Montana, Nuclear Weapons Keystone

 

Montana, Keystone to Nuclear Weapons

1. General Situation:

• Fixated on AI, complacency greets the threat of nuclear annihilation (Simon Tisdall, Guardian, October 12, 2026)
• Putin just threatened to deploy nuclear arsenal of 4400 warheads, against NATO because of a supposed plan to invade the exclave of Kaliningrad.
• Trump threatening to “annihilate the Islamic Republic” in the US-Israeli war by saying Iran is weeks away from the bomb, while ignoring Israel’s nuclear weapons and pursuing a deal with Saudi Arabia for civilian capability that can be repurposed.
• North Korea has gained status as nuclear weapons state and we seem to have discarded our post war policy of denuclearization and reunification.
• China’s has 650 operational warheads growing to 1,000, worried about Japan.
• Forever wars continue in Palestine, Iran, Ukraine, Myanmar, Yemen and Sudan.
• UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres just said the world’s in itsmost dangerous nuclear moment since the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, while Trump says “might makes right.”
• Non-partisan Arms Control Association bemoans lapses of treaties, high level talks between nuclear powers, while threats become more complex.
• There is a developing nuclear contest for control of outer space and the moon.
• Between November 30 and December 4 the First Review Conference on the Treaty Prohibition Nuclear Weapons will meet at the United Nations in New York. President Trump is in a good position to extract himself from the conflict with Iran, which has not yet signed, by signing with them the Treaty Prohibiting Nuclear Weapons, he will likely not do that, in favor of moving into high gear with Sentinel & W87-1, Golden Dome and speeding up the nuclear attack submarine program.  The United States, along with other nuclear armed states has consistently opposed the TPNW.  The United States is still free to sign or ratify TPNW at any time, but doing so while doing Sentinel, W87-1, Golden Dome and related nuclear programs into “high gear” will immediately place it in material break of the treaty’s core prohibitions. Compliance will require a plan by U.S. established standards to abandon the newly initiated programs and eventually eliminating our nuclear arsenal.   

2. U.S. Situation:

• General Michael Guetlein just explained strategic necessity for Golden Dome (washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/09/24/golden-dome-director-explains-state-of-the-art-defensive-shield/)
• “There are weapons capable of striking America from anywhere with no warning.”
• “We must shift to an active defense strategy so threat weapons can never succeed.”
• Golden Dome is “deterrence by denial.” to be operational by 2028 end of Trump’s term.
• The already funded Sentinel Missile Modernization program has been shifted to be under Golden Dome in all future defense bills. https://www.exchangemonitor.com/sentinel-shifting-to-golden-dome-under-ndaa-gop-senators-say/?printmode=1
• Sentinel’s core mission to retaliate is being called “deterrence by retribution.” 
• Sentinel costs have lessened by using prefabricated modular silos. 
• The payload costs less than $4,000 per Kg for launching satellites of Golden Dome according satellites SpaceX, versus $78,000 per kg by repurposing Minuteman III launch vehicles.
• Last week’s award of Virginia Class nuclear submarine to Anduril centers on a “software-defined” shipyard near Baltimore to introduce and prove a new way of doing business.
• SpaceX’s CEO Elon Musk and Andruril’s Palmer Luckey just tapped for Pentagon’s new group to study the “future of warfare.”

3. Strategic Thoughts:

• Nixon signed ABM Treaty so defensive weapons would not destabilize MAD.
• “Left of launch (cyber, sabotage, special ops)” cost less than “right of launch.” 
• PLA “Unrestricted Warfare” paper, limits of U.S. resources, and ‘the red dancing shoes.”
• Montana’s missile field which will continue to act as a missile “sponge” to reduce the numbers of threat missile that must be defended against over populated areas.
• If there was a time consider the wisdom of nuclear warfare for Montana it is now.
• If there was a time to consider the ethics of nuclear warfare in good conscience it is now.
• My personal realization from being at the Pentagon on 9/11.

4. Sword and Shield:

• Sentinel, with fully remanufactured W87-1 475 kiloton warheads in modular silos.
• 7800 LEO satellites to sense, target, warn, track, and boost phase intercept.
• Upper layer of mid-course wide area defense using land-based missile interceptors.
• Lower wide-layer, THAAD & Aegis for penetrating threats including hypersonic.
• Regional area defense by 11 short-range batteries, patriots, and common launcher.

