Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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Nuclear energy appears poised for a remarkable comeback. Interest in restarting mothballed nuclear reactors and building a new generation of small modular reactors has soared. And most promising of all, big words have been followed by big financial commitments from tech companies hungry for power for data centers, and the federal government focused on boosting reliable, emissions-free power. Yet, for all of the wind in the sails for commercial nuclear power, enormous hurdles remain. The logistics of restarting closed nuclear...
After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the United States quickly made large amounts of liquefied natural gas available to our allies in Europe. The shipments saved Europe from a cutoff of Russian gas. Now, the race is on to secure the strategic metals needed to build weapons to defend Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. These metals — everything from rare earths to antimony used in munitions and cutting-edge intelligence systems — are the foundational building blocks of our national security. Alarmingly, China dominates these min...
One reason geologists are unalarmed about U.S. dependence on imported minerals: They know major discoveries of critical minerals in the U.S. have hastened the day when our country will become more self-sufficient. That day can’t come soon enough because minerals undergird America’s national security and economy. While China has built a stranglehold on many essential mineral supply chains, U.S. lawmakers have wrung their hands over how to address our ballooning reliance on mineral imports. The tired message that we don...
Rare earth minerals are more abundant than their name suggests. Mineral-rich deposits are scattered around the United States, but our country has only one rare earth mine, in Mountain Pass, Calif. There are other potential mineable deposits, but they are many years away from starting production. To meet our increasing need for rare earths, we rely on imports, mainly from China -- and that's boneheaded given the brittleness of U.S.-China relations and our own resources. U.S. policymakers are well aware of the peril to our...
At the close of World War II, the United States revealed one of the secrets to the Allied success. It was the discovery in 1942 of a large tungsten deposit in the hills outside of Yellow Pine, Idaho. Tungsten is a rare mineral used to harden artillery shells. With those shells, enemy armored vehicles and tanks were blown up. Tungsten was also used to harden bullets, and its discovery in Yellow Pine was credited with having shortened the war by at least one year and saved the lives of a million American soldiers. Gen. Dwight...
At the close of World War II, the United States revealed one of the secrets to the Allied success. It was the discovery in 1942 of a large tungsten deposit in the hills outside of Yellow Pine, Idaho. Tungsten is a rare mineral used to harden artillery shells. With those shells, enemy armored vehicles and tanks were blown up. Tungsten was also used to harden bullets, and its discovery in Yellow Pine was credited with having shortened the war by at least one year and saved the lives of a million American soldiers. Gen. Dwight... Full story
There is simply no credible way to address climate change without changing how we obtain vital minerals and metals needed for batteries to make electric vehicles and for storing energy generated by solar and wind. That is why it is so appalling to see the Biden administration call for a royalty tax on mining and a fee on all material displaced in digging. The last thing we need is an increase in the cost of mining in the United States and an erosion of government support, resulting in greater dependence on China for critical...
While we prize the prosperity that has accompanied our information-driven economy, a serious threat to our prosperity has surfaced. We risk widespread electricity shortages due to the Biden Administration’s nonsensical plan to force the shutdown of coal plants before replacement power is available. If you’re not worried about the possibility of cascading blackouts from the loss of power, you should be. The impact on our society from system-wide power shortages would be profound. This new crisis underscores a serious iss...
The nation’s mining of critically important battery metals has gotten a boost from an unexpected source. Bill McKibben, arguably the most influential environmental leader in the United States, has embraced mining and called for ramping up domestic production of lithium in batteries for renewables and electric cars. Writing in the magazine Mother Jones, McKibben, co-founder of the climate group 350.org and a professor at Middlebury College in Vermont, has spread the word on the need for climate action in an open-minded and p...
Hard as it might seem to believe, a year after Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, nothing has been done to stop the flow of billions of dollars that Russia is making from selling nuclear fuel to the United States. The money is fueling Russia’s brutal war machine, and its effect on Ukraine is horrible to contemplate. U.S. nuclear power plants are using Russian nuclear fuel to generate electricity, and we have a moral obligation to stop doing it. Now is the time to expand uranium production in America by reopening min...
We can ignore all the danger signs until America’s adversaries cut off exports of vital minerals and metals and the lights go dim and factories shut down. Or we can try to act with a sense of urgency and do something about ending our dependence on autocracies like China and Russia to supply minerals and metals needed for energy production and building batteries for electric vehicles and electricity transmission systems. China supplies two-thirds of the rare earth minerals used in EV batteries, wind turbines, smart phones, a...
It’s becoming clearer that the United States can follow two possible roads in the fight to achieve a livable environment. One is to shut down the nation’s coal plants, as President Biden advocates, and allow electricity-generating facilities worth billions of dollars to sit idle. To provide replacement power, utilities must build replacement natural gas plants. But the price of natural gas has nearly tripled in the past year, while the cost of thermal coal has increased only modestly. And the price of gas is likely to kee...
