Coltan / rare earth

===

conflict min?

gop has no problem w. blood diamonds see dodd frank

===

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an 12 25

President Donald Trump's Sunday night decision to name Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R) as his administration's new special envoy to Greenland is already making waves around the world.

Trump posted late Sunday to his Truth Social account that Landry "will strongly advance our Country’s Interests for the Safety, Security, and Survival of our Allies, and indeed, the World," and that the Louisiana governor "understands how essential Greenland is to our National Security." Landry appears to accept the role, though he posted on his official X account that his new "volunteer position to make Greenland a part of the U.S." would not intrude on his ongoing responsibilities in Baton Rouge.

Simon Marks, who is a contributor to the United Kingdom-based iPaper, quipped that Landry's role advancing U.S. efforts in Greenland's capital city of Nuuk "won’t be easy, since so far there is limited appetite for non-stop flights between the two cities." He also observed that Trump's announcement has caused a significant amount of consternation for Denmark, which has dominion over Denmark and controls its military and foreign policy (though Greenland has its own parliament).

"Land borders and the sovereignty of states are rooted in international law," Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenland Parilament chairman Frederik Nielsen said in a joint statement. "You cannot annex other countries. Not even with an argument about international security. Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders … We expect respect for our territorial integrity."

Marks went on to note that Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen called Landry's appointment "unacceptable" and that he was "deeply angered" upon learning of Trump's announcement. Ken Howery, who is the U.S. Ambassador to Denmark (and a co-founder of PayPal) has reportedly been summoned to Copenhagen to discuss Landry's appointment.

Trump's announcement that he was putting Landry in charge of the United States' diplomatic efforts in Greenland comes as his administration continues to threaten Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, which Trump recently admitted was about "getting land" and "oil rights." Marks wrote that "Trump is indicating that his expansionist tendencies are back in vogue, especially with regard to worldwide locations that are rich in natural resources."

The iPaper columnist hypothesized that if Venezuela is about oil, Trump's efforts in Greenland may be about mineral resources. He reminded readers that Greenland was rich in 25 of 34 minerals classified as "critical raw minerals" by the European Commission.

Click here to read Marks' full column in iPaper.

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11 25

President Donald Trump has made no secret of his desire for the U.S. to acquire Greenland as a new American territory. In response to this renewed pressure, Denmark, which currently controls Greenland as an autonomous territory, has set up a new "night watch" program to keep tabs on Trump's public comments.

News of this program first emerged in the Danish newspaper, Politiken. The outlet reported that Denmark's foreign ministry now has a team working a 5 p.m. to 7 a.m. night shift monitoring any public statements Trump might make about Greenland, designed to account for the time difference between the country and the U.S. Any time that Trump makes a statement containing the word "Greenland," it is added to a report presented to officials in the morning.

This night watch program has reportedly been in operation since the spring. Speaking with Newsweek about the program, Rasmus Sinding Søndergaard, a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies, said that Danish officials remain extremely concerned about Trump's overtures concerning Greenland, and may be looking to stall in hopes of a Democratic win in the 2026 midterms.

“Denmark is currently trying to play for time, hoping that this will fizzle out and that maybe a democratic win in the US midterms might stifle Trump's ambitions to take Greenland," Søndergaard explained.

Greenland is a snowy island territory situated in the Arctic Ocean northeast of Canada. Experts have suggested that Greenland's rich supply of important minerals, including rare-earth minerals that Trump has been fixated on securing during his second term.

Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen has warned U.S. officials against Trump's Greenland posturing, and Danish officials have repeatedly insisted the territory is "not for sale." Trump has previously attempted to claim that Greenland residents want to join the U.S., despite an overwhelming 85 percent of Greenlanders opposing the idea. The president has also stated that he does not rule out the use of military action or economic pressure to coerce Denmark into ceding control of Greenland, which put Danish officials on even higher alert.

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MOJO 12 24

LONG By Vince Beiser book power metal

A $60 Billion-a-Year Climate Solution Is Sitting in Our Junk Drawers – Mother Jones

...

Only 22 percent of that e-waste is collected and recycled, the UN estimates. The rest is dumped, burned, or forgotten—particularly in rich countries, where most people have no convenient way to get rid of their old Samsung Galaxy phones, Xbox controllers, and myriad other gadgets. Indeed, every year, humanity is wasting more than $60 billion worth of so-called critical metals—the ones we need not only for electronics, but also for the hardware of renewable energy, from electric vehicle (EV) batteries to wind turbines.

