The US Can Mine Critical Minerals Domestically Without Sacrificing Natural Landscapes
Source: https://www.facebook.com/americanspectator/. "We Can Have Both: Critical Minerals and America’s Natural Beauty | The American Spectator | USA News and Politics." August 23, 2026. spectator.org
The Gist
The author argues America can mine lithium and rare earth minerals at home—like in the Appalachian mountains, Wyoming, and California—without ruining the beautiful landscapes, using modern mining techniques that restore the land afterward. He also stresses that America needs to build its own mineral refining capacity, not just mining, because China controls that critical processing step even for minerals dug up in the US.
Conclusion
The United States can and should develop domestic critical mineral mining and refining (lithium, rare earths) to achieve supply chain self-reliance, while preserving the natural beauty and ecological integrity of the landscapes where these resources are located.
Premises
- The southern Appalachians contain an estimated 1.43 million metric tons of economically recoverable lithium oxide, enough to replace over two hundred years of current U.S. imports.
- Modern hard-rock mining techniques (selective extraction, phased operations, land recontouring, native replanting, closed water systems) can minimize long-term ecological damage, as demonstrated at the Spruce Pine quartz mining site.
- Other domestic critical mineral resources exist beyond Appalachian lithium, including Wyoming's Bear Lodge rare earth project and California's Mountain Pass Mine.
- The Trans-Alaska Pipeline System demonstrates that large-scale resource extraction can coexist with environmental protections (wildlife passages, monitoring, reclamation) over decades without permanent industrial degradation.
- China dominates the refining/processing stage of critical minerals (65-73% of lithium, ~90% of rare earths), which is the actual bottleneck exposing American industry and defense to supply chain risk, not mining capacity alone.
- Even minerals mined domestically (e.g., at Mountain Pass) currently must be sent to China for refining, underscoring the need for domestic refining capacity in addition to mining.
- International partnerships like the Pax Silica initiative can complement domestic efforts by diversifying supply chains among trusted allied nations.
Assumptions
- The reclamation and mitigation techniques described (recontouring, replanting, closed water systems) are generally effective and consistently applied in practice, not just in isolated best-case examples.
- Past examples of successful environmental management (Spruce Pine quartz, Trans-Alaska Pipeline) generalize to future lithium and rare earth mining, which may involve different chemical processes and larger environmental footprints.
- Permitting reform and disciplined project design are achievable politically and administratively.
- Reducing dependence on China for refining is a sufficiently urgent national security priority to justify accepting some level of new domestic industrial development.
- The scale of future lithium/rare earth refining operations will not introduce environmental risks qualitatively different from the smaller-scale examples cited.