62 THE FIVE-YEAR OUTLOOK 



more relevance to a need for science and technology 

 developments, the vast majority of large shallow deposits 

 of high-grade ore has already been found and have been, 

 or are being, mined. Therefore, to enhance the available 

 resource base, attention would have to be focused on 

 locating and then exploiting currently untapped reserves, 

 such as deep and concealed deposits. The necessary tech- 

 nologies are in many cases not yet fully developed, and 

 ores from those sources are frequently of low quality. 



Adequate mineral exploration technologies will have to 

 be developed that are capable of both detecting and assess- 

 ing such things as deep or concealed ore deposits. That 

 capability, in turn .will rest not only on the development of 

 new instruments to detect anomalous concentrations of 

 minerals, but on new knowledge of the ways in which 

 mineral deposits are formed and concentrated in Earth's 

 crust. Therefore, in addition to needing new technologies, 

 more information will have to be acquired in such basic 

 areas as geodynamics and metallogenesis (NRC-17: 

 AAAS-10: NR). 



Additionally, there is the possibility of increasing the 

 mining of the ocean floor Nonfuel minerals currently are 

 taken from only a few, near-shore, shallow-water loca- 

 tions, but there is wide agreement that much more exten- 

 sive deposits of such critical minerals as manganese ox- 

 ides exist on or just below the surface of the deep ocean 

 floor Whether or not such potential deep-sea deposits will 

 be located and then mined is as much a political as a 

 technical question, since the interested countries have not 

 yet agreed on who has the mining rights to those areas 

 (NRC-17). 



IMPROVING MINING AND PROCESSING TECHNOLOGIES 



Once additional deposits have been found, they must be 

 mined and their ores processed. However, the interna- 

 tional competitive position of the domestic minerals pro- 

 ducing sector is already declining, and conventional tech- 

 nologies for mining at large depths are becoming 

 increasingly prohibitive for reasons of safety, energy 

 costs, and large investment requirements. Those factors 

 have led to a decline in the competitive position of the 

 domestic minerals producing sector and have, thereby, 

 inhibited production and deterred the search for new 

 deposits.- 



Science and technology developments could play an 

 important role in reducing the costs of producing both 

 primary minerals and the industrial products that are 

 derived from them, thereby stimulating those industries 

 and resulting in greater domestic supplies. For example, 

 the handling and transport of mine materials, particularly 

 in mines that lie 300 feet or more beneath the surface, 

 incur enormous energy costs, and technological refine- 

 ments could alleviate some of those costs. Work is 

 needed, for instance, to further develop in-mine ore 

 crushing and separation technologies that could minimize 



the amount of materials to be transported out of the mine 

 (NR). Advances in solution mining promise improve- 

 ments in miner safety, reduced disturbance of the surface 

 environment, and a reduction in the amount of rock 

 needed to be handled and disposed of in the mining 

 process (NRC-17). 



Approximately 10 percent of U.S. energy consumption 

 is used and/or lost in the primary conversion of minerals 

 into metals and other materials, and many research oppor- 

 tunities exist for increasing the efficiency of energy uti- 

 lization in those processes. Additional opportunities for 

 technological improvements can be found throughout the 

 mining and utilization processes (NRC-17; AAAS-10). 

 Thus, scientific and technological developments in 

 mining and processing technologies could, by easing the 

 financial burdens on American mining and minerals proc- 

 essing industries, lead to increases in domestic supplies of 

 critical minerals. 



DEVELOPING SUBSTITUTE MATERIALS 



A third way that science and technology can help resolve 

 long-term shortages in critical nonfuel minerals is through 

 the development of alternative materials that could be 

 substituted for those made with the potentially threatened 

 commodities on which industrialized nations now highly 

 depend. For example, recent achievements of the U.S. 

 defense and space R&D programs have demonstrated 

 some substitution opportunities for critical and scarce 

 mineral commodities. Carbon fiber-reinforced carbon 

 composite materials, for instance, could potentially be 

 substituted for superalloys using nickel and cobalt in such 

 applications as gas turbine engines. Additionally, new 

 metal-matrix composites are potential substitutes for such 

 critical materials as chromium, titanium, and beryllium. 

 Furthermore, rapid solidification technology can provide 

 very high quality starting materials for new families of 

 aluminum and titanium alloys, as well as superalloys, 

 while not using such scarce materials as chromium (NS). 

 Thus, one approach, well into development stages, for 

 dealing with potential shortages in critical nonfuel miner- 

 als is to reduce our dependence on them by developing 

 viable substitutes. 



PROVIDING FOR A SUFFICIENT SUPPLY OF 

 WATER 



Of our natural resources, water is one of the most impor- 

 tant. In addition to personal use, water is critical for such 

 enterprises as agriculture and energy production, and it is 

 vital to virtually all industries. Two intimately related 

 aspects of our water resources will demand attention in the 

 next 5 years. The first is the supply of water, and the 

 second is the quality of that supply. The interrelationship 

 between the two is important, since the quality of the 

 water supply is a critical factor in its functional utility and, 