Millions of Americans, like me, spend their workdays on pursuits that lack any physical manifestation beyond the occasional hard-copy book or memo or report. It’s easy to forget that all these livelihoods rely on machines. And that those machines rely on metals torn from the Earth.

Consider your smartphone. Depending on the model, it can contain up to two-thirds of the elements in the periodic table, including dozens of metals. Some are familiar, like the gold and tin in its circuitry and the nickel in its microphone. Others less so: Tiny flecks of indium make the screen sensitive to the touch of a finger. Europium enhances the colors. Neodymium, dysprosium, and terbium are used to build the tiny mechanism that makes your phone vibrate.

Stripping a cellphone in Ikeja Computer Village.

Your phone’s battery contains cobalt, lithium, and nickel. Ditto the ones that power your rechargeable drill, Roomba, and electric toothbrush—not to mention our latest modes of transportation, ranging from plug-in scooters and e-bikes to EVs. A Tesla Model S has as much lithium as up to 10,000 smartphones.

...

In all of human history, we have extracted some 700 million tons of copper from the Earth. To meet our clean energy goals, we’ll have to mine as much again in 20-odd years. By 2050, the International Energy Agency estimates, global demand for cobalt for EVs alone will soar to five times what it was in 2022. Demand for nickel will be 10 times higher. Lithium, 15 times. “The prospect of a rapid increase in demand for critical minerals—well above anything seen previously in most cases—raises huge questions about the availability and reliability of supply,” the agency warns.

...

The harm is staggering. Metal mining is America’s leading toxic polluter. It has sullied the watersheds of almost half of the rivers in the American West. Chemical leaks and mining runoff foul air and water. The mines also generate mountains of hazardous waste, stored behind dams that have a terrifying tendency to fail. Torrents of poisonous sludge pouring through collapsed tailings dams have contaminated waterways in Brazil, Canada, and elsewhere and killed hundreds of people—in addition to the hundreds, possibly thousands, of miners who die in workplace accidents each year.

To get what they’re after, mining companies devour natural resources on an epic scale. They dig up some 250 tons of ore and waste rock to get just 1 ton of nickel. For copper, the ratio is double that. Just to obtain the metals inside your 4.5-ounce iPhone, 75 pounds of ore had to be pulled up, crushed, and smelted, releasing up to 100 pounds of carbon dioxide. Mining firms also suck up massive quantities of water and deploy fleets of drill rigs, trucks, diggers, and other heavy machinery that collectively belch out up to 7 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

These operations are not popular with the neighbors. Irate locals and Indigenous communities at this moment are fighting proposed critical-metal mines across the United States, in addition to Brazil, Canada, the Philippines, Serbia, and many other countries. At least 320 anti-mining activists have been killed worldwide since 2012—and they are just the ones we know about.

...

Spent lithium batteries present their own recycling challenge. They are potentially among the world’s best sources for critical metals—one study found that battery recycling theoretically could satisfy nearly half of global demand for certain metals. Yet only about 5 percent of them get recycled because they are uniquely hard to handle—and dangerous.

Nigeria, for example, is awash in lithium-ion batteries, but no place on the continent recycles them. They need to be exported. Shippers don’t want to take them, however, because of their disturbing tendency to burst into flames when punctured, crushed, or overheated. Battery fires can exceed 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. They also emit toxic gases and are very hard to extinguish. American consumers are asked to bring unwanted lithium batteries to a domestic recycler or a hazardous waste site, and for good reason. Every year, batteries from everything from old Priuses to sex toys cause hundreds of fires in US scrapyards, landfills, and even on garbage trucks, causing millions of dollars in damage. Residents of Fredericktown, Missouri, even had to evacuate their homes earlier this month when a local battery recycling facility exploded dramatically into flames.

...

===

so much ignorance, hypocrisy hard to tell from just bad faith

https://www.alternet.org/weaponized-nonsense-lauren-boebert-climate/

no lnx twt vid

Lauren Boebert (R-Colorado) referred to climate change as a "religion" during a floor speech in the House of Representatives on Tuesday.

