The Future of Critical Minerals with Amanda Van Dyke, Author of The Mineral Imperative

Olivia Dunning: Madam Speaker! Madam Secretary, Madam Vice President. This is Madam Policy, a podcast about women shaping policy, creating history. Hello, everyone. I'm Dee Martin. I'm your Madam Policy host. I'm thrilled to be joined today by Amanda Van Dyck, the author of The Mineral Imperative. And I hope everyone has a chance to take a look at this book. It is excellent. We're gonna jump into that. But first let me say, Amanda, welcome. Thank you so much. So, folks, Amanda is an internationally recognized mining finance professional, an author, as I've mentioned, and she is the founder of the Critical Minerals Hub, and that's her online platform for all things critical minerals. She also has a YouTube channel, which we're going to talk about in just a little bit, and I think has some really excellent information and explainers included there. She's also the founder of Women in Mining UK. Where she successfully advanced the business case for more women to serve on boards in the mining sector. She's a fellow of the Royal Geological Society, very exciting, and the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, IOM3. In short, Amanda is amazing, very busy, and I'm excited for this conversation. So Amanda, let's go ahead and get started. Now we're gonna talk about your book, we're gonna talk about your work, but I just want a level set here. For those uninitiated in the world of critical minerals, and I'm talking to our folk our listeners now, start with chapter three of this book. In it, Amanda, you answer the foundational question, what is a critical mineral? And then you walk readers through how these minerals are used across defense, technology, and energy, among others. So let's level set for everyone. What is a critical mineral and where do we encounter them in everyday life and in national security? Critical makes people think that it's about how essential it is to something. And in actual fact, it has nothing to do with how essential it is, but how sensitive or vulnerable the supply chain or access to it is. At some level, every mineral is something that we need at some level for something. And when it becomes critical when we cannot secure, we don't know that we can get enough of it for a long enough time. So criticality is inherently regional and or industry specific. So if you make lots of something, so a a really good example is iron ore. Iron ore that goes into steel is by volume and actually by money, the mineral that we use more of in tons and in dollar value than anything else. Modern society, as we know it, needs steel in incredibly large quantities. It is truly essential to just about every industry on earth. Like steel plays a an integral role. ⁓ so you'd think, why isn't steel a critical mineral? Steel's not a critical mineral because iron ore is fairly common. And more than it's common, the world has a really well-functioning global critical mineral steel supply chain. So we mine it in lots of places, we process it in lots of places, and the supply chain works sufficiently well that we don't have to stick it onto a critical minerals list. Now, the US has one of the most effective. Critical minerals lists in the world, the United States Geological Society does a ton of work in figuring out what minerals are critical to the US economy ⁓ and what supply chains are vulnerable. And believe it or not, the 85 or so mined minerals on the periodic table, 65 of them are on the US critical minerals list. And you're like, wow, that's a lot. Are 65 critical minerals really, really critical? And the reality is. United States Geological Survey believes that all of them, some to a larger and some to a lesser extent, are really important to some aspect of the US economy and some industry that is also essential to the economy. And they believe that either the US doesn't have enough processing capacity or enough mining capacity to ensure, no matter what, no matter what happens, that they can get access to it. And the reason that they write that critical minerals list and they and they sort of rank the criticality is because for things they're not sure they can get enough of, they know that they need policy. And there's a lot of different policy levers, which are probably more your specialty than mine, to try to ensure the American economy and American industry can get access to them. And it's that access that criticality is mostly about access. Okay. So I have I have two follow-up questions. And that's that's a very helpful explanation and thank you. My first or maybe observation is that you mentioned USGS it creates this list. And I believe working either in conjunction or the DOE has its own list, but that list is reviewed and updated, I think, every five years or something like that. And stakeholders in the United States have an opportunity to weigh in on that process to inform the federal government about the scarcity availability of those critical minerals to the industries in which they're working. Is is that correct? That's exactly correct. But I I would give it a tiny bit more nuance. So the DOE, yeah. The DOE sounds like it's just energy, but the DOE has the mandate to cover all minerals as well. But it tends to cover things that are essential for ⁓ for energy and industry together. So any mineral that's important to energy and industry. On the other hand, ⁓ there's a completely separate list of defense minerals that are essential to the Department of