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Tri-Valley Congressman Eric Swalwell (D-Livermore) co-chaired the inaugural gathering of the new Critical Materials Caucus last week, featuring a discussion on a long-term and reliable domestic supply of energy critical materials (ECMs).
Led by Swalwell and Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-Penn.), the bipartisan caucus formed in July and is dedicated to developing the technical expertise and capability to domestically produce a sustainable supply of ECMs — which have historically been sourced from foreign countries — and educate congressional leaders and the public on the subject.
ECMs are essential in manufacturing a wide range of technology and products such as cell phones, laptops, solar panels, jet engines, nuclear reactors, and batteries for hybrid vehicles. China generates about 80% of the world’s rare earth elements supply, which are special substances that are expensive to extract.
American reliance on foreign-supplied ECMs has been a concern for Swalwell; in 2010, the United States, European Union, and Japan were temporarily cut off from the supply by China. The U.S. currently relies on imports for at least 80% of its domestic need for more than half of the 35 vital materials.
In a statement Sept. 24, the congressman called domestic production of ECMs “crucial to America’s long-term success and growth.”
“America’s innovation, our economy, and our security must never be held hostage by any other nation,” Swalwell said. “Ensuring we have a steady domestic supply of these materials, without reliance on foreign sources, will keep our nation at the forefront of technical innovation while creating more jobs for American workers.”
Three experts joined the event, including Dr. Adam Schwartz, director of the U.S. Department of Energy Ames Laboratory, Brian Gabriel, industrial analyst with the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Policy; and Dr. Brian Anderson, DOE National Energy Technology Laboratory director.
The event included examples from Schwartz of how ECMs are used in technology, energy and defense, and a discussion about major development and production gaps, followed with an overview by Gabriel of risk factors in America’s material supply chains. Anderson then gave insight into the newest research and technology on ECMs.
A 220-185 floor vote on legislation targeted towards the issue of domestic ECM production concluded the event, and next goes to the Senate.
In Sept. 2019, Swalwell introduced the latest version of his Securing Energy Critical Elements and American Jobs Act. The bill was originally introduced in 2013, the same year the DOE established a limited-term Critical Materials Institute for the purpose of ensuring a reliable ECM supply, but the institute nor any ongoing research program is properly authorized.
Swalwell’s bill, which would prohibit the DOE from discontinuing the institute’s work by mandating it through permanent law, saw its concept incorporated into the Clean Economy and Jobs and Innovation Act, a series of clean energy and energy innovation initiatives assembled by various congressional committees that was approved by the House on Sept. 24.
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August 28, 2020
ATTN: PLEASE, PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP
SWEIS Comments
Ms. Fana Gebeyehu-Houston, NEPA Document Manager
NNSA Livermore Field Office
7000 East Avenue, L-293
Livermore, CA 94550-9234
It’s time to relocate the dirty work associated with the handling of energetic materials and nuclear stockpile maintenance, elsewhere.
Today we face a new reality of decades of population growth right to the borders of LLNL. We are now a sea of people all the way to the SF Bay. This population density renders some of LLNL’s atomic stockpile maintenance, handling of weapons, and onsite energetic materials seem ludicrous to the extreme in mixing population and the dirty work needed for National Defense. An accident does not have to release a Fukashima level of radiation to destroy a huge swath of humanity physically and mentally. Relocate the dirty work elsewhere.
NEVER INTENDED TO BE WHAT IT’S BECOME
In 1943, we were a community of about 3800+- population. We were a tiny rural town surrounded by open, productive, ag lands. There was no atomic bomb. The Navy had two facilities, an auxiliary airbase for pilot training 3.4 miles east of Livermore. (Which is now LLNL, see portrayal of old town city limits) and a second lesser remembered facility, back off the Mines Road, south of town, about an hour’s drive, the Navy had a Section or so of land used for dive-bomb training. It was the depth of allied air power superiority and ground forces that won the war, not the Bomb.
Soon after the development of the atomic bomb however, scientists at UC Berkeley wanted to retain and build off the future of nuclear research. There were no expectations or plans to handle nuclear weapons on site. Even the level of fissionable materials on site was nil.
LLNL grew into a runaway, nonstop dog and pony show between the prestigious influence and aura of LLNL founders and cold war politics run by a military industrial complex. The cold war is over. Move the dirty work portion of LLNL stockpile maintenance into an unpopulated area.
Mishaps occur, people commit suicide even in critical material handling jobs. Tell us about the young man who pressed two parts of plutonium together in the critical materials handling department, created a blue flash, and was dead within minutes as his body melted away from the destroyed bone structure. (as reported by his recently deceased lab worker) Fortunately he was humble and did not have vengeance in his heart, God rest his soul, or LLNL would have lost its license on that day. Tell us about that. Or tell us about some of these other mishaps in the attached and inserted photo.