Dakota Beacon

Politicians, reinforced by incurious journalists, forever promise the proverbial “chicken in every pot.” Far too many people are gullible enough to believe the promises. Unfortunately, they did not include Chicken Little in their stew. He is still free range, running loose, and doing his thing.

Take for example the misleading hue and cry over the US lack of rare earth elements (REE). True, China produces over 95 percent of the world’s REE. Should we kowtow to China currying favor to make ends meet? After all, they have everything the world needs and we have nothing. So, can’t we just get along? That’s the narrative. However, high concentrations of REE have been identified at Mountain Pass, California, and Mount Weld, Australia. Knowing California, one can understand why they are the most obvious roadblock to the most obvious solution.

REE received little attention over the decades, but their unique properties have made them crucial to a number of emerging and growing technologies. REE exhibit attributes including magnetism, stability at extreme temperatures, and resistance to corrosion. Accordingly, their demand and strategic importance exploded.

Actually, RRE are found in relative abundance around the world, but it is unusual to find a commercially viable deposit. Seventeen REE are grouped together on the periodic table sharing similar chemical properties. REE names are not exactly household words. Words such as Praseodymium, Neodymium, Promethium, Gadolinium, Yiropium, and Desposiumand are seldom used in everyday conversation. Yet, they are needed in commercial applications from computers to magnets to cell phones and hybrid cars.

Once removed from the mineral deposit, the difficult task of separating the rare earth ores into different minerals and oxides begins. Furthermore, radioactive elements like Uranium may contaminant REE deposits making other elements unrecoverable.

Can it be that the only feasible solution must be black or white, good or evil, warden of a pristine environment or debaucher of Mother Earth (or Gaia, if you must)? There is a term in formal logic for wrongheaded thinking of this sort – the fallacy of “Either-Or” asserting that we must choose between only two alternatives when in fact there are multiple alternatives. That we should not mine because mining necessarily destroys “the environment” does not even register on the Richter scale of possible choices.

If the obvious logical fallacy is brushed off, then we proletarians are smugly advised to “Just follow the science!” Okay. Follow the science – the science of land reclamation.

Travel north on US Highway 83 between Bismarck and Minot, North Dakota. The highway transits the Falkirk Mine which covers about 75,000 acres with another 56,000 acres in leases. Each year 300 to 400 acres of overburden are removed to extract 7 million tons of lignite coal. Concurrently, 300 to 400 acres are reclaimed and returned each year to productive cropland at the cost of $15,000 per acre. And the coal company still comes out on top. This demonstrates the US can walk and chew gum at the same time.

Furthermore, the US can emulate Australia. They protect their environmental heritage while also extracting their REE. The US has verified we can do likewise.

As mentioned, China supplies our most critical and strategic REE. That gives them obvious leverage in policy negotiations. Aggravating this debacle is the powerful, radical, and well-funded environmental lobby. We are 50-100% reliant on foreign countries for the REE needed for computers, cell phones, and other high-tech applications involving civilian, industrial, medical, communication, and defense use. This resembles our earlier dependence on oil from others.

America is endowed with mineral riches, but we do not know their extent because we are not permitted to explore, map, and evaluate deposits. Even if we knew the precise location and composition of deposits, manmade mining prohibitions preclude extraction from these deposits. How sweet the irony. The anti-mining position denies to solar and wind power the very things needed for production – REE! We cavalierly declared off limits REE extraction for high-tech equipment alternatives to fossil fuel energy.

It is not a matter of not having resources. It is a matter of having excessive laws, land set-asides, federal withdrawal of land from use, and an interminable environmental permitting process that impose severe constraints on US production.

If we have a shortage of anything, it is not because it is missing within the US. It is because of lousy and inept political decision-making.

We became energy independent through exploration and technological innovation such as fracking (fracturing) to retrieve petroleum assets. Not only could we become REE independent if we follow the same course, we could make the US an REE exporting superpower!

Chicken Little does his thing hollering to high heaven. Ignore him. He is an irrational nuisance and a distraction. Vote him out of office.

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).