"Even if we kind of start to lower the burdens to play catch up with China, we actually have to go faster than China does." @MarianaMinerals CEO Turner Caldwell on the critical mineral lag nobody is talking about and what it will take to close the gap: "I think, put plainly, the US is 50 years behind on critical mineral supply." "So if we're not innovating in the critical mineral space, we will be perpetually behind... specifically behind China, but I would say also globally, we have a couple of decades of lag." "The things that we can do at the top level are: accelerate permitting, we can make project-level finance more available." "But that doesn't actually solve the underlying problem, which is that we are too slow at designing, building, and ramping up new mineral capacity even after we have licensed to operate." "Mariana is laser focused on that phase of project development." "Once you start building, it can take five years to get something built, and then it can take three or three to five years to get something actually operating at rate. And that's why we're laser focused on that." @tbc415