countries and companies to diversify their supply chains and reduce reliance on China.

The state’s low energy costs – about one-third the cost of energy in Europe and the lowest in the United States – were a big draw, Stitt said, adding that Oklahoma derived about 45% of its electricity from renewable sources.

He said he had met recently with officials from Germany, Switzerland, South Korea, Taiwan, France and Qatar, and was in talks with various firms about potential deals valued at around $1 billion, but ranging higher.

Japan’s Panasonic Holdings, a battery supplier to electric vehicle maker Tesla Inc, said on Sunday it is considering building a battery plant in Oklahoma, its third in the United States.

Stitt said agriculture and rare earths production were other promising areas.

USA Rare Earth is investing heavily in a rare-earth metal manufacturing facility in Stillwater, Oklahoma, Stitt said.

Read more at: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/oklahoma-gov-stitt-sees-growing-foreign-interest-investments-state-2023-05-04/

Finnish utility Fortum said on Tuesday it has begun recovering raw materials from the “black mass” of electric vehicle batteries at its new recycling facility in Finland.

Black mass is the shredded material which comes from used batteries, which can include lithium, cobalt, and nickel. These metals can then be extracted and used to make new batteries.

Carmakers such as Tesla, Volkswagen and Stellantis are accelerating their drive to secure these scarce battery raw materials, while the European Union is tightening its regulation on recycling them.

Fortum said it had invested some 27 million euros ($30 million) in the new facility, which it called the first of a kind in Europe, in Harjavalta, southwestern Finland.

It said it would be able to recover 95% of the raw materials contained in the black mass of lithium-ion batteries, to produce a sulphate of nickel and cobalt for reuse in car batteries.

Read more at: https://www.mining.com/web/finlands-fortum-begins-battery-material-recovery-from-ev-black-mass/