Tag: aerospace industry

Trump is negotiating with BOTH Russia AND Ukraine for Donbass’ minerals.

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Ukraine expected to sign a deal with Trump giving U.S. access to its rare minerals—but almost half are impossible to get to

Ukraine is nearing a deal to grant the U.S. access to its rare minerals in exchange for continued political and, perhaps, military support, though negotiations face challenges since 40% of these resources are in Russian-occupied territory. With Trump pushing for access to these minerals while also engaging in talks with Russia, Ukraine faces uncertainty over its strategic partnerships as it navigates its war effort and economic future.

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That being said, information about what materials Ukraine has and where they are located presents snags for negotiations. Namely, Ukraine can’t promise access to all its materials when a reported 40% of the minerals are under land currently occupied by Russia.

On top of that, the main motivation for Zelensky agreeing to swap minerals is likely to be in return for military aid from America—which Ukrainian officials say has not been explicitly penciled into the draft.

Despite this, yesterday sources in Kyiv confirmed the terms to share materials—including oil and gas—are almost agreed after months of negotiation.

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US to Appoint New Arctic Ambassador With Eye on Russia

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

US to Appoint New Arctic Ambassador With Eye on Russia

The US military is preparing for a future conflict in the Arctic with Russia, as well as China, by revamping its forces in the region. The US Army released a strategy document last year that said the Arctic has the “potential to become a contested space where United States’ great power rivals, Russia and China, seek to use military and economic power to gain and maintain access to the region at the expense of US interests.”

The US Navy released a similar strategy document in early 2021. Then-Navy Secretary Kenneth Braithwaite suggested that the US could start challenging Russian claims to the Arctic by sending warships near Russia’s northern coast, similar to how the US Navy makes provocative passages near Chinese-controlled islands in the South China Sea.

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Melting ice will change the economics of extracting resources from the Arctic

Of the 90 billion barrels of oil and 1,700 trillion cubic feet of natural gas estimated to lie north of the Arctic Circle, 84% lies offshore. And while Arctic conditions can still be as harsh as they were on the Seabees, the infrastructure of oil and gas extraction has improved vastly. “If people aren’t drilling all over the Arctic now, I don’t think it’s because there’s a gap in technology,” said Stig-Mortean Knutsen, a petroleum geologist at the Arctic University of Norway. “It’s more to do with cost.”

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These extractive ambitions rub against the urgency of our environmental moment: the need to cut down, rather than pursue, fossil fuel use. As part of their sustainability goals, banks claim they’re now making it difficult for oil firms to get funds for new Arctic projects. Knutsen calls this decision to withhold financing an easy one to make, “like kicking down an open door,” because the upfront expense of a project is so steep today. If those expenses shrink in a warming Arctic, banks might well step up once again, he said. One sustainability executive at a London-based bank, who asked not to be named, pointed out: “In any case, China and Russia will be happy to fund new projects.”

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Ironically, to best transition away from carbon fuels, the Arctic may first have to yield up another kind of resource: metals. The batteries, electric vehicles, and fuel cells of the future will need huge quantities of copper, nickel, manganese, rare earths, and other metals, said Gerard Barron, the CEO of The Metals Company, which hopes to mine the sea floor once the International Seabed Authority, a body within the UN, finalizes an undersea mining code. Barron’s miners are most actively studying the Clarion Clipperton Zone, a region just south of Hawai’i, where there is, Barron believes, enough metal to build 280 million EV batteries.

China Defies US Sanctions with Computer Chip Breakthrough

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

China Defies US Sanctions with Computer Chip Breakthrough

China’s rise as the largest, most powerful nation on earth is inevitable. The resources, energy, and time the United States is wasting in attempting to contain China’s rise and assert itself above all other nations could be used instead to find a constructive role to play among all other nations as a still powerful, influential nation with much to offer humanity, just not the most powerful or influential. The United States, like many empires before it in history, unfortunately, appears determined to squander this opportunity to peacefully transition to one powerful nation among many, and instead faces the prospects of holding neither primacy over the planet, nor significant prominence among the nations on it.