We move now to mining, with Nevada in the national spotlight as a potential answer to the problem of the United States overdependence on other countries for critical minerals.

Here now to explain are Amanda Hilton, president of the Nevada mining Association, and Rob Gallery, administrator for the Nevada Division of Minerals.

Thank you both for joining Nevada Week.

Amanda, I want to start with you.

How serious is this issue of the overdependence on other countries for critical minerals?

This is a national security issue.

I it is very important that our country start evaluating and developing ways that we can have a more secure domestic supply chain.

In the last several months, I've had a lot of opportunities to actually speak with military officials, including a meeting at the Pentagon.

And in all of those conversations, I've learned that it is imperative that we have more, domestic production of minerals that are needed for things like steel, aircraft carriers, ships, armor for our personnel.

So Nevada is uniquely positioned because many of the minerals that the military is looking for, we have in the ground in Nevada and to the federal government, reach out to you for these meetings.

Yes.

So, Nevada is the leader of mining in our country, and Nevada is well positioned to be able to answer and provide solutions for these problems that the military has today.

And right now, Nevada is the only state where lithium is being mined.

For those who are unfamiliar with this, Rob, can you explain to our viewers how the U.S.

got into this position in the first place?

So the US has been a mining country for a very long time, especially the state of Nevada.

However, when it came to processing, the processing technologies started to move overseas in the last 20, 30 years.

And since then, new processing facilities haven't been built and put online within the United States for a very long period of time.

And the ones that are still in operation, a lot of them are older, antiquated technologies and need significant investment into them to be able to come up with the standards and quality needed for environmental protection that we have on the United States.

Talking about processing plants, both of you worked together on a recent report about copper, and the goal of it is to create a copper processing plant here in Nevada.

Correct.

What would that take?

that report identified several locations that it would be possible sites to construct a facility like this.

But the reality is the permitting timeline would be decades, and it would be hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions of dollars for a company to invest in this sort of facility.

But what we're seeing is the US government is recognizing all of the hurdles that companies have in the U.S.. So in order to build a mine, build a processing facility.

And so we are having a lot of conversations with governmental officials to see how they may be able to better support the investment in a technology like this.

Right.

I mean, right now the U.S.

government is actually taking stakes in mining companies, including one here in Nevada.

Rob, how would you describe this moment in time for mining in the country and in Nevada?

We haven't seen the government involvement in mining like this since, really the Second World War.

I mean, it has been a long, long period of time where the government is realizing that we are so far behind in getting some of these operations up and running and getting to the process for the critical minerals needed every day that we use them.

The investment is into lithium companies.

Lithium is used for everything we look at and hold in our hands, with cell phones to computers and everything else.

So we we see that need for it.

And the fact that there was over $8 billion set aside under the big, beautiful bill that was recently passed towards mining and processing and recent Department of Energy grant opportunities for mining the future, and opportunities for developing technologies to process it not only to process, but process better, more environmentally friendly, and to get them in the U.S.

we haven't seen this in a very long time.

Amanda, what would you tell people who live near mineral deposits, copper, for example, what can they expect to happen in the area they live in?

I'm a good person to ask.

I live ten miles from the state's largest copper mine.

I live in Ely, which is just outside the Robinson mine, and the Robinson mine plays such a critical role in that local community.

One of the reasons I live in Ely is because of the clean air and the clean water.

And so when people talk to me about concerns like that, I can share my own personal examples of I choose to live near that operating mine because they take such good care of ensuring things like the water in the air remain clean.

Yeah, the water being tainted is a significant issue, among others.

Lastly, the workforce in mining, does it exist right now in Nevada to fill the demand?

Yeah, currently, there's nearly 20,000 dedicated Pers air employees to mining itself.

And then if you look at indirect jobs, you're looking at over 40,000 people in the mining industry in the state.

Nevada Nevada has one of the very few mining schools at the University of Nevada, Reno, at the McKee School of Mines, that actually has the career paths for a lot of the technical aspects.

But mining isn't just geologists and mining engineers.

There is a lot of opportunities in every aspect.

You need accountants.

You need security.

You need health and safety.

You need assay labs.

There's a lot of jobs outside of just the traditional geology, mining, engineering that are needed every day in the mining world.

So yeah, right now in rural communities, there's some counties in state Nevada where mining is the largest employer in that county.

Amanda, you had mentioned to me that there is a large portion of this workforce set to retire soon.

There is.

What's your level of concern about that in the next five years?

A high percentage of our experienced employees at the mine site are projected to retire.

They will be out of retirement age.

So our member companies are working hard to recruit and build that workforce of tomorrow.

The Nevada mining Association has recently, implemented a video campaign where we are highlighting five different careers within the industry, and we're sharing that across Nevada because we want all Nevadans to know about the opportunities within the industry.

These are great jobs.

The average salary is $120,000 a year.

And it doesn't matter if you have a GED or a PhD.

There is a role for you in our industry.

Amanda Hilton and Rob Guillory, thank you for joining Nevada Week.

Thank you.