Scientific and popular news is filled with articles on the needs and challenges of achieving a clean-energy future including a vastly ramped-up supply of rare-earth elements and such metals as lithium, nickel, cobalt and copper. Existing supply chains are insufficient and insecure, and conservation and recycling simply won’t cut it. Plus no one wants a mega-mine digging anywhere near their home.
Writing in the journal Nature, Saleem H. Ali (University of Delaware in Newark) argues that there must be mining—and that there can be trade-offs. He quotes Barry Commoner in noting, “There is no such thing as a free lunch” and Ali himself concludes “there is virtue in embracing tough trade-offs.” Ali argues for the establishment of a national “Critical Materials Bureau” that can help navigate a path to mining for necessary mineral resources that is secure for the nation, beneficial and fair to all parties, and sustainable. He says there is a way—if only we have the will.