A future power house? Australia is a current s..t house. Whatever minerals there are to mine, the mining itself will be banned by politicians pandering to minorities and myths.

Gees youre a miserable old git titibean. Go see your doctor he can give you something. Euthanasia will help you cope I guarantee it.

This article does quite a good job of identifying the barriers to processing minerals in Australia, but doesn’t really offer any solutions. Yes, processing is energy-intensive, but without a practical means to reduce energy costs then this will remain a fundamental barrier to a viable processing industry. Yes, investment risk is high, but this reflects economic conditions in the industry. Without a realistic means to reduce market volatility (other than using taxpayers’ money to mitigate foreign multinationals’ investment risks) then this will also remain a fundamental barrier to a viable processing industry. And yes, scale and industry concentration are important, but governments cannot wave a magic wand to transform Kwinana into Guangdong.

Economics alone is unlikely to ever deliver a competitive critical mineral processing industry in Australia. Geo-political considerations might. The world is waking up to the need to have reliable and politically trustworthy sources of economically and strategically important resources. It may be that we, and our potential customers, will be willing to pay a bit more to ensure those needs are met.

The author is making an observation well known to anyone involved in downstream processing. Success often or usually depends on proximity to markets. The fashion industry offers a great example. Many Australian business people have ventured into making woolen garments for the world market. They thought that proximity to merino sheep would give them a winning competitive advantage. It didn't and they consistently failed. I was involved in mineral research in CSIRO. We soon learned that with innovative processing technologies brilliance was not enough. We were usually too disconnected from the markets to make an impact. China's domination of global rare earth refining is a classic example. They have the technology and the market. Of course there can be exceptions. Keep looking!