War. And that list is slightly different. And USGS. works closely with both in actual fact to ensure that their list covers both. Got it. Because they are slightly different. And anything that's essential to military applications, but that also that has a vulnerable supply chain tends to get put up a little bit higher on the list because it's a different kind of vulnerability. Okay. That's very helpful. So then let's think about what happens If we're facing a critical mineral, let's say crisis, right? There's an urgency, there's a scarcity that has emerged, perhaps there's a geopolitical issue that's driving that scarcity. And you wrote recently in a Substack post, and folks, you should follow Amanda's Substack or subscribe to Amanda's Substack. You wrote recently about maybe an impending fertilizer crisis. What can you tell us about that? So everyone thinks that it's gonna be an oil shock that's heavily price dependent that's coming out of the Gulf. But what a lot of people don't realize Is that two key fertilizer ingredients, sulfur, which makes sulfuric acid, which is really essential part of the phosphate supply chain, and ammonia, which is part of the nitrogen supply chain. So about 40-45% of both of those things are derivatives of oil and gas that comes out of the Gulf. And they're all stuck behind the Strait of Hormuz with all the other oil. And and that really is a crisis that we're not feeling right now, because There's a domino effect before you feel the effect of a critical mineral or a shortage. Right. Now, as it happens, things like potash are already on the US critical minerals list. But up until now, that supply chain functions so efficiently, nitrogen and phosphate weren't on that list. Okay. And that may change with this. But anyhow, with 45% of both of those critical parts of that supply chain at risk right now, fertilizer prices are up. But that's not the real problem. The problem is it's real scarcity. And that about 50% of everything we grow on the planet from in modern agriculture is there because it's fertilized. We couldn't grow enough food to feed the world at all without fertilizer. So with all of that stuff stuck behind the gulf, we now need to f find a way to fertile. There's just not enough. And and the prices have gone up, but it's not just about. High prices making it hard for farmers around the world. It's about true scarcity. And the problem is if we miss a key growing window, if we miss an application period, it's not like we can just wait, as soon as it opens up, we can start distributing this stuff, right? That we've missed a key growing window and it still needs to go through an essential supply chain to be transformed into usable fertilizer. Now, to be fair, this is one of the few places in the world where America, maybe this is the reason it's not on the US critical minerals list. America has really decent domestic fertilizer supply chains. It mines, produces, and processes fertilizer sufficient to American needs. So America should be okay, but the rest of the world is not. Now, American farmers are still gonna hurt because they're subject to international pricing, which is affected by this crisis. Yeah. So they might underapply slightly, but for a lot of the rest of the world that doesn't have a secure Fertilizer supply chain, they're going to be hurt by this, either because they can't afford it or they're just not enough to go around. And that's the problem. There's it's a domino. So we're not going to feel that scarcity of lower yields globally for another six months. But when that happens, and and you know, the golf will be working perfectly again by the time we feel the pain. And that's a really good example why supply chains are what make things critical. It's about access. And so I think it's funny because at the same time that you said domino, I was writing the word domino. And I think that's the the best way for us to think about this is that those raw materials, critical minerals, affect many things within the supply chain and could eventually lead to a hunger issue, food issue, other scarcity of of critical resources. And so look, you've been in the mining finance field for more than twenty-five years. You founded, as I mentioned earlier, the Critical Minerals Hub. Again, folks should check it out. We're really talking about these geopolitical issues and economics and how they affect supply chain scarcity and availability of resources. You also have your YouTube channel, which is at Critical Minerals Hub, where you have some really excellent video explainers on there. So I I urge people to take a listen. But let me ask you the obvious question, and I think now I know the answer. Why did you write the mineral imperative? You have many ways to have your voice heard and to talk about this important issue across platforms. So why the book? And I loved the book. Thank you so much. ⁓ because minerals generally mining and processing and and the essential nature of minerals to our way of life and how we get them is a really, really misunderstood topic. And we're at a tipping point. Where the number of people in the world and the technology in the world and the demands for energy and raw materials is getting beyond the ability of industry and the present global supply chain to supply it. ⁓ and I think it's I mean, it's well known now. Everyone talks about rare earths, and that's the critical mineral most people know about. But what's true to rare earths is true to almost every mineral to some extent. And it's it's