"It's past timeHouse Democrats start to have a little empathy and dismount their moral high horse of climate change. There are thousands of children currently today slaving away in the Congo at Chinese-owned mines. They have to dig for cobalt with their bare hands. Instead of freeing these slaves and even ourselves from the need of these, this resource, they want to buy Chinese-made products," Boebert hollered."It's clear they have a climate religion. They worship the Earth while I worship the Creator, not the creation. We are here to be good stewards of our land. So stop sacrificing the American families at your altar of climate change."}:

Exploitative slave labor is a major problem in the industrial extraction of rare-earth minerals like cobalt, which is an essential material in a vast array of products such as electric cars, medical devices, and smartphones. As National Public Radio noted in February, "cobalt is used in the manufacture of almost all lithium-ion rechargeable batteries used in the world today."

READ MORE: Lauren Boebert declares war on Disney and immediately loses

NPR further pointed out that "the mines have taken over everything. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced because their villages were just bulldozed over to make place for large mining concessions." NPR added that "it's not chattel slavery from the 18th century where you can buy and trade people and own title over a person like property. But the level of degradation, the level of exploitation is on par with old-world slavery."

NPR added that Chinese companies "have about 70, 80% of the refined cobalt market and probably half of the battery market."

Yet Boebert's own actions and record do not square with her proclamation. First, her Bible explicitly commands in numerous passages that humans be "good stewards" of the Earth.

Faith leaders have championed this idea too. Pope John Paul II once said that "the Earth will not continue to offer its harvest, except with faithful stewardship. We cannot say we love the land and then take steps to destroy it for use by future generations."}:

READ MORE: 'Such a pathetic hateful person': Lauren Boebert buried for tweeting unprovoked attack on immigrants

Second, Boebert opposes legislation and regulations aimed at protecting the environment, putting her at odds with science and reality. In 2021, Boebert filed a bill to nullify the Paris Climate Agreement, which President Joe Biden rejoined, prompting outrage from residents of her district.

"As the 'representative' of a district in which 59% of constituents are worried about global warming, 56% think Congress should do more to address global warming, and 72% think carbon dioxide should be regulated as a pollutant, Boebert’s sweeping, ill-informed bill is not only a rebuke to District 3 — which will suffer the impacts of a warming climate disproportionately — but an abrogation of fact itself," Darmouth student Soleil Gaylord wrote for Colorado Newsline that year.

Jacobin Magazine compared Boebert's anti-climate bill of running a "self-enrichment scheme" aimed at "benefiting her husband's fossil fuel business."

Last month, Boebert trivialized the climate crisis by tweeting, "Nothing against climate change. I totally believe in it. It happens four times every year."

Twitter users called out her hypocrisy after Tuesday's outburst.

LoveToHike: "Um aren't Christians supposed to be stewards of the Earth?"

Christian SoxKehd: "Then why is she fine as humanity is destroying the Creator's gift to us? If you hold him in the exalted reverence you claim, wouldn't you wish to preserve the gifted home He left for us."

Gayle Glade: "I don't care if her higher power is Jiminy Cricket or Buddha. That's private. What she is PAID to do is be a legislator. As such she needs to deal with facts, figures, science, and reality. Nothing more. She can preach on Sundays. Mon-Fri she's on constituent time!"

Ken: "If @laurenboebert worships the creator, then wouldn't she and other so-called 'Christians' do what it takes to protect what the creator created?"

KevinMc: "God spent 3 out of 7 days creating the Earth...1 day creating the rest of the universe...2 days creating sea creatures, animals and humans...and then God rested. God thought the Earth was the most important part of his creation...seems worth saving. 'True' story. Look it up."

Waffle Pocket: "Lauren Boebert coming out strong against the planet Earth."

Mo Ray: "Little Miss Cliché trots out her tired talking points to mock those of us who would rather not trash the planet, it's neither helpful nor accurate. Most scientists believe that climate change is real, it's not a religious movement, simply an attempt to prevent further damage."

Randy Watson: "The only creator she worships is Smith & Wesson."

Half Centaur: "Another in a long string of GOP 'weaponized nonsense.'"

Watch below or at this link.

READ MORE: 'Then why are you allowed to vote?' Lauren Boebert goes down in flames after new Constitution gaffe

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Lauren Boebert’s gun-obsessed restaurant is facing an 'uncertain future': report ›

'How confident your stupidity is': Lauren Boebert lampooned for posting crudely-cropped US map ›

Watch: House Republican told to 'search your heart' during contentious climate change hearing ›

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

Lauren Boebert's Anti-Climate Legislation Is a Self-Enrichment ... ›

Rep. Boebert Introduces Bill to Block Paris Agreement ... ›

Republican Leaders Want to Reinvent the Party's Climate Image ... ›

klare tom d

https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/renweable-energy-resources/

Thanks to its very name — renewable energy — we can picture a time in the not-too-distant future when our need for non-renewable fuels like oil, natural gas, and coal will vanish. Indeed, the Biden administration has announced a breakthrough target of 2035 for fully eliminating U.S. reliance on those non-renewable fuels for the generation of electricity. That would be accomplished by "deploying carbon-pollution-free electricity-generating resources," primarily the everlasting power of the wind and sun.

