infinity ag said:
aggie93 said:
infinity ag said:
This is good. Local availability, more jobs, less dependence on China.
Now let's not ruin this by shipping in H1Bs.
Even Maria is beginning to sound like Trump these days.
FWIW we need more mining engineers and we only graduate a few hundred annually right now, we need a few thousand.
Why do we graduate so few? Is it because there are no jobs for those interested, so they end up taking their skills to HVAC or electricianing or plumbing? Or is the intake restricted for some reason?
So many fields have suffered because of offshoring and other unethical practices.
Well, since 1985 the numbrer of operational mines in the US dropped steadily, with 2024 showing a very slight increase over 2023.
A lot of that is because developing countries were able to flood markets with cheaper materials than we could produce ourselves, a lot of that is because there has been a steady push since the 80's to offshore manufacturing and I'm sure some of it is simply because it takes a smart mofo to get into someplace like Colorado School of Mines and, like trades such as metallurgists, there just isn't the pool of applicants there once was because of the changing of technology and society.
And sometimes you have cases where, like what happened at Dow down home back in the late 90's - a country will flood the market with raw materials because they need to raise cash fast. When the USSR collapsed, they dumped a massive amount of magnesium on the world market which drove the price way, way down. The quality of their magnesium wasn't great, but the volume was such that it didn't really matter. Prices dropped and Dow could no longer manufacture it for a profit, so they shut down the mag-chloride unit in Plant A and eventually demo'd it.
As we gravitate away (hopefully the trend sticks regardless of who gets elected next) from depneding on China, Russia, et al for things like rare earth minerals, copper, lead, etc. we will see a continued increase in domestic mining capabilities and capacity.