The electric vehicle revolution is here, and the United States must now make a choice. If we do nothing or not enough to break our dependence on China for battery metals like lithium and nickel, we face an uncertain future leading to the loss of electric vehicle (EV) production and other advanced technologies that can underpin our manufacturing sector, our energy security and our efforts to slash carbon emissions. For the first time in decades, passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) offers a major tool for reducing...
The United States is beholden to Russia and China for many of the minerals and metals needed in the shift to green energy. With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, there should be no doubt that our nation’s reliance on Russia and China is fraught with danger. China dominates global mining and processing of battery metals for electric vehicles and the electric grid. Russia is a key supplier of nickel for stainless steel, aluminum for automobiles, and uranium for nuclear power plants. Skyrocketing world demand has pushed up the cos...
There may have been a time when lawmakers could look at the source of a shipment of imported uranium and ignore it. But that’s ancient history now. Nearly 50 percent of the uranium used at U.S. nuclear power plants is imported from Russia and two of its closest allies, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. These imports, should they continue, will have dramatic consequences for our politics and society -- but only if our government does nothing about it. With Russia’s murderous invasion of Ukraine -- and the possibility that Vladimir Pu...
The biggest problem we face with mining in the United States is we’re not doing enough of it. And that’s because of the continuing absence of a long-term mining policy that recognizes the importance of a secure domestic supply of minerals and metals for our nation’s economic and environmental well-being. What’s eye-popping about newly published data on minerals and metals is the growing global demand for so-called battery metals -- lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite, and copper -- and the prices those critically importa...
Rising inflation and an insecure minerals supply chain are threatening to disrupt the development of green energy technologies and hamper the production of renewables and electric cars. Some energy experts are warning that deeply constrained supplies of energy transition metals, like lithium and nickel or even copper, could derail the deployment of emissions-free energy and transportation technologies and hamstring our efforts to prevent the worst effects from climate change. That alarming warning is worth pondering in the...
Clamp a hefty fee on every mineral mined in the United States? The House Natural Resources Committee, chaired by Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., is backing a bill that would place new royalties and additional taxes on domestically mined minerals, while banning mining on some public lands that contain minerals critical to U.S. manufacturing and the production of Green technologies. And the committee has voted to include language in the $3.5-trillion infrastructure measure that would block construction of the proposed Resolution...
Copper is the new "gold." Driven by its use in electric-vehicle batteries, wind turbines and other clean energy technologies, copper has doubled in price in the past year and the Bank of America says it could double again by 2025. Copper has become extremely valuable -- more than $10,000 a ton. But we have a serious problem on our hands, with potentially harmful effects on everything from EV production to the deployment of renewables. There isn't enough copper to go around, not with construction companies competing with auto...
China’s dominance of critical materials used to produce everything from advanced weapons systems to electric vehicles and solar panels is a problem so glaring both the Trump and Biden administrations have singled it out as an economic and national security threat in need of immediate action. The U.S. Geological Survey says that in 2020 imports made up more than one-half of U.S. consumption for 46 minerals, and the US was 100% reliant on imports for 17 of those. China, our biggest competitor in world trade, supplies more t...
Are renewable sources of energy ready to stand on their own two feet? After billions already spent and substantial subsidies that continue, wind and solar power generated only 9% of U.S. demand in 2019. In contrast, coal and natural gas met 63% of U.S. power demand. Replacing fossil fuels with solar and wind power will take decades and the costs, as well as the challenges to grid reliability, remain stunning. Yet demands for net-zero emissions and a renewable only future by 2050 are proliferating from climateers. The Green...
Set aside the rhetoric on global warming, we are going to have to open the throttle on oil, natural gas and coal production to power our economic recovery. Together they account for 80% of America’s energy supplies. To get our economy back on track, the overriding national interest lies in maintaining full production of fossil fuels. As a major energy producer, New Mexico is better positioned than most states to recover from the effects of the COVID-19 crisis and the most catastrophic economic collapse since the Great D...
In the battle against pandemics, one material that could go a long way toward reducing infections and preventing the spread of pathogens has been largely overlooked. It’s so effective that we would be remiss not to make greater use of it. No one disputes that copper and copper alloys like brass have antimicrobial properties — that the coronavirus cannot survive on copper surfaces the way it can on stainless steel and aluminum used for doorknobs and other fixtures. The coronavirus can live on most hard surfaces for a week or...
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, deserves to be commended for taking on the growing keep-it-in-the-ground sentiment that’s hampering mining on public lands. As head of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Murkowski decided to address a problem that most members of Congress would rather not think about: a slow, steady erosion of mining in the United States and our nation’s increasing reliance on imports of minerals and metals, even though they’re needed in the transition to electric vehicles (EVs) and other clean...
There is no more disputing it: methane emissions are dropping even as oil and gas production continues to surge in America’s top shale basins, including the prolific Permian Basin in Texas and New Mexico. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, but it has a relatively short lifetime of 12 years in the atmosphere. This means that reducing methane emissions brings immediate climate benefits. A recent analysis of data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Energy Information Administration that hasn’t gotten the att...