complicated, and that's the other thing. It's not easy. It's a really complicated subject that we need to know more about. We all kind of know that food and agriculture is really important, and that we need to support farmers, and that we need good agricultural technology to be able to ensure that there's enough food to keep everyone fed. Every country seems to know instinctively that's the case. But I would argue that mineral supply chains are equally, if not more, important to our way of life. And they don't get anywhere near the same amount of attention up until very recently. And the reason it's happened recently is because scarcity has become. It's because we've gone slightly over the tipping point. I mean, silver, which is a really important technological mineral, more so than actually its jewelry applications, has been in deficit for five years. Copper, the demand for copper is way more than our ability to produce copper. The critical minerals list started with about 40. And then it went up to sixty, and now it's a sixty-five. And just about every mineral on there is critical because we anticipate shortages that are gonna severely affect the economy. And I felt that someone needed to be explaining this in slightly more layman's terms because it was a subject the world needed to understand better than it did. And unfortunately, I felt the way that it was covered in the world press was not very good. Well, I think, and I commend you for writing in layman's terms because I appreciated that, not having a a a technical background in critical minerals, although do I I do policy work in that space. But you've talked a little bit about demand and this and the tipping point. You identify in your book four converging forces that are driving demand for critical minerals. I wondered if you could talk about those forces and why they matter. And then I'm gonna show folks my favorite figure in this whole book. That explains exactly how an individual consumes or is a user of critical minerals. So let's begin with what are those forces and why do they matter? The forces that really matter. So energy is the biggest one. Our demand for energy is overwhelming. So climate change and our desire to have a lower carbon environment is one of them. But the the bigger, the bigger subject is actually that the amount of energy per person that we require to maintain the quality of life that Almost everyone on this planet aspires to is higher and higher. And energy by itself is actually quite mineral intensive. Every way in which we consume energy is mineral intensive. The grid, electricity, even cars, even internal combustion engines. Like we understand that oil is important, but there's so much metal in a car. So our demand for energy, our the growing population of the world, and also technology. Technology has become significantly both more energy and mineral intensive. I mean, there's there's more than sixty separate minerals in the average smartphone. More in some of them. Most of them people in mining have never heard of. I mean, there are very few people that can name all 17 rare earths. ⁓ and then last but not least, and food and other things. Just generally speaking, as I said, there's a tipping point, all of these converging forces of energy, technology, population that are just rolling together that are all separately increasing demand. And instead of it being incremental, it's going to become a tsunami. And then the last thing is scarcity. Globally, our ability to find, develop, build and process more minerals is falling off of a cliff, right? The mining industry has had a discovery drought. The mining industry has gone into something called diseconomies of scale. So the cost of mining per unit in just about every mineral in the world is going up. not down the great global grades for key minerals, things like copper, are falling off of the cliff. So just as we need more of it, it's getting harder to find and harder to get. And that is that's a problem for lack of a better word. So let's talk about you and me, right? You say in your book, everyone born today, let me get the amount right, will need more than three million pounds of minerals, metals and fuels in their lifetime. And here's your here's the picture. If you see the the fine print where I got that from, that that's actually an American. That's how much every American will need. I think that's a twenty twenty four number. Twenty twenty-four. Yeah. And so the United States Mineral Education Coalition is this amazing, they do what I do. Yeah. Right. They're trying to raise public awareness of how important minerals are to our way of life and especially the American way of life. And they've been doing that tirelessly for over twenty years. And and that's what they've calculated based on imports, exports, production, all of that. I mean, they they run down what all of it is, like how many tons of steel, how many tons of potash, how many tons of lithium, right? Then lithi when I started in this business, lithium wasn't even on that list. Wow. And now it's in high demand and every nation is trying to secure their supply chain. Exactly. And one of the things is I believe every nation on the planet needs to understand what its mineral demands are for its people and its industry. ⁓ and I think that's a a policy change that the world needs to prioritize because we're going into a time of scarcity. But the US is actually leading the way globally on minerals policy ⁓ by making it core to national security, which it is, and securing