Imported minerals, metals fuel U.S. shift to homegrown power

A U.S. clean-energy boom could force the nation to shed its addiction to foreign oil, only to develop a dependence on imported minerals and metals.

Clean-energy technologies — solar photovoltaics, geothermal, compact fluorescent and light-emitting diode lighting, and wind turbines — depend on globally scarce materials, some ofwhich are produced only in unstable nations.

“I’ve heard it said that the U.S. can move to alternatives if it can accomplish something like the Manhattan Project,” Jim Burnell, senior minerals geologist at the Colorado Geological Survey, told a Web-based seminar yesterday. “But a major feature of the Manhattan Project was the acquisition of uranium. I don’t see that same sort of movement for critical and strategic metals.”

He added, “I don’t yet see the recognition that we need them.”

All clean-energy technologies require strategic metals, Burnell and other experts said.

NY Times