National Materials Advisory Board Looking At Importance Of Rare Earth Metals

Gary Fischman discusses the importance of understanding the role that rare earth metals have in the development of next generation energy technologies and how his organization is assisting in this process.

Full Transcription:

Gary Fischman: The National Materials Advisory Board is part of the National Academy who’s chartered to give advice, non-biased advice to the government asked.

Ben Lack: Tell us when you’re representing the different entities that you’re helping what’s the biggest value-add that you provide for them.

Gary Fischman: Well, what we do is we give them unbiased very, very high-level advice. We can create a committee which is what we do, we can create a committee that is extremely high value that brings to bear a very high capability to answer just about any technical question that the government might want.

Ben Lack: And what types of technical questions are coming across your desk?

Gary Fischman: Technical questions right now are questions about supply chain. There are questions about high-performance facilities, schools, hospital, things like that. Optics, manufacturing of new optics. How to better manufacture military platforms so they’re lightweight. How to move forward in materials for propulsion systems. Many different things like that. It’s varied.

Ben Lack: So talk to us about, let’s just give an example of the supply chain. As it relates to energy, what would be an example of how you group would get involved?

Gary Fischman: Our group could be asked to do several different things. Amongst things that we might be asked is to assess the supply chain. Find out what availability there is for different materials what the capabilities are in United States. What we might do to improve the capabilities in the United States. What the nation might do to better prepare itself to change the tipping points of moving industries from the United States to off-site… to move industries from on-continent to off-continent locations. Things like that.

Ben Lack: Okay. And we’re here today at the Technology and Rare Earth Materials Conference. What were you hoping to get out of the conference and why we’re here?

Gary Fischman: Well, the thing I’m looking for the most is the different perspectives people have on the issue of rare earth materials and technology materials to see what types of things they are interested in. They’re thinking about. We have a very, very broad mix of people. So you have a broad mix of views. And to understand that compiled mix, gives you a better understanding of the questions as a whole.

Ben Lack: Did you have a pretty good idea of the types of opinions or perspectives that were presented today or were you coming in pretty educated about the issue and you were really more there for validation in saying who also had the same mindset?

Gary Fischman: I think that I Have a pretty good sense of what the different issues are, but it’s very nice to see how people are handling the issues. How people are thinking of the issues and what directions people are thinking of going. It gives me a sense of what we should be looking for in the future.

Ben Lack: Can you give an example of an idea that you had coming into the conference and some of the messaging  that validated what you were looking for?

Gary Fischman: Amongst the things is the Defense National Stockpile Center has been revamping their capabilities based on a report that actually my… having revamping their capabilities based on a report that one of our boards has done. And it is very interesting and nice to see how they’ve done it, what they’re doing, and what they’re considering to do in the future. It tells me a lot about the value of the report. It also tells me a lot about where we might consider helping them next.

Ben Lack: Now let’s go back, big picture again.

Gary Fischman: Yes, sir.

Ben Lack: Energy security is a big issue. Give us your thoughts on the issue itself and give us some suggestions on the way to overcome or lower our reliance on foreign sources of oil and, in this specific case, the reliance on rare earth metals in China.

Gary Fischman: That’s a big question. That’s a very big question. From the standpoint of energy security and alternative energies, the big questions that my boards are going to have to think about and what we think the nation will probably have to think about is how are you going to make those alternative energies. How are you going to produce them? And what are the materials going to be? There are many thoughts for alternative energy processes that have not materials available for them. There are lots of thoughts for alternative energy sources that we have no manufacturing supply chains for.

Ben Lack: Can you give an example?

Gary Fischman: Next Generation Nuclear Power is a perfect example, whereas if you go to a high-temperature reactor, we don’t have materials for containing the heat for that reactor. What that means is as much as we’d like to do it, at this point and time we can’t. And therefore, it’s going to be a pie-in-the-sky kind of thought without an actual product at the end. We’d like to change that. There’s no reason we can’t, but it takes a lead time. It takes some thought. It takes a strategy for moving to those materials.

The biggest call to action that I would have is to consider the whole supply chain. Consider the materials that you’re going to need. Consider the alternative materials that you might need. Consider the sustainability issues along the materials. Consider the transparency that you’re going to need to deal with in order to get the public’s trust as you manufacture your devices and products. You have to go through the whole chain of events in a very, very clear coherent way so that not only are you producing the best product possible but the public’s behind what it is that you produce.

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