Mining the Future: Why Critical Minerals Are America’s New Backbone

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Hello and welcome to the American Council of Engineering Companies Engineering Influence podcast.
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My name is Thomas Grogan. I'm the chief economist at ACEC and I'm very happy
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today to be joined by Dan Paolo, vice president and senior process engineer at Barr Engineering.
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Today's podcast we're going to talk about critical minerals and I think to kind
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of you know get started on that topic Dan why don't you introduce yourself and
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tell us a bit about your background and then we'll get into critical minerals.
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Sure. Thank you, Thomas. I'm happy to be here and hope this is informative for everybody.
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As you mentioned, I'm Principal Vice President at Bar Engineering Company,
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Senior Process Engineer, Chemical Engineer by Training.
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I have 26 years of experience. The first 12 were in applied research and development.
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And then in the last 14 years, I've been at Bar Engineering.
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So I'm based in Southern California. I'm assigned to our Salt Lake office in the Western US.
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And from there, I've been leading teams that are doing a lot of work on the
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critical mineral space, especially for clients in the West, Western US, Canada, and elsewhere.
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I work with a lot of multi-discipline teams, and the projects tend to range
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from the whole spectrum, from scoping studies and very early stage,
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all the way through your detailed design for construction.
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Well, you know, I think critical minerals are having a moment right now.
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And that's a big reason why we wanted to do this podcast and get you on.
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I think before we kind of get into this moment that we're having,
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maybe we could first start by, you know, setting the stage for our audience
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by defining what it is we mean when we talk about critical minerals.
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And then we could get into their importance right now as they're pretty top
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of mind for anyone working in industry today. Sure.
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If we look at the one slide that I provided to you, there's a whole list of
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them. There's currently 60 of them.
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And the Energy Act defines a critical mineral right now as being essential to
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economic or national security,
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being vulnerable to supply chain disruption for one reason or another,
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and also being serving an essential function in manufacturing in some way relative
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to those things. things.
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And the slide that I provided shows one of my favorite things, the periodic table.
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And for clarity, I took out all of the non-naturally occurring elements so that
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it's even more clear that when you say 60 minerals or 60 elements from the periodic
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table, you're talking about two-thirds of the periodic table.
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Everything from the lightest metal, which is lithium, all the way to the heaviest
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metal, natural one, which is uranium.
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And not everything in between there is included, but you can see that a wide
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swath of the periodic table is addressed with these 60.
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The other thing that is super important here is,
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And relative to the definition that the Energy Act provides is on slide two,
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we see that there's 12 of those critical elements that are 100% where the U.S.
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Is 100% dependent on imports.
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And then there's another 31 where we're at least 50% dependent on imports.
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And so you see that that applies to the vast majority of those that are identified as critical.
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And then you throw in,
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any other disruption sort of vulnerabilities, and then that makes up the rest
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of the list. And so it's pretty comprehensive.
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And it also speaks to how dependent we are on a lot of different technologies
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and things that go into them.
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Yeah, no, I mean, I think that's really, you know, interesting and eye-opening
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that about two-thirds of the periodic table are essentially these critical minerals,
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you know, that essentially are naturally occurring.
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So some amount of mining or extraction is needed to get these out of the earth
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and, you know, into a usable state.
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I think, you know, maybe for some of these critical minerals,
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what are some of the big ticket end items that are,
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so let's say we extract lithium or helium or potassium, You know,
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what are they going into that are being used,
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let's say, in construction, building a hospital, building a data center,
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building a wastewater facility?
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What are kind of those end components that are dependent on some of these critical minerals?
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Yeah, good question, because you can easily get lost in the fact that there
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are so many of them and they all have their...
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Some of them are very niche. now if you
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look at lithium it's most people are aware
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of lithium we're aware of lithium ion batteries they're aware
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of its criticality the u.s actually produces a fair amount of lithium and we're
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working on developing even more but that one that one's i think most people
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know that the the primary use there is in lithium ion batteries for data center for you know power.
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Energy storage, excuse me, for energy storage,
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Electric cars, all of our devices that we use every day that have batteries in them.
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And then if you think about others, another one is copper.
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We talk about the electrification of everything.
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Well, you've got to get those electrons to where they need to go.
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And there's a lot of copper involved in that and transmission and distribution of electricity.
