Mining is first and foremost a material logistics problem. If I need to study significantly more material to retrieve a economically viable amount of sight after elements it will be always a difficult proposition.
North American mining firms tend to be private sector, but in Asian countries like China, Indonesia, India, and Vietnam the mining conglomerates and processors are state-owned enterprises, or in the case of Japan and South Korea, private sector firms with a controlling stake owned by a sovereign development fund.
This is why we need a Temasek or Mubadala for America.
Mining seems like it should be firmly on the list of things that are of national security importance.
But the US in general hates "state owned enterprises" in the form that China has.
The only North American pension funds I can think of that act like SDFs is the Ontario Teacher's Venture Growth arm, but they've begun pulling back from venture and growth funding.
> But the US in general hates "state owned enterprises" in the form that China has
We don't need a China style model tbh.
A coordinated trust banking model with a controlling stake owned by an agency or ministry like in Japan and South Korea is probably a better analogue for the US - in most cases we have the IP, human, and financial capital, it's coordination that is lacking. The issue is antitrust fundamentalists would balk at that kind of government enabled consolidation. The IRA and CHIPS would have been steps in the right direction, but who knows now with this admin. They are discussion SWFs but I do not trust their ability to execute.
I would love In-Q-Tel to transition into something similar for Cybersecurity and Enterprise SaaS, but they have issues.