it on behalf of the American people. And it's organizations like the United States Minerals Education Coalition that's helping to do that and the United States Geological Survey by quantifying how much people use. in what quantities throughout their life. And there's a lot of big macroeconomic statistics involved and and tracking to get to that number. It it's actually quite complicated. Nonetheless, it's essential because you really can't run a modern economy if you don't know what minerals you use and where you're getting them from. And you mentioned nations and and the policies that they have developed or are developing. And of course President Trump in January when he first took office issued an executive order securing on the basis of national security Critical minerals. And so you can see that there's a lot of US interest in policy related to critical minerals. Now, in your book, you write that, and so we're going to pivot a little here to some of the policy issues and some of the geopolitical issues. You wrote nations that control mineral supply chains, set the terms of trade, the pace of industrial development, and the strategic options available to others. Now, historically, and you talk about this, minerals, and this is your bailiwick. Minerals largely functioned as global commodities driven by markets and demand. But today governments are really becoming central actors, securing supply chains, shaping investment, and treating critical minerals as instruments of national power. Do you think that we are witnessing a fundamental shift from market-driven commodities to state driven strategic assets? And can critical minerals really function as free market commodities once nations view them as essential to national strength. No, they can't. They can't be free market commodities anymore. I think that China's a really good one to start with. So when the communist government took over in China in the 1950s, China was desperately poor. It was one of the poorest nations per capita on the planet. And in terms of their national rejuvenation, the Communist Party really committed early on To rebuilding the economy and becoming a great power again, as they saw was their historical role. And they realized really early on that they were what's called price takers rather than price makers, as in they bought all their commodities on the international market necessary for their economy. And they took whatever price anyone gave them because they had no choice, because they had no pricing power. ⁓ And they decided that made them fundamentally weak and that the access to commodities of all kinds were going to be. Come under state control because it was too essential to the economic future of the nation. And every single Chinese leader since then has doubled down on that pledge to make access to control of supply chains. Look, China actually is a huge miner, contrary to popular belief. They mine tons. They're the biggest coal miner in the world. They're the biggest lithium miner in the world. They're the biggest rare earth miner in the world. On top of that, They've created a total supply chain dominance by investing in mines all over the world and investing in a huge amount of processing because this almost nobody can use stuff that comes directly out of a mine. Most minerals, as they come out of the ground, require a lot of processing before they get into a form we can use them in. And so they secured access to the minerals from the mines and they also created a huge Goliath mineral processing complex within China that was very energy intensive. To ensure that they had enough minerals to s to to not just keep their people fed and to keep their their basic industries going, but also they became a manufacturing powerhouse. And they knew that their their competitive advantage in manufacturing would be ruined if they started having to pay international prices like we all are now for all of these basic commodities, from little stuff like rare earths all the way up to steel and copper. So they realized that early. 60% of almost every mineral on the planet, with a couple of exceptions only, are processed in China. There's like maybe five exceptions to that. And that gives them a, if not a monopoly, an extraordinarily powerful trade position that now every single industry in the world outside of China and every single country in the world outside of China realizes they get to write the terms. That's what monopolists do, right? And and I think people have realized that the inherent logic behind state control, I don't know if it's control, but securing state securing of supply chains is really essential to the economy and to your industry. If you're a price taker, if you don't set the terms of what you've got. So one of the nice places where America is, is they're a price setter and they have energy independence. Yeah. Right. So look, energy is just as important as minerals. There's no question about that. And being able to produce enough energy for the needs of your nation and preferably s at sports surplus is really, really important. And at a basic level, minerals and energy are the building blocks of every other industry. If you dig down deep enough, from farming to forest, forestry might be the exception. But if you need stuff to make it work, you need medical devices, you need buildings, you need You know, it's a really bad way to look at it. But most of us, every time one of those missiles crashes somewhere, all we can see is the components, like like all the rare earths