Domestic Energy Metals Critical to Security in USA

“Whoever is elected America’s president in November, the country is committed to becoming energy independent,” says Simon Clarke, CEO,  American Lithium Corp., (NASDAQ:AMLI), (TSX-V:LI), “With the rise of USA’s lithium-ion battery gigafactory economy, there’s a need to build secure, sustainable supply chains for lithium, nickel, graphite, cobalt, manganese, rare earths and other critical raw materials.”

“There is a continued urgency to secure long-term supplies from geopolitically-safe, lithium-rich countries including the United States,” says Clarke whose company is developing world-class lithium projects in the Americas as well as one of the planet’s largest undeveloped uranium projects in Peru. “EV demand is showing strong improvements in recent months—especially out of China,” Clarke told Benzinga.

The Biden administration’s announcement requiring increased tariffs for Chinese goods, under Section 301, will boost domestic energy metal production and imports from geopolitically friendly nations including the United States which will reduce reliance on China. “But America clearly has catch up to do to compete on a level playing field with China,” says Clarke, who speaks on energy metal trends as seen on Squawk Box Europe, BNN Bloomberg, Bloomberg News and CNBC International.

“The twilight of domestic American process engineering is the major impediment to a secure domestic supply of critical minerals, refined metals, alloys, fine chemicals and the manufactured items dependent on them,” says Jack Lifton,  Co-Chairman of the Critical Minerals Institute (CMI), which includes lithium on its inaugural CMI Critical Minerals List, highlighting lithium’s critical role in economic growth and technological advancement.

“The Critical Minerals Institute’s list reflects the real markets of demand and supply, unlike academic lists produced by bureaucrats,” says Lifton.

“Now that we clearly see the depth of the climate crisis, lithium — the basis for most batteries used in electric vehicles — might be called the most critical mineral on the planet,” says Clarke whose company is currently focused on enabling the shift to the new energy paradigm through the continued development of its strategically located TLC lithium project (“TLC”) in the richly mineralized Esmeralda lithium district in Nevada, as well as continuing to advance its Falchani lithium and Macusani uranium development-stage projects in southeastern Peru.

“The mass production of rare earth minerals and magnets moved from the United States to China in the 1970’s, so it’s vital for America to ramp up the processing of minerals and the development of its own assets,” says Clarke

Lifton, who coined the term “technology metals” in 2007 to describe those metals whose electronic properties enable the miniaturization of electronic technologies, says that today, “China’s process engineering is where America was at the height of the Cold War era. There can be no domestic American self-sufficiency or security of supply of raw materials and their processing without a dedicated program to understand the problem and a dedicated plan to solve it.”

While China is eating America’s technology metals lunch today, the superpower takes few environmental safeguards in their mineral processing. America is primed to take their metals processing mantle back to process and produce minerals in an expeditious and environmentally responsible manner.

American Lithium is actively engaged in the development of large-scale lithium projects within mining-friendly jurisdictions throughout the Americas.  All three projects, TLC, Falchani lithium and Macusani uranium have been through robust preliminary economic assessments, exhibit strong significant expansion potential and enjoy strong community support.  Pre-feasibility is advancing well TLC and Falchani.

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