{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"TechSurge: Deep Tech Podcast","title":"Rare Earth Rush: Strategic Minerals and Tech's New Resource Wars","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":3420,"description":"For thirty years, the United States largely ignored critical minerals. We mined less, processed less, and stockpiled less — while China quietly built the most dominant mineral supply chain in modern history. When China imposed rare earth export restrictions in 2024, manufacturers from Detroit to Tokyo scrambled. The invisible inputs powering electric vehicles, semiconductors, AI data centers, and defense systems had suddenly become visible — and vulnerable.In this episode of TechSurge, host Sriram Viswanathan speaks with Dr. Gracelin Baskaran, Director of the Critical Mineral Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. A mining economist with over a decade of field experience across Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East, Gracelin is one of the sharpest minds working on how the world secures the raw materials that make advanced technology possible.Gracelin brings a clarifying perspective to a topic that is often framed as a geopolitical contest: the real challenge, she argues, is economic. Until mining in allied countries is genuinely profitable — until the capital, energy infrastructure, processing technology, and policy stability are all in place — supply chain security remains aspirational, regardless of how many executive orders get signed.Sriram and Gracelin work through the full landscape: what critical minerals actually are and why the term matters, how China built its dominance not just through geology but through industrial strategy and foreign policy, and why the 29-year average timeline from mineral discovery to production creates a fundamental tension with the pace of technology investment. They examine the gap the CHIPS Act left unfilled, the case for aggregating allied demand to change the economics of new mines, and what tech CEOs are dangerously wrong to assume about their own supply chains.They also dig into the emerging policy architecture: Project Vault as a demand-driven civilian stockpile, the critical...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/jQPF4l9NFf0J8GE3ySmQUhKsdFs-I1vwVANYFaBaoL0/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9kOGI1/OGFhMjdjOWMzMDhj/MGY4MGFiMDMyMmIx/Y2M4ZS5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}