Building America’s Zero-Waste Critical Minerals Refinery.
Nickel, Cobalt & More from Multi-Source Feedstocks • Zero Water Use • Easy Permitting
America’s Critical Mineral Predicament
Most Americans never think about minerals — even though one might be sitting in their pocket right now, on the surface of a coin. Nickel is quietly essential to modern life, yet the U.S. has almost no domestic refining capacity for nickel, cobalt, and other critical minerals. Raw materials mined in North America are often shipped overseas — mainly to China-controlled processors — then returned as refined products. That dependence creates real risks: supply chain disruptions, price spikes, and geopolitical leverage over materials we can't do without.
Refined nickel and cobalt show up everywhere: stainless steel appliances, medical equipment, bridges, marine structures, jet engines, turbines, defense systems, and the batteries driving EVs and renewable energy storage. As America works to rebuild manufacturing and modernize infrastructure, demand for these materials will only grow. Without domestic refining, we risk ceding control of strategic resources to foreign nations — threatening our economy, national security, and clean energy future.
China’s Refining Grip
Mining provides raw ore — but refining creates the usable material. A country can hold vast mineral reserves yet remain entirely dependent on China to process them into battery-grade lithium, battery-grade manganese sulphate, or battery-ready nickel. The bottleneck is the refinery, not the mine.
The United States Must Build Domestic Refining Capacity beginning with Nickel
This Is Not a Theoretical Risk. It Has Already Happened.
Since 2020, Indonesia has banned nickel ore exports, China has restricted gallium, germanium, and antimony, Russia has signaled intent to restrict nickel and titanium, and the DRC has restricted cobalt exports. Each move tightened the same chokepoints America depends on.
The pattern is accelerating, not slowing. Every restriction is a preview of what happens when refining capacity sits outside US control — and the next one could land on a mineral with no substitute.
Nickel isn't a niche input — it's foundational to the modern US economy and military alike. A shortage doesn't hit one industry in isolation; it ripples across sectors simultaneously, since the same metal underpins infrastructure, defense manufacturing, and next-generation energy systems at once. Few critical minerals carry that kind of cross-sector weight.
That interdependence is what makes refining capacity a strategic issue, not just an economic one. Relying on a geopolitical adversary's supply chain for materials that feed both the defense industrial base and civilian infrastructure isn't a trade deficit — it's a strategic liability.