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If you look at the rare earth elements, which are all the ones you can't pronounce
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at the bottom of the periodic table, So,
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again, back to the whole niche thing, they're very important for high-intensity
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magnets and other things that have to do with defense, high-tech, all kinds of things.
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And finally, you know, kind of going from lithium to uranium,
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uranium is kind of having a moment as well, apart from being listed as a critical
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element because of the power needs of data centers and electrification.
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And so it's an interesting time for uranium. There's really a lot of activity
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there as well. So you can kind of see how it cuts across the whole.
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Economy for the United States. Yeah, absolutely.
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And, you know, you had started to bring up that some of these elements such
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as lithium, the US is also producing.
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And so thinking back on slide two, for those, you know, other elements that
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we are at 100% dependent on, you know, basically importing those in the US today,
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you know, what are we producing,
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mining, extracting.
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And, you know, what are those key minerals that we are dependent on importing
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for and, you know, dependent on supply chains as well?
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Yeah, the big one has been, if I think about imports, the big one has been kind
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of broadly the rare earth elements.
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So there's been a lot of focus on how can we onshore something like that,
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whereas things like copper silver
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is on the list are things that we've
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they're elements that we've produced in the united states in relatively high
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quantities but they're still critical for
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one reason or another because of the increased demand that's expected or or
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other reasons like that and so we we produce a lot of minerals on in the u.s
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one one other example boron is on the list I live here in Southern California
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near one of the largest borax mines in the world.
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And there's a huge resource there. It's been mined for many decades,
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but yet it's on the critical list for reasons that may not have to do with the
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fact that we produce so much of it, but other things.
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Other considerations. And so, you know, you look at that, you look at that slide
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and you see that, yeah, there's a 12 that are where we're 100 percent dependent
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and there are others where we're less dependent.
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And then the other nuance to it
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is we do import from a lot of friendly countries. Canada produces a lot.
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And so even though we're importing, we're importing from a stable,
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friendly country versus importing
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from either an adversarial country or one that's just not stable.
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There are some other smaller countries in the world that produce key elements
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like cobalt, for instance, where they may be an unstable place.
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And so there's that vulnerability there, not that they're adversarial towards
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us necessarily, but that just their own stability makes that supply chain vulnerable. Right.
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And, you know, I think as we've been talking about these critical minerals,
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we've been mentioning supply chain a few times.
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I even believe in that Energy Act definition, maybe the third or fourth, you know.
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Definition of what makes a mineral critical is it being used in manufacturing
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and, you know, strategic supply chain reasons.
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I think in the U.S., especially post-COVID, there's been a bit more of a focus
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on reshoring, building up the
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industrial base a bit more after what's happened over the past decades.
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Could you talk a bit on how you are seeing government and industry,
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you know, working together,
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collaborating to address these critical mineral supply chain issues and,
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you know, whether it's improving the supply of them or improving the supply
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chain so it moves more efficiently?
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Yeah, it's been...
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The thing that we all need to remember, we didn't get here overnight to this
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disposition that we're in.
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If you want to look at the vulnerability, and we're not going to get out of it overnight either.
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And so what we've seen is over the past decade or more, the government has been...
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And first of all, I want to say it's a bipartisan issue.
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There's bipartisan support. This is not a partisan issue.
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It's bipartisan support in Washington that says we've got to do something.
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We've got to help our industry to get out of where the situation we're in.
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And so one thing that we've seen, and we work a fair bit on the applied R&D
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side as well at BART and supporting those projects.
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We've been working on projects for well over 10 years on the extraction of rare
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earths from things like lignite coal.
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So where you start getting creative
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about where can we find these critical materials and extract them.
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Resources that we have right under our feet. And so the U S department of energy
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has funded a lot of research in that area.
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The department of defense has come in and, and funded certain projects.
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I've even seen them approach large companies who already operating.
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So let's say they're producing copper and the government knows,
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Oh, you've got this other element in your, or we need you to focus on making
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sure you're capturing that material because we need it.
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And and you see that happening the other thing that happened i think around
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i'm not exactly sure when it was but i think it was during the obama administration
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the cmi was set up it's the critical minerals institute it's it's based in ames
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iowa it's a kind of a national lab sort of set up.