and the antimony and the tungsten that just came out of the supply chain. I mean, they're just it's it's like it's a it's a mineral war in a weird different way. And and I think that right now, with the increase in the number of wars, the increase in in scarcity, every country has realized that. And in globalization and market terms, it'll all equal out. For a price, we'll be able to get it and the market will set the terms. And now we've realized that that's just not good enough, right? That geopolitic, just like China is now using its incredible monopoly on rare earths as a geopolitical lever, they're just the tit. I mean, every single mineral on the planet can be used as a weapon, just like fertilizer in the Gulf. I mean, they're not using it as a weapon, but that scarcity, it's a threat to dozens. Of nations in the world are going to experience food scarcity this year because they couldn't get access to basic fertilizer commodities. So let's talk about that scarcity for a minute then. You know, you do discuss briefly in your book the fact that we're really not tapping into the full resources that are available to us on planet Earth, right? So we are pro effectively mining about 30% of the Earth's crust because 70% is covered by water. There is deep sea mining for critical minerals, but it is quite controversial. Talk a little bit about that controversy and the importance of potentially getting to those critical minerals that are that are beneath the earth the earth's surface in the sea. So ⁓ as you mentioned, 70% of the earth's crust is underwater. We actually discovered that there were metals on the seabed. They're actually not on the seabed in the nineteen sixties and seventies when submarines post-war were For more science and expeditions, and we discovered things like nodules in certain areas of the sea. And we picked them up because we were capable of going down and picking them up. And actually, America led the way because they had the best submarine fleet in the world at the time. But in about the 80s, metals prices crashed because we were slightly overproducing what we needed at the time. And so between the crash in metals prices and the fact that we had no effective way of getting those metals out, because a lot of those metals are sitting in like five six six thousand meters of water. And that's very, very deep. And we just didn't think we could get them out at anything close to an economic price. The technology was just not there. And what we could do was exceptionally expensive. The only reason we knew we were there is because a side project of the military that was doing some science and exploration. And it was just dropped. And in actual fact, I'm going to mess this up, the name it's the Hardbed Minerals Act or something like that. They actually had a regime for Figuring out how to manage the ownership of resources in international waters in the deep sea. But because it was uneconomic, they just kind of dropped it and the whole act went dormant. And the International Seabed Association in the 1990s, as part of the UN, got set up and they started giving out licenses and said, Look, you're allowed to explore all you want. ⁓ we don't actually have mining licenses to give out yet. And and there was no pressure. To give out mining licenses because we were mining like crazy on land. Between 2000 and 2025, we more than doubled the tonnage of rock we get out of the ground, like of all the commodities in the world that we get out of the ground. So when we had lots on land, it was fine. But now that we're encountering scarcity, suddenly the minerals that are sitting in the deep sea became far more interesting. And in addition to that, technology has moved on. We've figured out, or we think we've figured out. It hasn't been done commercially yet. We've tested it and there and China is actually there are more licenses in international waters that China owns than anyone else. And China's actually spent more money than anyone else developing the potential for mineral technology because they've always considered access to resources one of the most like central to their their political policies. And so they've also invested billions upon billions of dollars on exploring the deep sea for resources and in testing. Deep sea mining technology. But at the same time, a few pioneers in the West did the same thing. And with President Trump's, and to be fair to President Trump, he actually started this Bionate Critical Minerals and re-prioritized them in 2017 during his first term. Yes, that's right. And it's one of the few areas of policy that that I believe has a lot of bipartisan support on both sides. Because everyone kind of sees the logic of how desperately we need minerals to maintain our economy and our way of life. And then when he came to power in 2025, or came back to power, should I say, he reprioritized. He he sort of brought brought that critical minerals way, way up the priority list. And suddenly deep sea mining was no longer a far-off science fiction thing in the future. The technology evolved. There were some companies that were doing some incredible work. So the US via NOAA basically reopened their old international mining legislation, as it were, and said, we need to get more minerals or more access to minerals. We don't have sufficient. There's there's 65 minerals presently on our critical minerals list. Where are we gonna get them from? And can we revisit an old idea? And they did. And they've started giving out licenses again in international