Duluth News Tribune
Tim Penny
January 6, 2023
https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/opinion/columns/former-congressmans-view-find-compromise-on-twin-metals-to-reach-clean-energy-goals

The quest for cheap energy that won’t contribute to our own destruction is a challenge worthy of the alchemists of old. But alchemy was never able to deliver on its promises of miraculous transformation. Nor can such magical thinking help Minnesota do what’s necessary to help lead the way toward a green energy future.

Simply, many of the devices we need to make meaningful reductions in carbon emissions — electric cars, to name one; next-generation batteries, to name another — require metals that lie in the earth under our feet. The only way to get at them is to mine for them.

At a recent panel discussion held by the Economic Club of Minnesota, Brittany Zwierzchowski Tisler of the Conservative Energy Network framed the problem this way: “To further move toward this clean-energy future, if we’re talking about having baseload clean power at scale, you need to mine for those critical minerals. And you have (them) here (in Minnesota). You should be moving toward that.

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