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And one thing that they were focused on, they had multi-pronged approach,
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but one thing they were focused on was the,
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Can we find replacements for some of these key ingredients that we're so dependent on?
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And so all of that that I just said is more on that research side.
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And then you've got, more recently, the USGS has gotten involved.
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They've always been involved in mineral, kind of the yearbook of what are we
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doing, where are the resources, and things like that.
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But they've also taken on this thing called the MRI, the Earth Mapping Resource
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Initiative, which is kind of a flyover to just look at using using high tech
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to to look for elements, key elements.
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And they might be in waste piles somewhere in an existing mine.
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And you get that kind of surface view, but it's an initial look at,
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oh, there may be this may be a good place to go drill for for resource.
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Fast 41 has come in. Some people have heard about that. That has to do with
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transparency in permitting.
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It doesn't necessarily change the permitting laws, but it's meant to create
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a more predictable and transparent permitting system for new mines and related things like that.
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And then, there's a long list, and then the USXM Bank has been involved a lot.
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They've set up Project Fault. They've set up loans with specific developers
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who are developing new resources and providing capital that way as well.
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So there's a lot going on on the governance side from the, like I said,
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kind of the R&D side of like, hey, what's possible all the way through to,
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hey, you've got a mine and you need financing, we can help you.
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So it's pretty broad.
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And so then maybe diving in a little bit on the announced Project Vault,
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which is announced in February of 2026.
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And I believe the Export-Import Bank is contributing about $10 billion.
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And then there's another $2 billion of private capital involved.
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Does that move the needle on some of the issues with either shortages or getting
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these materials into the finished state fast enough?
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What is the general timeline for something like that?
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It seems like in this space, we're talking about years, if not decades for certain
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sort of development to get, you know, maybe a system online,
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you know, kind of what do you see that impacting,
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you know, the US critical mineral market and maybe the short term?
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In the short term, if the project vault is not one vault, first of all,
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I mean, it's the different materials that are focused on and that would be stored
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in various locations, probably undisclosed.
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But it is a public-private partnership. And the idea is, if you want to have
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a pantry full of goods...
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They don't have to initially come from domestic production.
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And so those supply chains that are open right now, you can be stockpiling.
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But the public-private part of it is that the private end users are buying into
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it and sort of paying their part of the timeshare, if you will.
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And so that if I'm an automotive company and I ran into shortages during COVID
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and I don't want that to happen again,
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I'm going to invest in those elements, those materials as part of the vault
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so that when the next crisis comes around,
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I can hopefully not disrupt my activity or at least lessen that because we've
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got extra food in the pantry. Yeah.
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Or for that rainy day. So that's, that's the idea behind it.
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And I think I think it's a good idea of, of, you know, getting those end users really bought into it.
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And they're going to benefit from it, but they need to invest in it as well. Right.
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And I mean, you bring up a good point about private industry who,
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for a large portion of these minerals are going into their products.
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Are you, over the past few years or even more recently,
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seeing these firms, I mean, just thinking of the amount of money we're being
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told will be spent on all the capex for data centers and AI,
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are companies being more proactive about that?
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About securing these materials themselves as opposed to maybe,
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you know, waiting on their supplier or OEM to give them, you know,
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the semiconductor or other piece of, you know, high-tech equipment.
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Yeah, you see it with companies like Tesla investing.
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General Motors has invested in lithium projects. They are going upstream on
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that supply chain to really try to secure their positions and help make sure
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that the things that they're developing that are in demand are going to be available.
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And again the focus on domestic or nearby you know they call it nearshoring,
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you may be investing in canada because
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it's because it's nearby it's friendly accessible and
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so you know for instance potash is
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on the list we get most of our potash out of canada but
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still on the critical list partially because it's such
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a high volume material it's so important to agriculture that
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you know for different reasons these things end up
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on the list but you know back to your question though especially the
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auto seeing the automotive companies kind of
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jumping into that and going going upstream for sure and so then you know thinking
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holistically how how does developing this critical mineral production you know
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really helped the U.S. industrial ecosystem.
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Well, the whole story is we're going to do it here.
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We're going to create jobs, and we're going to roll up our sleeves, and we know we can.
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And I agree with that sentiment.
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I'm part of a few trade organizations, one of which is the Society for Mining,
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Mineralogy, and Exploration.
