Thread by @gcochran99 on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App
Elemental, my Dear Watson
Every now and then (over many years) I find myself hearing someone talk about how mineral deposits in some place are strategically vital, and if the Commies, or the Avars, or the Mazdakites get hold of them, we’re all fucked. How often is this true?
GDP fraction
Perspective: there isn’t all that much money in minerals other than fossil fuels. US mines produce about $80 billon worth of minerals a year: that’s not a very large fraction of a $30 trillion economy.
To be absolutely clear, the current cost of ALL critical minerals added together is less than 1/300th of GDP: cost of replacing or substituting ONE of them would be economically insignificant, replacing ALL of them would be bearable.
Mineral components
A fair fraction of that 80 billion is stuff we’re probably not going to run short of - for example, the biggest item on that list is crushed stone.
And there’s a fair amount that isn’t actually terribly useful: gold accounts for a good fraction of US metal production, but it’s not very industrially important.
Still, there are elements that really are crucial: some we have plenty of, but others are mostly imported.
Are we vulnerable if we depend on a imports for a crucial element? Possible, but it’s hard to find a good example.
Chromium
Once upon a time, we imported a lot of chromium from Rhodesia. People worried that a Communist takeover, or political chaos might block that source. Whatever would we have done? Well, we could have bought chromium from somewhere else. One of those places was Maryland. Ores were richer in Rhodesia, and the cost of labor was lower . But if we paid more, we could get chromium from MD, or a number of other places, and the extra cost would be a trivial fraction of GDP.
Oil
As far as I can tell, such substitution is possible for essentially everything other than oil or natural gas. I don’t think any of the standard “critical minerals” have a chance of buggering the economy in the way the oil price surge did in in the 70s.
That’s the case for the US: Nazi Germany was more vulnerable, especially after 1941, since it only had access to Europe.
Synthesis
In another kind of substitution, we find ways to synthesize something that we previously mined or grew. Biggest example is the Haber-Bosch process for making synthetic nitrates. Synthetic rubber. Diamonds !
Stockpile
On the other hand, substitution isn’t instantaneous, so it behooves the US to have some stockpiles of critical imported materials. And we do: Defense National Stockpile Center - Source: TW