With other nations moving in a similar direction, it's tempting to conclude that the days when competition over finite supplies of energy was a recurring source of conflict will soon draw to a close. Unfortunately, think again: while the sun and wind are indeed infinitely renewable, the materials needed to convert those resources into electricity — minerals like cobalt, copper, lithium, nickel, and the rare-earth elements, or REEs — are anything but. Some of them, in fact, are far scarcer than petroleum, suggesting that global strife over vital resources may not, in fact, disappear in the Age of Renewables.

To appreciate this unexpected paradox, it's necessary to explore how wind and solar power are converted into usable forms of electricity and propulsion. Solar power is largely collected by photovoltaic cells, often deployed in vast arrays, while the wind is harvested by giant turbines, typically deployed in extensive wind farms. To use electricity in transportation, cars and trucks must be equipped with advanced batteries capable of holding a charge over long distances. Each one of these devices uses substantial amounts of copper for electrical transmission, as well as a variety of other non-renewable minerals. Those wind turbines, for instance, require manganese, molybdenum, nickel, zinc, and rare-earth elements for their electrical generators, while electric vehicles (EVs) need cobalt, graphite, lithium, manganese, and rare earths for their engines and batteries.

At present, with wind and solar power accounting for only about 7% of global electricity generation and electric vehicles making up less than 1% of the cars on the road, the production of those minerals is roughly adequate to meet global demand. If, however, the U.S. and other countries really do move toward a green-energy future of the kind envisioned by President Biden, the demand for them will skyrocket and global output will fall far short of anticipated needs.

According to a recent study by the International Energy Agency (IEA), "The Role of Critical Minerals in Clean Energy Transitions," the demand for lithium in 2040 could be 50 times greater than today and for cobalt and graphite 30 times greater if the world moves swiftly to replace oil-driven vehicles with EVs. Such rising demand will, of course, incentivize industry to develop new supplies of such minerals, but potential sources of them are limited and the process of bringing them online will be costly and complicated. In other words, the world could face significant shortages of critical materials. ("As clean energy transitions accelerate globally," the IEA report noted ominously, "and solar panels, wind turbines, and electric cars are deployed on a growing scale, these rapidly growing markets for key minerals could be subject to price volatility, geopolitical influence, and even disruptions to supply.")

And here's a further complication: for a number of the most critical materials, including lithium, cobalt, and those rare-earth elements, production is highly concentrated in just a few countries, a reality that could lead to the sort of geopolitical struggles that accompanied the world's dependence on a few major sources of oil. According to the IEA, just one country, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), currently supplies more than 80% of the world's cobalt, and another — China — 70% of its rare-earth elements. Similarly, lithium production is largely in two countries, Argentina and Chile, which jointly account for nearly 80% of world supply, while four countries — Argentina, Chile, the DRC, and Peru — provide most of our copper. In other words, such future supplies are far more concentrated in far fewer lands than petroleum and natural gas, leading IEA analysts to worry about future struggles over the world's access to them.

From Oil to Lithium: the Geopolitical Implications of the Electric-Car Revolution

The role of petroleum in shaping global geopolitics is well understood. Ever since oil became essential to world transportation — and so to the effective functioning of the world's economy — it has been viewed for obvious reasons as a "strategic" resource. Because the largest concentrations of petroleum were located in the Middle East, an area historically far removed from the principal centers of industrial activity in Europe and North America and regularly subject to political convulsions, the major importing nations long sought to exercise some control over that region's oil production and export. This, of course, led to resource imperialism of a high order, beginning after World War I when Britain and the other European powers contended for colonial control of the oil-producing parts of the Persian Gulf region. It continued after World War II, when the United States entered that competition in a big way.

For the United States, ensuring access to Middle Eastern oil became a strategic priority after the "oil shocks" of 1973 and 1979 — the first caused by an Arab oil embargo that was a reprisal for Washington's support of Israel in that year's October War; the second by a disruption of supplies caused by the Islamic Revolution in Iran. In response to endless lines at American gas stations and the subsequent recessions, successive presidents pledged to protect oil imports by "any means necessary," including the use of armed force. And that very stance led President George H.W. Bush to wage the first Gulf War against Saddam Hussein's Iraq in 1991 and his son to invade that same country in 2003.

