The United States Secretary of Energy, Jennifer Granholm, is pushing for the country to increase the production of rare earth materials in preparation for a coming surge in the sale and ownership of electric vehicles.
Granholm appeared on a webinar this week hosted by a renewable energy advocacy group called Securing America’s Future Energy. During the webinar, Granholm said America needs to ramp-up its mineral mining and production processes so it can reduce its reliance on foreign entities like China for the rare earth metals that are used to make batteries for electric vehicles.
“Many parts of the country are sitting on top of the materials that we need to produce battery technologies,” she said, as quoted by Reuters.
Additionally, Granholm said there is “huge demand,” for a more “sustainable,” mining process for rare earth materials such as lithium and cobalt, though she stopped short of explaining what these sustainable mining practices might entail.
While automakers like General Motors are working in the private sector to increase the range, performance and affordability of their electric vehicle offerings, the federal government is busy working towards a similar goal. Granholm said the U.S. Department of Energy is currently researching ways to reduce EV charge times to around 15 minutes for adding 300 miles of range. It is also looking into ways that it can reduce the cost to produce lithium-ion battery packs, which will help reduce the cost to manufacture electric vehicles and help facilitate their widespread adoption.
President Joe Biden said earlier this year that his administration would work to replace the federal vehicle fleet with EVs, a move that could cost upwards of $20 billion. The government currently has roughly 645,000 vehicles in its fleet, with just 3,215 of those being EVs. The federal government has also put in place a plan to build 550,000 EV charging stations at various points across the country in an effort to speed up the adoption of the technology.
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Comments
I think the climate alarmist need to look at the damage to water and land that happens from mining for rare earth minerals compared to using fossil fuel. Its a lot worse just like plastic bags are a lot worse for the enviroment than using paper bags. They say oh they will get recycled. No they won’t and its just basically a money grab for Al Gore and others who believe his lies.
The tree hungers will go into fight mode over paper bags. Trees like poplar that are made int paper pulp have a short life span and will rot or fall over in high winds if not harvested in a timely manner.
Dictators like Biden and Barra don’t remove themselves from office.
Lol, I want the green dummies to notice this. If you think fracking bad for the environment hold your hats fellas.
wow tolerate mining while fighting like hell to stop drilling for oil lacks common sense, nothing brings out the outrage of environmentalists more than mining,even pipelines.
Guestt, they won’t cause as you pointed out, green dummies are dummies. Just like all those cutout fans in COVID sports land.
Granholm is a worthless idiot. She ran michigan into the ground even before the bankruptcies of Chrysler and GM. She then high tailed it to California the day she left office and Michigan in ruins.
She’s almost as destructive as the unions.
Ahhh! Ms Hilton is the bosses whip! Destroying our good wages!
Great comments and the EV Marxists are coming. Mary Barra is a huge fan of Granholm and of course Quid Pro Joe, she’s bet the farm on EV’s. The Govt needs to seal the border and let private industry focus on where the free market takes us, this isn’t CCP although in the last 45 days its looking more and more like it. Its pathetic how these “bureaucrats” who’ve done nothing in their entire lives but work in “public service” (said VERY piously) insist on telling everyone else what to do… What does this increased mining do to the environment plus the electric generation vs an established infrastructure? People like this should never be given power… never…
You need first withdraw all the US military behind the borders before you can seal it. Don’t let them out there in the cold.
And then: no more travel to and fro the USA!
The power will go out if Mary is not removed from power.
Tyranny won’t stop until it’s overthrown.
To all anti EV BSers. Give me break and dash away your crocodile tears. Like you care about environment ,you’re beaching about negative environmental effects of mining, if anything you take pleasure destroying the environment and planet, all living things… So take your fake sensitivity and… You’re so dumb can’t even see where your and humanity’s interests lie, you’re literal man-childs who make all kinds of excuses and ready to burn the world just because you don’t want to give away your toy that makes brum brum noise.
You act like wise men who see the truth other can’t see and have faces to educate them while being conned by the caricature of the con men ,the most obvious one in history, right down to his fifth grader rhetoric, baby-chick yellow color ridiculous toupee , orange make-up and constant BSing. I swear to God i feel embarrassed for you.
The biggest ones I’ve seen get conned are the people that hate cars ripping themselves off, for thousands/tens of thousands, on fwd platform crossover turds and gussied up lux vehicles.
It seems libs care about every living thing except humans.
Is there a reason why people can’t make there points but be nice at the same time?
Is there a reason the left want’s to destroy GM and America with EVs?
That is really funny, dear Ms. Hilton! You made my day!
“Destroying GM and America with EVs”!!!!
You hate America. Why?
You make too much assumptions without any foundation in facts, not even guesswork, but only projections of your haunted mind.
Get real. Relax. Stop reading fake news in whatever cesspool your mind is being boiled.
And drink a cup of tea.
CNN tells the truth? put down the drugs.
Yes, it’s bad for the environment and humans but hey, I am not an environmentalist so what can I do. I’ll just keep driving my gas-guzzling hot rods and smoke the tires in their faces. T
hose huge mines look pretty severe when compared to an oil drill site. There are several drilling rigs on our property right now and it is amazing how clean they keep it.
I roll coal on every Prius/Bolt/Tesla I see. I even do it to bicyclists and pedestrians. Sidewalks and bicycles are for losers who can’t get a job and get a real car. I hate them and the people who use them.
So, YOU are destroying people! Hate makes ugly!
They are the ones destroying America.
Yes by all means let’s produce more electric vehicles then do more mining that tears up the ecosystem and the refining creates lots of waste and is a dirty process.
The EV vehicle myth that they are pushing just isn’t all they say it is.
Liberals have lied to us. It’s time to overthrow the misinformation administration.
Granholm is terrible. Ask anyone from Michigan.
If Granholm gets pregnant Biden has a flight suit and a combat mission for her.
Mary Barra should read these comments and learn that EV mining and manufacturing is WORSE for the environment than gas cars. She should get OUT of bed with China Joe and get BACK into bed with her HUSBAND.