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Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration, SME. I'll just say SME.
00:19:30.210 --> 00:19:34.630
And as a society, we've been focused on this, this issue, this critical minerals,
00:19:34.830 --> 00:19:38.790
but also the fact that because the mining industry in the U.S.
00:19:38.850 --> 00:19:43.530
Has its ups and downs, if it's down long enough, the universities are shutting
00:19:43.530 --> 00:19:47.250
down certain programs because there's no students or there's no demand, right? Right.
00:19:47.490 --> 00:19:52.610
So mining programs in the United States, there used to be a lot more of them.
00:19:52.810 --> 00:19:57.350
They've started coming back or they come back in different forms within existing
00:19:57.350 --> 00:19:58.690
departments in those universities.
00:19:58.890 --> 00:20:05.250
But that sort of ebb and flow can really be a challenge for having the trained workforce.
00:20:06.210 --> 00:20:10.970
So you talk about education, there's the training for just skilled workers that
00:20:10.970 --> 00:20:16.010
are going to operate these plants or do the maintenance on them.
00:20:16.530 --> 00:20:20.350
Or those that are going to build them. So you've got that whole workforce issue.
00:20:21.230 --> 00:20:25.710
And then again, can we do it? Yeah, we can do it. People want high-paying jobs.
00:20:25.870 --> 00:20:28.810
They want stable work. They want to work on things that are important.
00:20:30.010 --> 00:20:36.110
The other thing that the SME has done, the part of what's called the Mineral Education Coalition.
00:20:37.157 --> 00:20:40.977
The MEC is really big on let's get into the school.
00:20:41.177 --> 00:20:45.377
So let's get into the grade schools and, you know, show them a rock and say,
00:20:45.497 --> 00:20:47.497
this looks like a rock to you.
00:20:47.617 --> 00:20:51.037
But, you know, what's in this comes out and it's in your cell phone or it's,
00:20:51.117 --> 00:20:56.897
you know, to educate the public that all of these things you enjoy as part of
00:20:56.897 --> 00:21:00.217
this, this modern economy that we have.
00:21:00.217 --> 00:21:08.557
They all come from somewhere and we are educating people that this doesn't happen by accident, right?
00:21:09.437 --> 00:21:14.357
And that if we want it to come from us and not a country that either pollutes
00:21:14.357 --> 00:21:19.937
or treats their people poorly or is adversarial to us, then we need to invest here.
00:21:20.137 --> 00:21:24.717
And we need to see that something like mining and manufacturing are not inherently
00:21:24.717 --> 00:21:27.957
bad and evil and polluting, but that they can be done right.
00:21:27.957 --> 00:21:31.117
We have very strong environmental laws in this country.
00:21:31.417 --> 00:21:35.557
BARD works on the environmental side a lot. We help our clients with permitting
00:21:35.557 --> 00:21:39.017
and compliance all across industry.
00:21:39.517 --> 00:21:44.697
And so getting that message out and then educating the public as well.
00:21:44.837 --> 00:21:51.697
I was at an open house last year for a company that they do this every couple
00:21:51.697 --> 00:21:52.777
of years. They have an open house.
00:21:53.604 --> 00:21:56.644
And the community comes and they have speakers and they talk about what they're doing.
00:21:57.244 --> 00:22:01.664
So it's that open door of, hey, we're not just weird building,
00:22:01.864 --> 00:22:03.344
bleeding your water or something.
00:22:04.264 --> 00:22:08.184
We're part of the community too. We live here too. And that's what a lot of
00:22:08.184 --> 00:22:09.744
my mining colleagues have.
00:22:11.884 --> 00:22:15.504
The message we're trying to get out. We live here too. We care about the environment.
00:22:15.904 --> 00:22:20.184
But we can also responsibly source these materials domestically.
00:22:21.004 --> 00:22:26.304
And so there's a lot you talk about the US ecosystem,
00:22:27.724 --> 00:22:31.604
even you mentioned data centers there's this,
00:22:32.564 --> 00:22:35.844
rush to build data centers while it takes construction companies to build data
00:22:35.844 --> 00:22:40.004
centers of all those construction companies are busy building data centers and
00:22:40.004 --> 00:22:42.484
I want to go build a mining processing facility,
00:22:43.404 --> 00:22:48.404
and I'm looking around well where is everybody well they're busy and so you have these.
