America Wastes Vital Minerals Key to Its Future Energy Needs

Quick Summary:

• A study published in Science reveals that the U.S. mines sufficient quantities of critical minerals (like cobalt,lithium,germanium,and rare earth elements),but these are discarded as tailings during mining for other materials like gold and zinc.
• Extracting these minerals is technically possible but not yet economically feasible without further research, advancement, and supportive policies.
• Researchers used data from federally permitted metal mines in combination wiht geochemical data to identify untapped critical mineral reserves.
• Recovering even a small percentage (e.g.,1% of germanium or 10% of cobalt) could suffice to meet domestic demands for industries such as electric vehicles,defence satellites,and medical devices while reducing reliance on imports.
• Improving recovery methods would also provide environmental benefits by reducing mine waste and enabling reuse in construction and other sectors.
• The analysis shows recovery could meet U.S. demand for most critical minerals except platinum and palladium.
• Experts emphasize the need to develop technologies suited to specific minerals at identified sites and suggest policy incentives are essential to prompt investment from mine operators.

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Indian Opinion Analysis:

The findings highlight an innovative “low-hanging fruit” approach that could redefine mineral resource management globally. India’s increasing demand for critical minerals-essential for its growing tech sector, renewable energy transition, EV push under FAME II policies, space missions like Chandrayaan projects-underscores lessons here about resource efficiency.

While India remains heavily dependent on mineral imports (including lithium from Australia or rare earths from China), the study encourages exploring parallel strategies domestically. For India’s mining sector-a meaningful contributor to GDP-the call is twofold: identifying potential local waste-to-resource initiatives at existing sites alongside advancing beneficiation infrastructure.

India’s burgeoning green economy goals imply adopting sustainable practices like those proposed in this study can offer both geopolitical security through decreased import dependency while minimizing environmental costs. However, challenges remain-balancing economic feasibility against required investments echoes global policy complexities present here too.