 Hi, this is Jack Lefton and this is Critical Materials Corner. Today, I'd like to talk about critical metals, but I want to, as the philosopher say, deconstruct this idea for you, because we talk about critical metals as if it's one thing. It is not. First of all, let me tell you briefly how the list came about. The U.S. Department of Commerce or Interior has the United States Geological Survey as part of it. The Defense Department has the Defense Logistics Agency. These two departments are separate and never the twain shall get together, but they did in this case in 2018. The two departments, Interior and Defense, decided to publish a request in the Federal Register, the recording instrument for the government, requesting that experts and even other people submit a list of what they thought were critical metals and materials. In the fall, they published this list. So let me just tell you one quick thing. I was in a meeting in the fall of 2018 in Washington with those gentlemen, the United States Geological Service and Defense Logistics Agency. And the head of the Defense Logistics Agency said to me on the way out of the meeting, I noticed you haven't submitted a list of critical metals. I said, that's because I don't think you'll agree with my list and I don't want to argue with you. He said, oh, I don't think so. He said, well, you should submit. Well, I never did. Because when the list came out, I didn't agree with it. So let me say that the current issue of critical metals in the United States is actually dictated by Defense Department policy. The metals and materials that the Defense Department is most worried about, which are rare earth materials for permanent magnets, battery materials for lithium ion storage batteries, and some exotic applications of more common metals than that. For example, tungsten in armor, scandium in armor, things like that. So here's the thing that nobody seems to understand. What, how much of these any of these things that the government need? Well, again, in 2013, Mark Humphries, a then of the, I believe Defense Department, published a article and he said, we need about 1000 tons of your birth permanent magnets. Okay, now comes 2018 and 19. And I made an inquiry of the defense department. Can you guys tell me how much you use in the way of birth permanent magnets and alloys? So I can do some work on this. And they said, no, no, it's classified. I said, gee, it wasn't classified six years ago. It's classified now, which means to me that they don't know that's the truth. When you hear something as classified, it means it's classified out of their knowledge base. They don't know. So I'm going to guess for you. I'm going to guess that US Defense Department today uses about 3000 tons a year of rare earth permanent magnets. Now, quite frankly, that amount of rare earths, the rare earths necessary to make 3000 tons of rare earth permanent magnets are 1000 tons of neodymium, praziodymium, and perhaps 90 tons of dysphrosium terbium. So could that be produced at mountain pass mine of MP materials? Well, the light where it's good. Could that be produced by energy fuels in Utah from Monozyte? Yes. Could that be produced by Texas mineral resources or USA where it's whichever company will be the dominant one there? Yes. Okay. Now, why then are we talking about 10,000 tons of rare of magnets made from rare earths and numbers like that? Well, the reason is because that's the civilian economy. But the Defense Department doesn't care about the civilian economy. That's not their responsibility. So that would actually I guess come out of the Commerce Department or Interior Department, but they have no particular knowledge in this area. So what we're having here, the policy of the US federal government is to prioritize the production of critical metals and materials either in the United States or in friendly countries that are allied with the United States. Now, the amounts are what I just told you. It's really the Defense Department driving it. Here's the problem. And everyone in mining knows this. That isn't enough material for it to make a profitable company. It's just too small. The world production of rare earth permanent magnets is you'll be about 170,000 tons. Our Defense Department needs 3,000 tons. There are many, many, many Chinese companies that produce that. But not a single American company so far can do it. Not a single Canadian company so far can do it. Or anybody in Europe does have some companies in this field, but nowhere near that capacity. So the Defense Department has therefore made proposals to put $30 million into Texas and 40 million or 400 million, some big number, into California and to produce rare earths. But they came up with a target of 5,000 tons a year. That's what they thought they'd like to have. They don't need 5,000 tons a year. And so they don't care about what is beyond what they need. Now, if you think this is a bit of a mess, it really is. So let's wrap this up. We don't know what the demand is for rare earth-enabled products in the United States. We don't even know what the military demand is. But the military has said they want 5,000 tons. Do they need that? We don't know. Will there be a ton left over for the civilian economy? We don't know and the military doesn't care. This is going to be a big issue from now on and we'll be talking about it every week on the Critical Metals Corner. Thanks.