00:22:50.304 --> 00:22:55.284
Stresses on the overall supply chain, if you were looking at it like that.
00:22:56.824 --> 00:23:00.864
The other thing that we've been doing more of in this country,
00:23:01.144 --> 00:23:06.984
just from that same sort of ecosystem point of view, is how can we make things more circular?
00:23:07.164 --> 00:23:11.144
We've got companies that are signing up battery recycling facilities.
00:23:11.284 --> 00:23:12.804
We've been working on some of that.
00:23:13.324 --> 00:23:15.564
And where the cobalt, the nickel,
00:23:15.704 --> 00:23:20.184
the lithium that's in those batteries is coming back into the cycle.
00:23:20.484 --> 00:23:24.124
So it's a big question, and there's a lot there.
00:23:24.624 --> 00:23:29.644
And like I mentioned earlier, it takes time. It takes effort for those of us
00:23:29.644 --> 00:23:33.804
in the industry to go out and educate the public when they may not be getting
00:23:33.804 --> 00:23:38.484
a good view of what we do and how important it is.
00:23:39.104 --> 00:23:42.684
Yeah. You know, I think, you know, talking about.
00:23:43.936 --> 00:23:51.136
These issues, we see that there is very strong demand throughout from the initial
00:23:51.136 --> 00:23:54.016
raw item through its finished good.
00:23:54.196 --> 00:24:00.276
And while we are, we have supply constraints, either getting the materials out
00:24:00.276 --> 00:24:08.776
and over, getting them processed, the workers to do that work to then enable that whole system.
00:24:08.776 --> 00:24:13.696
So we're seeing supply constraints on basically a few fronts with respect to,
00:24:13.696 --> 00:24:16.476
you know, these critical minerals, thinking about, you know,
00:24:16.696 --> 00:24:23.756
the member universe of ACEC member firms, how might they be impacted by some
00:24:23.756 --> 00:24:25.096
of these supply constraints?
00:24:25.336 --> 00:24:30.276
And do you see any changes, you know, the horizon in terms of,
00:24:30.516 --> 00:24:33.596
you know, maybe some of these supply constraints improving or,
00:24:33.796 --> 00:24:38.156
you know, not maybe staying the same for a bit until more investment happens?
00:24:39.624 --> 00:24:44.024
Well, the way it's been for us and for those we either partner with or compete
00:24:44.024 --> 00:24:47.264
with, there's a lot of work out there in this series.
00:24:47.504 --> 00:24:52.264
And we've really been enjoying the fact that there is all of that work.
00:24:52.744 --> 00:24:56.224
The phone's ringing every week with a new project of some sort.
00:24:57.424 --> 00:25:01.764
And I'm sure a lot of your member companies are seeing that as well.
00:25:01.764 --> 00:25:06.764
So it might not just on the mining side, the manufacturing side,
00:25:06.944 --> 00:25:10.604
the infrastructure, the data centers that we've been talking about,
00:25:11.424 --> 00:25:14.104
those all need design work.
00:25:14.104 --> 00:25:17.044
They all need permitting and compliance work.
00:25:17.224 --> 00:25:23.464
They all need the construction and commissioning and the operation and the maintenance.
00:25:23.464 --> 00:25:30.124
And so, you know, think about the members of ACEC, it's touching on all of them
00:25:30.124 --> 00:25:34.804
in some way because it's, what are we doing? We're doing engineering.
00:25:35.604 --> 00:25:38.824
And it's needed in all those areas we've been talking about.
00:25:39.364 --> 00:25:44.364
So it's, and I'm sure, you know, those listening that are in that space are
00:25:44.364 --> 00:25:46.364
nodding their heads saying, yeah, it's a busy time.
00:25:47.624 --> 00:25:54.344
So it's an exciting time there's a lot of optimism I've seen so much optimism
00:25:54.344 --> 00:25:58.124
lately there are I go to a lot of mining conferences and my colleagues do too,
00:25:59.069 --> 00:26:02.269
The attendance has been huge. Interesting.
00:26:02.909 --> 00:26:06.389
They're the small regional conference that's held in Idaho every year.
00:26:06.569 --> 00:26:10.229
It has been growing like crazy because Idaho has cobalt.
