Special Report On Stockpile 2000 Workshop

A workshop to examine recovery systems for selected strategic and critical materials in the U.S. National Seabeds for the National Defense Stockpile in the 21st Century was held in Hawaii September 26-28, 1991, sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the Marine Mineral s Technology Center. The National Defense Stockpile of critical and strategic mineral commodities is presently in a deficit position of more than 7.5 billion dollars. Current domestic reserves of some commodities are limited or nonexistent. As defined by the U.S. Bureau of Mines, "Reserves are select resources . . . which at the time of classification, can be mined at a profit." Occurrences of these minerals have been discovered offshore within U.S. jurisdiction. If the technology could be developed to convert these resources into usable ore reserves, our dependence on foreign ores could be greatly reduced. Preliminary estimates indicate that a ten-year program of ore reserves definition, with appropriate technical developments to demonstrate a recovery system, could cost less than half the amount authorized for stockpile acquisition in FY 1989 alone.