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Logistics Left of Boom: Understanding Adversary Threats to the Defense Industrial Base Ahead of Conflict 2/6/2026

Logistics Left of Boom: Understanding Adversary Threats to the Defense Industrial Base Ahead of Conflict

Macdonald Amoah, Director Morgan Bazilian, and Fellow Jahara Matisek write about how much of today’s military logistics debate focuses on what happens after production: moving equipment, munitions, and spare parts through contested domains once a crisis begins. But true logistics does not begin at the rail station, seaport, or airport; it begins months or years earlier in what might best be described as a prelogistics phase—in the mines, refineries, and factories that create military power in the first place.  January 6, 2026.

U.S. to Create $12B Critical Minerals Stockpile 2/5/2026

U.S. to Create $12B Critical Minerals Stockpile

Payne Institute Faculty Fellow Ian Lange contributed to this article about how the Trump administration unveiled Project Vault this week, the latest move to lessen the USA’s reliance on China for critical minerals used in technology and the aerospace and defense sectors.  February 5, 2026.

US creates stockpile for critical minerals to protect manufacturers from China’s dominance 2/3/2026

US creates stockpile for critical minerals to protect manufacturers from China’s dominance

Payne Institute Faculty Fellow Ian Lange contributed to this article about how the U.S. is creating a domestic stockpile of critical minerals in the Trump administration’s latest move to reduce the country’s reliance on China for key materials and components of technology used in cellphones, military equipment and renewable energy.  February 3, 2026.

Payne Institute for Public Policy announces inaugural Industry Advisory Board 2/3/2026

Payne Institute for Public Policy announces inaugural Industry Advisory Board

The Payne Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines is pleased to announce the formation of its new Industry Advisory Board, formally launched in the fourth quarter of 2025. This initiative marks a pivotal milestone in the Institute’s evolution as a premier global hub for research and policy engagement at the intersection of energy, natural resources, environment, and security.  February 3, 2026.

America’s Critical-Minerals Strategy Looks Increasingly Chinese 2/3/2026

America’s Critical-Minerals Strategy Looks Increasingly Chinese

Payne Institute Director Morgan Bazilian contributed to this article about how Trump’s Project Vault steps up government involvement to assure rare-earth supplies and protect U.S. industry.  The new U.S. strategy for rare-earth minerals looks a lot like China’s old one.  February 3, 2026.

Vertically integrated program brings together researchers across fields, experience levels 2/2/2026

Vertically integrated program brings together researchers across fields, experience levels

Payne Institute Faculty Fellow Eric Toberer contributed to this article about how Mines undergraduate students involved in VIPER, Vertically Integrated Projects for Experiential Research, the experience is markedly different from other research opportunities. Most of those opportunities are paid research fellowships, where students work for a stipend or as part of work-study for a semester or one academic year. VIPER instead awards academic credit and projects are longer-term, with students able to engage in them over several years.   February 2, 2026.

The widening gap between copper supply and demand will have an impact on economic development and energy futures 2/2/2026

The widening gap between copper supply and demand will have an impact on economic development and energy futures

Adam C. Simon, Lawrence M. Cathles, Dan Wood, and Payne Institute Director Morgan Bazilian write about how copper is essential for modern economies including: energy systems, data centers, defense applications, space cooling and heating, heavy industry, smart agriculture, transportation, and consumer goods.  They show that copper is unlikely to be mined fast enough to meet all these needs in the short to medium term.  February 2, 2026.

Accelerated CO Separation and Adsorption Kinetics on Carbon Using Resonant Vibrations: A Process Intensification Strategy 1/28/2026

Accelerated CO Separation and Adsorption Kinetics on Carbon Using Resonant Vibrations: A Process Intensification Strategy

Payne Institute Faculty Fellow Amirhosein Riahi and Richard LaDouceur write about how carbonaceous adsorbents, such as biochar, have attracted considerable interest for CO2 sequestration because of their cost-effective production and environmental friendliness. However, their slow adsorption kinetics – attributable to limited surface area and diffusional limitations – have hindered widespread adoption.  In this study, we introduced a green processing strategy that leverages resonant vibrations to improve the rate of CO2 adsorption on hemp biochar.  January 28, 2026.

Strategy at the source: A scenario-based network analysis of defense critical minerals (DCMs) in U.S. national security doctrine 1/28/2026

Strategy at the source: A scenario-based network analysis of defense critical minerals (DCMs) in U.S. national security doctrine

Macdonald Amoah, Payne Institute Director Morgan Bazilian, and Fellow Jahara Matisek write about how U.S. military power depends on platforms and alliances, but its resilience depends on the availability of defense critical minerals (DCMs).  This article develops a scenario-based analytical framework that links cycles of U.S. grand strategy (doctrines of engagement vs. retrenchment) with levels of geopolitical tension (peace vs. conflict).  January 28, 2026.

Media tip sheet: Critical minerals extraction and processing 1/26/2026

Media tip sheet: Critical minerals extraction and processing

Mines Faculty Corby Anderson, and Payne Institute Faculty Fellows Elizabeth Holley, Priscilla Nelson, Nicole Smith, and Erik Spiller are featured in this article about modern life runs on critical minerals—rare earths, lithium, cobalt and other elements fuel smartphones, satellites, energy systems, medical devices, defense technologies and more.  However, raw minerals must be extracted and processed, creating myriad challenges from a technical, economic and geopolitical standpoint.  January 26, 2026.

Mines geologists look to 66-million-year-old “clues” to predict future of global rainfall 1/21/2026

Mines geologists look to 66-million-year-old “clues” to predict future of global rainfall

Payne Institute Faculty Fellow Piret Plink-Bjorkland is featured in this article about how the Earth’s water cycle responded during one of the warmest periods in its history, using clues left in the geological record to better understand how rainfall behaves when the planet gets very hot.  January 21, 2026.

Trump’s Resource Grabs Don’t Add Up 1/20/2026

Trump’s Resource Grabs Don’t Add Up

Payne Institute Faculty Fellow Ian Lange contributed to this article about how there is little justification for taking Venezuelan oil or Greenlandic minerals, but the U.S. leader insists.  January 20, 2026.

VIIRS Nightfire Super-Resolution Method for Multiyear Cataloging of Natural Gas Flaring Sites: 2012-2025 1/16/2026

VIIRS Nightfire Super-Resolution Method for Multiyear Cataloging of Natural Gas Flaring Sites: 2012-2025

Payne Institute Earth Observation Group Mikhail Zhizhin, Christopher D. Elvidge, Tilottama Ghosh, Gregory Gleason, and Director Morgan Bazilian present a new method for mapping global gas flaring using a multiyear spatio-temporal database of VIIRS Nightfire (VNF) nighttime infrared detections from the Suomi NPP, NOAA-20, and NOAA-21 satellites. The method is designed to resolve closely spaced industrial combustion sources and to produce a stable, physically meaningful flare catalog suitable for long-term monitoring and emissions analysis.   January 16, 2026.

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DISCLAIMER: The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed are those of the author alone and do not reflect the opinions, beliefs, viewpoints, or official policies of the Payne Institute or Colorado School of Mines.