If you’ve followed the conversation about reshoring U.S. manufacturing over the past few years, you’ve probably noticed a pattern: We talk a lot about factories, jobs and electrification, but much less about the basic building blocks that make modern products possible. Those building blocks are the critical elements that go into everything from aircraft engines to semiconductors.
Lately, the U.S. has been taking steps to regain control over those inputs. The federal government’s approval of the Ambler Road Project in Alaska, renewed activity at the Mountain Pass rare-earth facility in California and new scandium extraction efforts in Pennsylvania and Nebraska all point in the same direction. After decades of depending on materials from places that can be politically sensitive, or outright adversarial, the country is trying to bring more of this supply home.
For manufacturers, this isn’t background noise. It’s the kind of shift that affects which alloys engineers can use, what those alloys cost and how confident companies feel about scaling new technologies.
I’ve spent most of my career designing and modeling advanced alloys—cobalt-based superalloys, high-strength copper systems, aluminum-scandium materials—and what stands out to me now is that these mining announcements aren’t simply about volume. They’re about possibility. They will expand what companies can do.
A Change in Supply Changes the Materials Conversation
Anyone who works with advanced materials knows how cautious manufacturers can be. If a key element is expensive, volatile or largely controlled by a single country, that alone can shut down the conversation, no matter how promising a material looks on paper.
Domestic mining changes this calculation. With more reliable access to elements like cobalt, copper or scandium, manufacturers can revisit alloy families they once considered off-limits. It becomes easier to think beyond the “safe” choices and explore materials that might offer better performance but were previously too risky from a business perspective.
There’s a useful parallel in Brazil, where a major niobium producer has sponsored alloy-development programs simply to broaden the market for the element. Their goal is to create demand. If new U.S. mines spur greater use of cobalt, copper or scandium, we could see similar partnerships emerge here, linking miners, material developers and manufacturers in new ways.
Why Cobalt and Copper Matter More Than You Might Think
The Alaska project is expected to produce several elements, but for anyone working in structural materials, cobalt and copper are the headliners.
Cobalt is a workhorse of high-temperature alloys used in aerospace engines and industrial turbines. It’s also important in anti-galling alloys, the materials that prevent valves and sliding components from locking up under stress. Additive manufacturing enables printing of parts with complex shapes from cobalt-based alloys that would be difficult or impossible to make through traditional manufacturing.
The problem, historically, has been cost and supply instability. If domestic mining helps stabilize both, it suddenly becomes much more realistic for manufacturers to consider cobalt-rich alloys for applications where they bring real advantages.
Copper presents a similar story. Most people know it for its conductivity, but copper alloys show up in aircraft landing-gear bushings, marine components and mechanical systems where friction and corrosion are constant threats. There’s also growing interest in printable copper alloys, particularly for rocket engine applications, something that could expand quickly if supply becomes cheaper and more reliable.
Electronics, Lightweighting and the Elements Behind Them
Critical elements affect more than structural materials. Gallium and germanium — two other critical materials at the Alaska development — are essential to semiconductor manufacturing, photonics and fiber-optic systems. They’re small players in the world of structural alloys but major players in the world of chips. And in a moment when the U.S. is trying to build a more resilient semiconductor ecosystem, even modest domestic supply can matter.
Scandium is another element drawing attention, and for good reason. From an alloy-design perspective, scandium is extraordinary. Add a small amount to aluminum, and the result can rival the strength-to-weight ratio of titanium. For aerospace and mobility systems, that’s a big deal. But scandium, which historically has been sourced from Russia, has been so scarce that these alloys have long been considered too expensive or too risky to depend on.
That may be changing. Scandium extraction projects in Pennsylvania and Nebraska could meaningfully expand supply. If the economics shift, aluminum-scandium alloys could finally become realistic options for high-performance, weight-sensitive applications. Manufacturers with aggressive lightweighting goals should be paying close attention.
New Supply Is Only the First Step
It’s important to say this plainly: More mining doesn’t automatically mean new materials will appear on factory floors. Companies will still need to reexamine alloy families they once dismissed, evaluate how new sources might change material behavior and develop alloys that take advantage of improved supply stability.
Whether it’s cobalt-containing superalloys, advanced copper systems or next-generation aluminum-scandium materials, the real work happens in understanding how composition affects performance and validating that performance thoroughly.
We’re still early in this transition. New domestic mining won’t remove every dependency, but it will give manufacturers more choices than they’ve had in a long time. And with more choices comes the potential for a new wave of innovation grounded in stable, reliable access to the elements that make modern manufacturing possible.
