Rare Earth Minerals, etc. from China … or the USA?

[Elderberry]

The Post & Email

US defense, security, industry should not be held hostage to China, when we could mine here

You’d be crazy to buy a car based on its shiny exterior, dazzling instruments and gorgeous leather interior – but without examining the engine or taking a test drive.

And yet that’s how America has handled the metals and minerals that are vital to our defense, medical, communication, automotive, aerospace, lasers, computer/AI/data centers and every other sector of our economy. They’s worth multi-trillions of dollars and are the foundation for jobs, living standards, national security, “green” energy and more.

In the Stone Age, humans relied on flint and obsidian. The Bronze Age utilized copper, tin and lead, plus gold and silver. The Iron Age prioritized iron and carbon. Today, we need almost every element in the Periodic Table, plus countless non-metallic minerals.

However, without any attempt to determine what deposits might lie beneath, decisionmakers have made hundreds of millions of acres of America’s “public lands” off limits to exploration and mining, primarily in Alaska and the eleven states west of the Dakotas. They’re managed by federal agencies for nearly every activity and value except potential subsurface treasures.

In fact, well over two-thirds of those lands have been effectively placed under lock and key: an area larger than Arizona, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming combined!

Of course, some places are so unique, magnificent or ecologically priceless that they should be off limits to resource extraction – from Arches to Zion National Park. But America cannot afford wide buffer zones around them, much less buffer zones around the buffer zones.

Moreover, countless other areas have also been closed off – some by acts of Congress, others by presidential or bureaucratic decree, or unending wilderness and wildlife studies. All with virtually no consideration of subsurface values. Sometimes federal officials even refuse to follow the law, because they “don’t think Congress should have enacted laws allowing exploration.”

More: https://www.thepostemail.com/2025/11/02/rare-earth-minerals-etc-from-china-or-the-usa/

[Smokin Joe]

Even worse, there seems to be a prevailing train of thought that an acre here is the same as an acre over there, and that a one for one exchange leads to the same mineral wealth. It simply does not, and as a geologist, I can definitively say so.

Like with real estate, location matters. Minerals are where you find them. I know of a rare earth rutile mineralization (Niobium/Tantalum), but it likely won't ever be developed. It's on the shores of a major city water reservoir.