Critical minerals are the strategic resource in today’s version of the Cold War. These raw materials, which require sophisticated and complex techniques to extract and process, will largely dictate U.S. success or failure in that geopolitical contest. Their applications span the aerospace, defense, electronics, energy, medical, and transportation sectors. 

Fortunately, after years of lagging in the critical minerals domain, the United States is working hard to turn things around. 

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This July, the Department of Energy announced that $75 million, as part of a $1 billion commitment announced in August 2025, would be used to accelerate critical minerals and materials recovery from coal and coal-based sources. Five projects will develop pilot-scale facilities to produce market-ready critical minerals. This is just a small piece of the “whole-of-government” approach issued in accordance with President Donald Trump’s executive order, “Unleashing American Energy.”

The term “whole-of-government approach” is........

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