In 2021, the United States is no longer as dependent on Middle Eastern oil, given how extensively domestic deposits of petroleum-laden shale and other sedimentary rocks are being exploited by fracking technology. Still, the connection between oil use and geopolitical conflict has hardly disappeared. Most analysts believe that petroleum will continue to supply a major share of global energy for decades to come, and that's certain to generate political and military struggles over the remaining supplies. Already, for instance, conflict has brok en out over disputed offshore supplies in the South and East China Seas, and some analysts predict a struggle for the control of untapped oil and mineral deposits in the Arctic region as well.

Here, then, is the question of the hour: Will an explosion in electric-car ownership change all this? EV market share is already growing rapidly and projected to reach 15% of worldwide sales by 2030. The major automakers are investing heavily in such vehicles, anticipating a surge in demand. There were around 370 EV models available for sale worldwide in 2020 — a 40% increase from 2019 — and major automakers have revealed plans to make an additional 450 models available by 2022. In addition, General Motors has announced its intention to completely phase out conventional gasoline and diesel vehicles by 2035, while Volvo's CEO has indicated that the company would only sell EVs by 2030.

It's reasonable to assume that this shift will only gain momentum, with profound consequences for the global trade in resources. According to the IEA, a typical electric car requires six times the mineral inputs of a conventional oil-powered vehicle. These include the copper for electrical wiring plus the cobalt, graphite, lithium, and nickel needed to ensure battery performance, longevity, and energy density (the energy output per unit of weight). In addition, rare-earth elements will be essential for the permanent magnets installed in EV motors.

Lithium, a primary component of lithium-ion batteries used in most EVs, is the lightest known metal. Although present both in clay deposits and ore composites, it's rarely found in easily mineable concentrations, though it can also be extracted from brine in areas like Bolivia's Salar de Uyuni, the world's largest salt flat. At present, approximately 58% of the world's lithium comes from Australia, another 20% from Chile, 11% from China, 6% from Argentina, and smaller percentages from elsewhere. A U.S. firm, Lithium Americas, is about to undertake the extraction of significant amounts of lithium from a clay deposit in northern Nevada, but is meeting resistance from local ranchers and Native Americans, who fear the contamination of their water supplies.

Cobalt is another key component of lithium-ion batteries. It's rarely found in unique deposits and most often acquired as a byproduct of copper and nickel mining. Today, it's almost entirely produced thanks to copper mining in the violent, chaotic Democratic Republic of the Congo, mostly in what's known as the copper belt of Katanga Province, a region which once sought to break away from the rest of the country and still harbors secessionist impulses.

Rare-earth elements encompass a group of 17 metallic substances scattered across the Earth's surface but rarely found in mineable concentrations. Among them, several are essential for future green-energy solutions, including dysprosium, lanthanum, neodymium, and terbium. When used as alloys with other minerals, they help perpetuate the magnetization of electrical motors under high-temperature conditions, a key requirement for electric vehicles and wind turbines. At present, approximately 70% of REEs come from China, perhaps 12% from Australia, and 8% from the U.S.

A mere glance at the location of such concentrations suggests that the green-energy transition envisioned by President Biden and other world leaders may encounter severe geopolitical problems, not unlike those generated in the past by reliance on oil. As a start, the most militarily powerful nation on the planet, the United States, can supply itself with only tiny percentages of REEs, as well as other critical minerals like nickel and zinc needed for advanced green technologies. While Australia, a close ally, will undoubtedly be an important supplier of some of them, China, already increasingly viewed as an adversary, is crucial when it comes to REEs, and the Congo, one of the most conflict-plagued nations on the planet, is the leading producer of cobalt. So don't for a second imagine that the transition to a renewable-energy future will either be easy or conflict-free.

The Crunch to Come

Faced with the prospect of inadequate or hard-to-access supplies of such critical materials, energy strategists are already calling for major efforts to develop new sources in as many locations as possible. "Today's supply and investment plans for many critical minerals fall well short of what is needed to support an accelerated deployment of solar panels, wind turbines and electric vehicles," said Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency. "These hazards are real, but they are surmountable. The response from policymakers and companies will determine whether critical minerals remain a vital enabler for clean energy transitions or become a bottleneck in the process."

