Ian Lange, professor of economics and business, said that even though the U.S. government is taking an equity stake in specific mining companies he doesn't believe the government will take over the mining operations.

Anna Littlefield, program manager for low carbon energy technologies with the Payne Institute for Public Policy, says that valuing enhanced oil recovery equally with carbon storage could divert more investment into those companies doing enhanced oil recovery and less from the companies doing pure storage.

Stephen Sonnenberg, professor of geology and geologic engineering, says the U.S. has at least a 100 year supply of natural gas. He says that supply could double as alternative energy sources kick in.

Shifts in the industry have already been driving change in the board rooms of oil and gas companies, said Jennifer Miskimins, department head for Petroleum Engineering at Mines and the incoming President for the Society of Petroleum Engineers. “A lot of the mergers of companies have been because they’re buying inventory, so they have places to go outside of what they currently have,” Miskimins said.

Ian Lange, director of the mineral and energy economics program at the Colorado School of Mines, said the lithium price decline shows the difficulty of making policy when the mining sector’s boom-and-bust reality is constantly shaking things up

“You’ve got these two [sets of countries] sort of playing by different rules, and so it’s been polarized, although China has not completely been in disagreement with Artemis,” said Angel Abbud-Madrid, director of the Colorado School of Mines Space ....

“They’re grabbing all the money they can,” said Ian Lange, director of the mineral and energy economics program at the Colorado School of Mines.

Ian Lange, director of the mineral and energy economics program at the Colorado School of Mines, said nothing in U.S. federal policy is geared toward smoothing market fluctuations or encouraging long-term offtake agreements between miners and ....

“No one … has any idea whether that’s correct or not,” said Morgan Bazilian, public policy professor at the Colorado School of Mines.

But Ian Lange, director of the mineral and energy economics program at the Colorado School of Mines, said it could take up to a decade to permit and build processing plants that can be controversial and threaten nearby communities with pollution.