Four-wheel drive trucks closely hugged the hillside as miners Ron Cleaveland and Shawn Hart carefully navigated the narrow, steep path leading to a uranium and rare earth mineral mine that had been abandoned in the Mojave Desert. They had to watch out for protruding rocks that could puncture the tires.
Within their square mile mining claim, besides abundant uranium, they also found 14 other critical minerals, including various rare earth elements. This uranium mine area was first discovered during the uranium mining boom after World War II more than 70 years ago. However, with the drop in uranium prices, the family that originally owned the mining rights never proceeded with extraction. In 2017, they officially released the mining rights, and Cleaveland, a partner at Sundown Resources, subsequently acquired the mining rights.
As they painstakingly made their way along the mountain trail, Cleaveland complained about the costly and sometimes decades-long mining permit approval process, despite the high demand for uranium and rare earth elements in the United States.
“We import rare earth minerals from unstable regions, even countries that are not U.S. allies, while neglecting reserves that can be mined anytime in California and other parts of the U.S.,” Cleaveland said. “It makes no sense.”
He stated that relying on foreign imports, especially from adversary countries, “is a vulnerability that the U.S. cannot afford at a national level.” Cleaveland said, “Energy security begins with extracting our own uranium and rare earth minerals.”
According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, delays in mining permit approvals and the lack of continuity in U.S. policies are the two major challenges that must be overcome to achieve mineral security, especially with China dominating the market and manipulating rare earth prices.
With China continuing to dominate the rare earth mineral market, mining experts are urging the U.S. and its allies to expedite the domestic mining permit process. As commercial partners of Sundown Resources, Cleaveland and Hart told Epoch Times that Americans should mine and refine rare earth minerals in their own backyard instead of relying on foreign supply chains dominated by China. Sundown Resources is a small mineral exploration company that holds multiple mining rights in California.
As a miner and advocate for land rights and small-scale mining projects, Cleaveland stated that both large and small mining companies face similar obstacles, such as excessive regulations and permit delays. Small-scale miners, in particular, often do not have the resources to withstand long waiting periods that can last for decades. He said, “They are being crushed by regulations that only want to responsibly develop proven resources.”
Before mining rights holders can extract minerals, they must submit a detailed mining activity plan, known as a Plan of Operations, to the Bureau of Land Management. This requires environmental reviews and reclamation plans to comply with federal and state-level mining regulations.
“The Bureau of Land Management raises mining fees every few years, and by the time the operation plan is approved, the money spent on paperwork and paying bureaucratic salaries often exceeds the wealth created by actual mining from underground,” Cleaveland said.
He mentioned that large foreign mining companies, often partially or wholly owned by foreign governments, not only have more financial resources but also have political connections, making them seem more favored when competing for mining contracts in the U.S.
Although uranium is not considered a rare earth element, it is often found alongside rare earth deposits. Uranium is most commonly known for its use as nuclear fuel and also in producing medical isotopes for PET scans and other medical imaging procedures. As for rare earth elements, they are used in manufacturing permanent magnets, personal tech devices, and advanced military equipment.
“Some uranium mines are mined using in-situ leach mining, where solution is injected after drilling deep wells to leach out the minerals, making it a much lower-cost method,” Cleaveland said. However, the deposits owned by Sundown Resources are hard rock mines, which means high-grade ore must be produced and sold at a high enough price to be profitable.
Cleaveland mentioned that a 2% grade uranium ore is considered economically viable, and some samples in their mining claim have grades as high as 8%. With the resurgence in nuclear energy demand and limited resources, uranium prices have more than doubled in the past five years, currently stabilized at around $80 per pound, making mining more feasible. Cleaveland said, “Uranium prices need to be at least $60 per pound to be profitable.”
However, even in the current relatively favorable pricing environment, delays in mining permit approvals and “multiple regulatory entities having oversight concurrently” mean that obtaining a mining permit could take 10 years or longer. “The financing threshold and political resistance in California are our biggest obstacles, not the geological conditions,” Cleaveland said.
“We have a uranium mine that can really start at any time, in theory, we could send the ore to processing facilities in a matter of weeks, not months or years,” he said.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies is advocating for the U.S. government to streamline the permit process and end dependence on China’s dominant supply chain. In a bipartisan event in mid-December 2025, Republican Senator Bill Hagerty of Tennessee and Democratic Senator Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada agreed that delays in the permit process not only harm U.S. mining efforts but also pose a national security risk.
In May of last year, President Trump announced the push for a “nuclear renaissance,” issuing a series of executive orders to revitalize nuclear energy development to meet the rising demand for electricity, especially from AI data centers.
These executive orders involved accelerating commercial nuclear development, such as the Tennessee Valley Authority announcing on May 20th that it had submitted a permit application to build the first small modular reactor in the U.S.
The orders required the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to complete licensing reviews within 18 months, provide federal land for reactor development, and streamline regulations and permit processes.
Trump repeatedly joked about a fictional couple who couldn’t see him on TV because “there’s no wind, there’s no sun,” highlighting that wind turbines and solar panels are intermittent energy sources with less reliability than nuclear energy.
“‘Honey, I want to watch the President on TV tonight’,” Trump said in 2023, a joke that he repeated in many speeches and campaign events. “‘Sorry, darling, I can’t because there’s no wind today.'”
Sundown Resources has held these mining rights for many years, hoping to develop them, but Cleaveland said he and his partners may ultimately be forced to sell the mining rights. He said foreign buyers are actively seeking U.S. uranium and rare earth assets.
“I want to see these resources developed responsibly,” he said. “I’m not sure if our small team has the capability to do it, so we may have to consider selling, leasing, or partnering, but I hope to see these critical minerals produced in the U.S.”
Cleaveland believes that the issue with renewable energies like wind and solar power is their inability to provide stable electricity.
“Only nuclear power can provide scalable, carbon-free baseload electricity,” he said. “It’s the truly cleanest, cheapest source of power.”
He mentioned that some states, including California, have been gradually moving away from nuclear power, having overly high expectations for renewable energy.
“I think this approach is short-sighted and narrow-minded,” Cleaveland said. “We need a diverse range of clean energy sources, including wind and solar, but they are intermittent and could pose problems. Nuclear power can provide the stable clean electricity that California urgently needs.”
Hart told Epoch Times that he hoped minerals could be mined in a clean, safe manner while creating high-paying American job opportunities. He said that as AI data centers increase their demand for electricity, more companies will start building prototypes for cold fusion. “If that actually happens, the demand for uranium will only grow, and we hope to be a part of that,” he said. “We hope to secure these resources.” ◇