00:26:10.649 --> 00:26:14.709
They've got other base metal and transition metal mines up there.
00:26:15.729 --> 00:26:22.089
That's just an example, but these local conferences have been very busy.
00:26:22.089 --> 00:26:24.869
People have been very excited. They have a lot to share.
00:26:25.749 --> 00:26:30.709
And so just overall for the engineering community, it's a great time to be saying,
00:26:30.789 --> 00:26:34.069
yeah, we're going to roll up our sleeves. We can do this, you know.
00:26:35.189 --> 00:26:40.069
And, you know, has this now with your, you know,
00:26:40.369 --> 00:26:46.709
experience and being at bar for so long, have you noticed changes or things
00:26:46.709 --> 00:26:53.649
that maybe you're doing differently, you know, in 2026 for the consulting engineering work you're doing?
00:26:53.649 --> 00:26:57.189
Given, you know, what is happening right now?
00:26:57.389 --> 00:27:02.269
How is, you know, how is Barr handling kind of this, as you mentioned,
00:27:02.529 --> 00:27:07.049
large increase in demand for this work and service? Yeah.
00:27:08.135 --> 00:27:15.235
It's a challenge. I think most people in consulting would say that they hate having to say no.
00:27:16.175 --> 00:27:19.775
And we've had to say no a little bit more than we've wanted to.
00:27:20.415 --> 00:27:24.675
And it might not be a no. It might be a, well, we can help you,
00:27:24.775 --> 00:27:28.675
but we need to partner to provide you exactly what you need.
00:27:28.675 --> 00:27:35.255
We've been doing quite a bit of partnering with other companies to deliver services.
00:27:37.395 --> 00:27:46.355
Just the sheer amount of activity or the excitement behind it and the roll up
00:27:46.355 --> 00:27:47.215
your sleeves kind of thing.
00:27:48.215 --> 00:27:53.215
I've seen that, at least with the folks we have internally, we're a flat organization.
00:27:53.215 --> 00:27:56.715
And so we have kind of a free market within the company. i've seen
00:27:56.715 --> 00:28:00.355
people say i really want to work on that project because it's
00:28:00.355 --> 00:28:03.275
doing x y or z it's it's moving the ball forward
00:28:03.275 --> 00:28:06.155
and so that's been exciting too
00:28:06.155 --> 00:28:11.335
because it's been so fun and and and relatively easy to to develop teams around
00:28:11.335 --> 00:28:17.015
the projects but then overall as a company it puts a strain on the overall workload
00:28:17.015 --> 00:28:24.815
and that's where partnering or having to sometimes defer things are decisions you have to make.
00:28:25.215 --> 00:28:28.715
But the other thing we found, and I work on the engineering side in terms of
00:28:28.715 --> 00:28:35.635
the design, the studies through the design work, it allows us to bring in our
00:28:35.635 --> 00:28:38.995
other services. We do life cycle analysis. So for instance,
00:28:40.057 --> 00:28:44.197
You want to make red earth elements or you want to make something that's crucial
00:28:44.197 --> 00:28:47.117
to the economy and should be electric economy.
00:28:48.277 --> 00:28:53.477
You also want to show that you're doing it responsibly and energy efficiently and that kind of thing.
00:28:53.557 --> 00:28:56.677
So we have folks that can provide those kinds of studies.
00:28:56.877 --> 00:29:03.437
We do life cycle analysis work, this whole circularity, environmental part that
00:29:03.437 --> 00:29:06.977
I mentioned, process hazard analysis and that kind of thing.
00:29:07.097 --> 00:29:09.177
Because some of these are new processes.
