Solar was "green." Nuclear was either controversial or essential, depending on which decade you were in. Recycling was an environmental issue. Critical minerals were a mining issue.
Energy independence was a national security issue. Artificial intelligence was a technology issue. But something important is happening in America.
The lines are beginning to blur. Republicans are talking about solar manufacturing, nuclear power, critical minerals, and domestic recycling. Democrats are talking about critical-mineral recovery, energy resilience, advanced technology, and domestic supply chains.
Both parties increasingly recognize that America's ability to innovate, manufacture, and power its economy will determine whether we lead the next century or become dependent on countries that do. That makes the future of American technology neither a red issue nor a blue issue. It is a red, white, and blue issue.
And it is time we started treating it that way. I have spent more than two decades in electronics recycling. When we co-founded ERI in 2002, electronic waste was hardly a national security conversation.
Few people were talking about "urban mining." Even fewer understood that the discarded electronics sitting in American homes, offices, and warehouses contained materials that could become increasingly important to our economy and national defense. Today, that equation has changed dramatically. Our smartphones, computers, servers, office equipment, televisions, batteries, data centers, and other electronic devices contain copper, aluminum, gold, lithium, cobalt, and rare-earth-containing components.
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