Friedland’s Revenge
Payne Institute Program Manager Jordy Lee contributes to this article about how mining mogul Robert M. Friedland’s, the eccentric founder of Ivanhoe Mines, decision to partner with some of China’s biggest players represents a conundrum for the West. The renewable energy transition won’t be achieved, he said, without the critical metals needed “to electrify the world economy,” representing a kind of “revenge of the miners” — a vindication that, after decades of investor preoccupation with technology stocks, the world needs people like him to dig stuff out of the ground. April 10, 2022.