As Birol and his associates at the IEA have made all too clear, however, surmounting the obstacles to increased mineral production will be anything but easy. To begin with, launching new mining ventures can be extraordinarily expensive and entail numerous risks. Mining firms may be willing to invest billions of dollars in a country like Australia, where the legal framework is welcoming and where they can expect protection against future expropriation or war, but many promising ore sources lie in countries like the DRC, Myanmar, Peru, and Russia where such conditions hardly apply. For example, the current turmoil in Myanmar, a major producer of certain rare-earth elements, has already led to worries about their future availability and sparked a rise in prices.

Declining ore quality is also a concern. When it comes to mineral sites, this planet has been thoroughly scavenged for them, sometimes since the early Bronze Age, and many of the best deposits have long since been discovered and exploited. "In recent years, ore quality has continued to fall across a range of commodities," the IEA noted in its report on critical minerals and green technology. "For example, the average copper ore grade in Chile declined by 30% over the past 15 years. Extracting metal content from lower-grade ores requires more energy, exerting upward pressure on production costs, greenhouse gas emissions, and waste volumes."

In addition, extracting minerals from underground rock formations often entails the use of acids and other toxic substances and typically requires vast amounts of water, which are contaminated after use. This has become ever more of a problem since the enactment of environmental-protection legislation and the mobilization of local communities. In many parts of the world, as in Nevada when it comes to lithium, new mining and ore-processing efforts are going to encounter increasingly fierce local opposition. When, for example, the Lynas Corporation, an Australian firm, sought to evade Australia's environmental laws by shipping ores from its Mount Weld rare-earths mine to Malaysia for processing, local activists there mounted a protracted campaign to prevent it from doing so.

For Washington, perhaps no problem is more challenging, when it comes to the availability of critical materials for a green revolution, than this country's deteriorating relationship with Beijing. After all, China currently provides 70% of the world's rare-earth supplies and harbors significant deposits of other key minerals as well. No less significant, that country is responsible for the refining and processing of many key materials mined elsewhere. In fact, when it comes to mineral processing, the figures are astonishing. China may not produce significant amounts of cobalt or nickel, but it does account for approximately 65% of the world's processed cobalt and 35% of its processed nickel. And while China produces 11% of the world's lithium, it's responsible for nearly 60% of processed lithium. When it comes to rare-earth elements, however, China is dominant in a staggering way. Not only does it provide 60% of the world's raw materials, but nearly 90% of processed REEs.

To put the matter simply, there is no way the United States or other countries can undertake a massive transition from fossil fuels to a renewables-based economy without engaging economically with China. Undoubtedly, efforts will be made to reduce the degree of that reliance, but there's no realistic prospect of eliminating dependence on China for rare earths, lithium, and other key materials in the foreseeable future. If, in other words, the U.S. were to move from a modestly Cold-War-like stance toward Beijing to an even more hostile one, and if it were to engage in further Trumpian-style attempts to "decouple" its economy from that of the People's Republic, as advocated by many "China hawks" in Congress, there's no question about it: the Biden administration would have to abandon its plans for a green-energy future.

It's possible, of course, to imagine a future in which nations begin fighting over the world's supplies of critical minerals, just as they once fought over oil. At the same time, it's perfectly possible to conceive of a world in which countries like ours simply abandoned their plans for a green-energy future for lack of adequate raw materials and reverted to the oil wars of the past. On an already overheating planet, however, that would lead to a civilizational fate worse than death.

In truth, there's little choice but for Washington and Beijing to collaborate with each other and so many other countries in accelerating the green energy transition by establishing new mines and processing facilities for critical minerals, developing substitutes for materials in short supply, improving mining techniques to reduce environmental hazards, and dramatically increasing the recycling of vital minerals from discarded batteries and other products. Any alternative is guaranteed to prove a disaster of the first order — or beyond.

Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch Books, John Feffer's new dystopian novel Frostlands (the second in the Splinterlands series), Beverly Gologorsky's novel Every Body Has a Story, and Tom Engelhardt's A Nation Unmade by War, as well as Alfred McCoy's In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power and John Dower's The Violent American Century: War and Terror Since World War II.

Michael T. Klare, a *TomDispatch* regular, is the five-college professor emeritus of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and a senior visiting fellow at the Arms Control Association. He is the author of 15 books, the latest of which is All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon's Perspective on Climate Change. He is a founder of the Committee for a Sane U.S.-China Policy.

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