The Tech Vibe Shift in Mining

One of the world’s most basic and ancient industries has been undergoing a transformation largely unnoticed. Mining companies are now applying the most modern technologies available to explore, produce, and deliver the critical minerals needed to transition to cleaner energy, mobility, and modern-day industrial tools and solutions. Technology advances by today’s resource providers include the use of drones, spatial data visualization, artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles and robots, digitization software, and even 3D printing to replace parts in remote mining locations.

On November 5, the American people spoke–it’s time for a fresh start and facts, not impossible dreams. However, this must immediately entail revamping the things we need most, like reliable energy and minerals resources. Permitting reform at the federal, state, and local levels is desperately needed for America’s – and California’s – new Golden Age.

Bringing permitting requirements up to speed would ensure that our nation has domestic energy of all types, and correlated minerals for years to come to support a renaissance in manufacturing, and to de-couple from our reliance on China. It’s an issue President Donald Trump acknowledged during his Joe Rogan podcast interview in October. He stated, “… [W]e have certain areas where we have great raw earth material, and we’re not allowed to use it because of the environment.” Fortunately, this administration “gets it” from incoming Secretaries Chris Wright (Energy) and Doug Burgum (Interior). Unlocking these valuable natural resources should be a top priority, whether on federal, state, or private lands.

The mining and energy industries can always become more efficient, but without a parallel track that removes permitting obstacles currently blocking wise expedient use of our domestic natural resources, thereby discouraging investment in these US sectors, there is no viable starting point for investment into or reliance on a domestic minerals supply chain. The clearest example: without new sources of copper – quickly – all the effort and funds allocated to electrify our daily lives and upgrade the electrical grid will be for naught.

Today, mining routinely operates remotely to map and inspect far-flung deposits in areas too dangerous for humans, a huge safety and time improvement. Likewise, advancements in water treatment and exploration techniques are now used to assess and extract valuable commodities long ago abandoned in metal mine dumps, some over a century old. These critical metals can be extracted from waste piles without actually mining, and with no impact, which is almost always an improvement to the surrounding environment.

Fortunately, another high-tech breakthrough in domestic mining is happening via In Situ Recovery (ISR) method in regulatory-friendly Texas and Wyoming. ISR captures uranium safely below the surface from deposits, and is today’s most efficient method to mine domestic uranium needed to support clean, modern nuclear energy, a game-changer for our future. As power-hungry data centers sprout around the country, we must become self-reliant in the fuel for the next generation of energy systems, Small Modular Reactors (SMRs).

The key reason the Internet-based technology sector boomed here in California during the 1990s was it was given a chance to succeed with few government limitations. Existing communications networks had a legal framework in place. Companies developing software and the “apps” now part of everyday life were allowed to experiment, compete, attract investment, create new wealth, and flourish in a manner never seen before. Explosive growth in Silicon Valley replaced the old-style defense-contractor way of doing business, and catapulted America to dominance.

This inevitable technology cycle is now shifting to an insatiable demand for better hardware, provided almost exclusively by Chinese-based manufacturers. America requires more electricity for artificial intelligence; more network components for mobility and redundancy (5G); more memory for storage of data and video created by individuals around the globe (cloud services); faster, cheaper, better semiconductor chips and manufacturing plants to ensure that the US has a constant, steady, uninterruptible supply of advanced products for its military, hospitals, energy grid, businesses, transportation, space, and seemingly every other area of daily life.

A large portion of domestic commercial activity begins with minerals – critical minerals – and the metals derived from them. All domestic technology relies on the most advanced metals, designs, processing, and utilization to improve performance and create efficiencies of scale for critical products and energy. All domestic mining requires tapping the unique resources underground in a safe, environmentally responsible expedited fashion. We should not ask those willing to take the risks to solve our nation’s minerals dilemma to do battle with so much red tape that it becomes easier to do business with adversaries than our foreign and domestic partners.

Rather than passively accepting that China dominates advanced manufacturing, and thus controls the world’s most important mineral and metal supply chains, it is better to accept the authentic changes and encourage new advancements in mineral extraction for “Made in America” jobs – including high-tech – in a mining industry that has been wrongfully shunned for too long.

Elevating mining (“mine, baby, mine!”) to the same plane as energy production (“drill baby drill”) will take new leadership, vision, and courage to change the status quo. The tech vibe shift happening in the younger generation of entrepreneurs is ready to be tapped for the advancement of America and American basic industries like mining. Without their youthful impatience with regard to old-style management and onerous government oversight, we will cede control of our future to the younger generation – not ours, rather our adversaries!

It’s time to let a total tech vibe shift happen in mining, and watch another miracle happen.

Silicon Valley-based Ann Bridges and Dr. Ned Mamula, Chief Geologist and minerals specialist with GreenMet in Washington, D.C., have co-authored two go-to books on critical minerals: “Groundbreaking! America’s New Quest for Mineral Independence” (2018), and “Undermining Power—How to Overthrow Mineral, Energy, Economic, and National Security Disinformation” (2024).