Heather Somerville
speaker
40 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Dec 2025
last heard 24 Mar
Heather Somerville’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Mar 2026 with 1.
Appearances
We have a huge initiative from J.P.
Morgan investing in all sorts of national security projects.
essential industries and critical minerals is a focus.
And then there's the government money.
The Trump administration has invested in, among others, Vulcan Elements, a rare earth magnet startup out in North Carolina.
ReElement Technologies, which works on recycling of those rare earth magnets.
And notably, the Pentagon took a 15% stake in MP Materials, a rare earth mine.
So we are seeing a huge amount of state capital going into this space, which certainly boosts investor interest because it indicates a commitment from the administration to sustain a domestic supply.
They're all unproven.
That's what it comes down to.
We haven't done this as a country in a long time.
The labor force skilled in mining and processing these minerals mostly doesn't exist.
And these new entrants have no track record of success.
actually doing this stuff at scale.
This is a low margin business.
China has dominated it for decades.
For the U.S.
to create an industry that lasts, that can be competitive with China, that's very much an open question.
Over the last few decades, there have been several American-led efforts to begin to build up a domestic supply.
And many, if not most of them, have fallen flat in the face of competition from China.
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