waters. And there's a few companies, the metals company being one in the US, it's the best known one and it's listed in the US that's looking to start mining or early small scale mining in 2027-28, I believe. And a brand new company whose name I'm gonna forget was just listed in the US as well with over a billion dollars to explore. And I think there's gotta be five or ten different companies that have applied for licenses under the US administration. Now there's still 31 licenses that are active. via the the UN ISA licensing regime, but America's looking to separately license in international waters. And they're doing it because it's commercially relevant. Because suddenly what's in the deep sea is both critical. Almost every mineral that's in the deep, the big ones are nickel, cobalt, copper, and rare earths, which are all extremely critical for every country, but for the US especially, and are available in huge quantities and potentially, If the numbers are right, and and we need to be a little bit careful about this, because nobody has successfully figured out mining regularly and efficiently adapt. We know it can be done in theory. They've done tests and trial mines and and trial recovery, but to do it consistently day in, day out, 365 days a year is harder. And so we need to figure out if it can be done efficiently over the long term. Unfortunately, at the same time, and the reason this is so controversial in what you alluded to earlier. Is the reason that the ISA has thirty-one active exploration licenses and not one exploitation license is because the global NGO set have started a movement called no deep sea mining ever. I think there's like 30 different NGOs that have become observers to the International Seabed Authority and are promoting a moratorium on deep sea mining. So then we here we are at the tipping point. And the technology is available. We're getting to commercial. And then there's also international opposition to undertaking it, trying to press for a moratorium. So more to come on that. I am going to ask you soon about your next book. And if it's not about seatbed mining, I'll be surprised. But let me ask you about writing, if you will. I want to pivot to you as a writer. You know, you claim that you're not a professional writer, although I do find that hard to believe. And so we can debate that at some point. But at the very least, I think we can agree that you are impassioned. And I find at times a quite lyrical writer. You say, for example, and I quote, minerals are the difference between cold and warmth, hunger and plenty, darkness and and light. Now, I'm a writer, and I love both the beauty of that sentence and the weight it carries about the role of critical minerals throughout human history. So tell me, how do you write? What is your process? Talk to me about being a writer. So the book was originally called Welcome to the World of Mining. And it's because I had something to say. I felt like minerals and mining were profoundly misunderstood industry. There was nobody explaining them in layman's terms and how important they were and how the industry worked in layman's terms. And I thought that was something that I could do. And it was hard. Getting your thoughts on paper and making it logical and easy to understand. I mean, there were a lot of rewrites. It was a process, but it evolved. And as it happened, I really liked it. And that's what led to me starting a substack. And now I really enjoy it. And the process is kind of the same. I can just do it a little faster now. That happens. And it's more like, what do I think is being profoundly misunderstood or misinterpreted? And How can I correct it? And usually the first step is not actually, ⁓ this is what you don't get. Right. Right. It's do some research. Make sure that whatever my understanding is, is right, because I get things wrong and technology changes, situations change. So do some research. Figure out if what you think is right, figure out what's new, what's going on. And then once you're you're sure that you're at least on the right track, hopefully. Yeah. And then try to write about it. The article I wrote about fertilizer and and and what the long-term costs are gonna be. I think it took three drafts because I wasn't getting it across in the first time. But, you know, check your sources, check your facts. And once you've done that, try and try again and try to reiterate it. And for me, it's about trying to make it accessible, trying to use layman's terms and relatable relatable anecdotes, as it were. Like try to explain something it's light. For example, in deep sea mining. One of the things I wrote about deep sea mining recently, I said is it's like AI. It's the industry is actually far more advanced. Most people think of deep sea mining as science fiction, something that's really far off in the future. But in 2020, I think most of us thought AI was really far off in the future. And now, you know, six years later, I don't know any major industry in the world that doesn't use AI to some extent, right? Or isn't trying to incorporate more AI and the growth is astronomical. Deep sea mining is a lot. more advanced than people think as well. And I'm like, that's the analogy. The analogy is we think this is a far off science fiction future, but in reality, there are some very big companies and very big countries that have put billions and billions of dollars. It's going to become part of how we get minerals out of the ground. There's a portion of the world that is sticking