| MINERALS MORASS — The Biden administration is making inroads in Africa on critical minerals, Hannah Northey reports for POLITICO's E&E News. Officials are mulling helping build a railroad that will cross the continent and showing political support for a nickel processing plant in Tanzania, among other projects. It's a triple play: If it works, the administration will secure, open up and diversify markets crucial to U.S. and global climate goals while forging deals that enrich African countries — all while meeting high labor and environmental standards that critics have long complained are absent from Chinese deals. But it's a tough road. The government is pushing for deals in countries where mining has historically been associated with environmental and labor abuses instead of driving prosperity. And the U.S. faces stiff competition with China. “The history is not good for critical minerals,” said Tom Sheehy, a fellow with the Africa Center at the U.S. Institute of Peace, a nonpartisan, independent institute established by Congress. “I credit the administration for making the effort. Whether or not they have sufficient resources to succeed is a big question. … It’s not going to be easy.” CRITICAL THINKING — Experts at the Wilson Center's symposium last week on critical minerals in the North American Arctic said they'd explore the following research questions, Sue Allan reports: Duncan Wood, vice president for strategy and new initiatives, Wilson Center: We extract in one place, we move that ore to another place to refine, it maybe goes to another place to be further processed. If we can do more of this on the site of the mine — or very, very close by — we're reducing our carbon emissions just from transportation. That's a big deal. You’re also reducing your costs. Emily J. Holland, assistant professor, US Naval War College: Mining has very bad PR. There is this obvious need to increase responsible mining in a variety of places. But if you tend to poll people about their thoughts on mining, they don't want it in their neighborhood. I want to know what we have to communicate to communities to get them to view mining as all of these things — as greener, as going to build the community, as working towards a larger project. Erin Whitney, director, Arctic Energy Office, U.S. Department of Energy: How they might use new energy sources, greener energy sources — whether that's [small modular reactors], whether it's fossil fuel sources combined with carbon capture. There are a lot of incentives and programs to do that.
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