00:29:10.057 --> 00:29:12.797
For or not haven't been used a lot in the
00:29:12.797 --> 00:29:15.537
u.s let's say and you want to be careful that you're doing
00:29:15.537 --> 00:29:19.457
it doing it safely as well so it's it's
00:29:19.457 --> 00:29:23.137
been yeah it's a wild ride but but
00:29:23.137 --> 00:29:26.337
a fun one and an exciting one because we're we're
00:29:26.337 --> 00:29:29.177
seeing and one other thing i'll add to that is that i'm seeing
00:29:29.177 --> 00:29:32.237
i mentioned we work from the whole
00:29:32.237 --> 00:29:35.997
concept side all the way through to execution just seeing
00:29:35.997 --> 00:29:38.837
a lot more projects coming through where they're like we want this
00:29:38.837 --> 00:29:41.977
designed now we want to build it tomorrow
00:29:41.977 --> 00:29:44.737
we want to ride this wave before it
00:29:44.737 --> 00:29:47.997
goes away and so there's that like those
00:29:47.997 --> 00:29:52.717
projects that are going towards construction are just seem that much more urgent
00:29:52.717 --> 00:30:00.517
right now well you know this has been really fascinating conversation and highlighting
00:30:00.517 --> 00:30:05.037
just how embedded critical minerals are in our everyday lives,
00:30:05.077 --> 00:30:10.177
let alone what's happening in the AEC space and, you know, the economy at large.
00:30:10.437 --> 00:30:16.037
So as we kind of wrap things up, just wanted to, you know, give you a few moments
00:30:16.037 --> 00:30:21.717
to share any advice you might have to our listeners or members on what to expect,
00:30:21.937 --> 00:30:24.517
you know, in the future in this critical mineral space.
00:30:25.545 --> 00:30:30.725
Sure. I'd say all of us as professionals who understand how these things are
00:30:30.725 --> 00:30:38.805
done, where these materials come from, how they get to us, what it takes to produce them.
00:30:39.265 --> 00:30:43.505
I mentioned earlier on education, it's up to all of us to educate the public
00:30:43.505 --> 00:30:48.665
that this is, you know, you don't want to mine in your backyard,
00:30:48.685 --> 00:30:50.645
but you still want all of these things.
00:30:52.565 --> 00:30:58.905
And doing it the right way, too, and just positively educating the public on
00:30:58.905 --> 00:31:06.645
these types of issues, educating the upcoming students from elementary school upward.
00:31:06.925 --> 00:31:10.645
Get them excited. Hey, I want to go into mining. I want to go into manufacturing
00:31:10.645 --> 00:31:15.945
because it's really cool and I can be part of the solution, right?
00:31:16.425 --> 00:31:20.165
Or the environmental side at the same time. we
00:31:20.165 --> 00:31:23.045
so there's there's that aspect to it of
00:31:23.045 --> 00:31:26.265
of educating educating our
00:31:26.265 --> 00:31:29.785
you know our neighbors and such and then
00:31:29.785 --> 00:31:36.645
and just also remembering we didn't get here by accident look at china's position
00:31:36.645 --> 00:31:43.425
on this whole thing it was very well crafted over many years and so they didn't
00:31:43.425 --> 00:31:46.505
get their backs and we didn't get to where we are by accident we got here by
00:31:46.505 --> 00:31:49.065
you know you could say we took our eye off the ball or whatever.
00:31:49.565 --> 00:31:54.925
So it's going to take effort to turn that around, to turn the ship around kind of thing. And.
00:31:56.639 --> 00:32:00.199
We're doing it. And I've seen, I've seen a consistency, like I said, bipartisan.
00:32:01.179 --> 00:32:04.339
And so you don't have, it's not like every four years, you know,
00:32:04.419 --> 00:32:07.099
going 180 degrees on some of these things.
00:32:07.239 --> 00:32:09.899
And so it's, it's a long game.
00:32:10.079 --> 00:32:14.099
I think we need to be patient, but we also need to be have that urgency.
00:32:14.359 --> 00:32:17.999
Well, let's do what we can now and let's keep doing what we can over the next
00:32:17.999 --> 00:32:20.439
10 years, whatever it is.
00:32:20.519 --> 00:32:23.379
Cause it takes a while to permit and build a mind too.
00:32:24.199 --> 00:32:27.419
You can't do that overnight just because you have the rocks in the ground that
00:32:27.419 --> 00:32:32.319
are really nice rocks that people would like to have in their cell phones or their Teslas.
00:32:33.359 --> 00:32:37.979
But it takes a lot to get to that point. Right. Yeah. Now, as you mentioned,
00:32:38.079 --> 00:32:40.099
the whole life cycle can take a lot.
00:32:40.819 --> 00:32:45.579
Well, Dan, thank you and Bar Engineering so much for being part of this podcast.
00:32:46.339 --> 00:32:48.859
Really, really enjoyed the conversation today.