Secretary Granholm: Alaska Can Be Your “Exhibit A” for Green Energy Components

November 8, 2021

US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm recently spoke at The Auto Innovators Summit, where she – among other topics – opined on the need for the US to increase its domestic supply chain capabilities for electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing, stating:

You know, mining has a lot of opposition to it among the environmental community because some companies have not done so sustainably, right? But here’s the kicker, that in America we have got the means to sustainably extract critical minerals. And we’ve got an abundant group of minerals beneath us. And to do so in a way that’s in partnership with the communities that will surround a potential mine…And if we do this right, then our critical minerals can be used by us, but also we’ll be at the top of the list for export. Because other countries are looking to obtain responsibly mined minerals as well.

So if we’re going to all rely on the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has, you know, abuses in child labor practices from mining for cobalt, well, shame on us—why aren’t we finding a way to be able to do this responsibly? So, you know, I’m very bullish on us being able to demonstrate how it can be done…It would be crazy to responsibly extract these minerals and then have to send them to China for processing. We should be responsibly refining, responsibly doing each step in the supply chain, which we can.

If Secretary Granholm is serious about domestic mining – and there is little from the Biden Administration’s actions in the past ten months to show that this is any more than posturing – then she should be visiting, championing, and advocating for any of Alaska’s many mining opportunities.

In case she reads this, let me highlight just some of the projects:

• Pebble Mine, with its gold, copper, rhenium and molybdenum, among others;
• Graphite Creek, with its world-class, high-quality graphite;
• The multiple projects in the Ambler Mining District, containing copper, zinc, lead and cobalt;
• Bokan Mountain’s multiple rare earth deposits, along with UCore’s Strategic Minerals Complex processing facility near Ketchikan.

Each of the above can help the US build and fortify its domestic supplies of ‘green’ energy components that we currently import from Communist China and elsewhere.  The ability to add jobs, create energy solutions from domestic sources and decrease supply chain threats from unfriendly foreign entities are all things that should be paramount to the Biden Administration.  Are they?  We will see if Secretary Granholm and the rest of the federal ‘leadership’ is ready to step up and build America, or continue with its lip service.