their head in the sound and sand saying, no deep sea mining ever. And I'm like, you can do that, but that's not going to stop other people from doing it. I mean, China just launched The world's biggest mining ship in history. ⁓ wow. I mean, it's as big as an aircraft carrier. Mm-hmm. And it's meant for deep sea exploration and mining. That's happening, whether we like it or not. Japan is developing stuff in its exclusive economic zone. It's not waiting, it's not asking permission. And so I think that for me, writing is a process of trying to illuminate and explain an industry that that's been under wraps and that has been misunderstood for a really long time and trying to make it relatable so that everybody can have a better understanding of how important it is to how we live. And I think you do an excellent job. You the analogies that you use, but also the word choice that you that you make is really helpful because it's impactful and it's understandable and your book is is quite digestible. And so thank you. Well so what's next for you? Are you gonna write another book? So yeah, you you got it right. I think mine I I re it was actually a very recent, I finally I wasn't sure what it was gonna be on. And I think it will be on deep sea mining because I think it's going to be a reality so much faster than most people realize. And I think that people deserve to understand it. Yeah, I think I'm also so I'm launching a new part of the hub with a lot of fact sheets on I'm I'm doing the entire periodic table. And I'm really lucky because 25 years in the industry. The mining industry is one of the world's smallest industries. I mean, it's one degree of separation globally. ⁓ and I've had a lot of lovely people reach out and say, we love the fact that you're raising the profile of mining and minerals and how important they are and how can we help? No strings attached. And so they're gonna make it so that I can put out explainers, like the little videos, but sort of like the two-page fact sheets. So, like everything you ever wanted to know about lithium, so that anyone from A high school student, a reporter, you'd be surprised. Well, you're in law and you probably know this. There's a lot of law firms that do the same thing, that they have like one ⁓ one explainers of certain kinds of law and it gets hit by everyone all the time because people just want something, you know, not everyone can read a book. Sometimes you just want a little bit of information fast. And I think that making sure that that information is contextualized and accurate and easy to digest is something that I could do. And you and you have done it. I've watched a couple of your YouTube explainers and I think that they are excellent. And that's why I opened today with let's just all understand what critical minerals are. And I think you do an excellent job of explaining that. All right. So, Amanda, thank you so much for being on Madam Policy. I'm gonna end our episode the way I end every episode by asking what piece of advice would our Internationally recognized speaker, author, and critical mineral and mining expert Amanda Van Dyck give to her 24-year-old self. I think I would tell people or tell myself to be a bit more careful with the advice I took. So everyone wants to give you advice and there's some really strict paths that you're supposed to do when you develop a career and and how you think about things. And if it was easy, we'd all just read a book and do it. Right. But life is a lot harder than that. And advice, no matter how well meaning, is not always useful. Sit back, think hard about everything and say, Do I know enough? I would just be a little bit more careful with the advice I took. I would think harder about the future and what I wanted to do and the advice I took going forward. Cause I think that there's so many people shouting at us from different areas saying, You should do this and you should do this and you should do this. I think that you need to, I think we need to. sit back, think harder about things ourselves a little bit more often. I think I'd be I would try to give myself the confidence to to back myself to think critically about the future and and what I wanted to do. I look I think that is excellent advice. But also you've just for me uncovered the through line of your work, your writing and your personal self, which is yes Take in the advice, the facts, the information, but apply it to the actual situation on the ground. And so for you personally, what was happening with you at 24 or in the critical minerals space? Okay, we understand what critical minerals are. We understand what's happening with them, but we also have to understand the facts on the ground. There's a convergence four of four issues that could create scarcity and we need to secure our supply chains. So I now get it. The Amanda Van Dyke through line, which is application of facts to your reality. So Amanda, thank you for being here and sharing your wisdom. My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. Thanks everyone for listening to Madam Policy. I think it's another great episode. Please download or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and rate and review the show, which is really helpful to Other listeners find it. If you have someone that you think would be a great guest for Madam Policy, please send us their name. You can tweet at us, find us on Instagram, and contact us by the links in the bios. This podcast was recorded in the studios of Policy Badalus, Washington, DC.