5. Rare Earths and Gallium:

• U.S. military requires 550 metric tons of specialized Rare Earth permanent magnets annually compared to the broader 10,000 metric ton annual U.S. market.
• Defense supply chain reports space and interceptor layers of the Golden Dome will massively surge annual U.S. defense (heavy) rare earth requirements.
• Hypersonic sensors and interceptors require ultra-high temperature ceramics, which demand heavy Rare Earths. Domestic capacity is a few dozen tons annually.
• Rare Earths in the Sentinel modernization program are classified. But at least 21 tons per year will be required for permanent magnets (SR 117-39-NDAA FY 2022)
• The W87-1 warheads appear to require 1.5 to 21 tons of Rare Earths annually (LLNL)
• The annual Rare Earth requirement for Virginia Class subs will be 9.2 metric tons.
• Current pentagon usage, including contractors, is about 3,000 to 4,000 metric tonnes of specialized Rare Earths per year. This will rise to 10,000 tonnes by 2030.
• The 10,000 tonnes per year figure by 2030 comes from widely cited 2026 Sprott Asset Management analysis driven by general modernization, drones/UAV’s, precision munitions, and shift to electrified sensor-heavy autonomous systems.
• The Greenland agreement aimed at exclusive access to Greenland’s Rare Earth resources in order to bypass China’s 85% control over global Rare Earth processing.
• There will be need not just for Rare Earths, but for a dramatically increased (classified) requirement for Gallium, of which China historically controls 98% to 99% of global supply and for which the U.S. suffers 100% import dependence.
• Effective January 2027, under a July 2026 Executive Order defense contractors are prohibited from supply chain waivers to source metals like Gallium from China, Russia, Iran or North Korea. $2.05 billion has been invested in Louisiana and Tennessee enterprises to extract 200 tons of Gallium annually from gold mine waste.

6. Sheep Creek:

• We should expect the current federal administration will make extraordinary efforts to align Montana’s Environmental Review of Sheep Creek with the ongoing Federal FAST-41 review expected to culminate April 28, 2007.
• Sampling shows exceptionally high content of Gallium, establishing it as the highest-grade gallium deposit (avge 393 ppm; outlier over 1200 ppm) in the United States vastly out-performing 50 ppm grade of gallium historically imported by the U.S. from overseas supplies.
• Gallium at Sheep Creek in Montana is a primary asset alongside Rare Earth Elements (REE).
• The DOE’s INEL and U.S. Critical Materials have extended their partnership through February 2027 to develop a specialized process, an Electro Membrane Reactor, to isolate the Galllium and all the REE.
• Greenland has 43 of 50 minerals considered critical by the U.S. including Gallium. The fast tracked Tanbreeze project in southern Greenland will not export concentrates until Q3 2029  and the Skaergaard Project will export in about 2033.

Sheep Creek, Montana

7. Operational Situation:

• Unique high grade deposit averages 9% total REE content and includes substantial Gallium. USCM executives have noted plans to pivot toward aggressive underground extraction operations by 2027 if exploratory drilling and final site permits align. The remarkably low radioactive Thorium is below the threshold requiring Nuclear Regulatory Commission Oversight.
• Forest Service West Fork District of the Bitterroot National Forest has held the hearings. Opposition is bipartisan and very serious. County Commissioners do not want it and argued against fast track. Congressman Zinke and Senator Sheehy agreed.
• Local state lawmakers and a powerful coalition of 21 conservation organizations demanded a full multi-year Environmental Impact Statement instead of a less challenging Categorical Exclusion. Montana’s State Department of Environmental Quality did not give an exclusion to the project and appears intent on processing the project under the Montana Metal Mines and Montana Environmental Policy Act. 
• The prototype 1 to 2 ton per day electric membrane processing facility has already been completed at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory near Idaho Falls. Scaling to a 25 to 50 ton per day facility is required to yield 18 to 21 tonnes of high-purity REE and Gallium needed annually to fully insulate the four high priority defense systems. Ore grades have a 9% total rare earth oxide content and severe concentrations of Gallium.  An EMR facility processing 50 tons of ore per day with a 90% extraction efficiency will annually yield approximately 1,500 tons of mixed rare earth concentrates and roughly 5.5 to 7 tonnes of ultra-pure gallium. This will easily clear the minimum baseline required by the Pentagon.
• A permanent materials processing facility has been funded for Toole Army Depot near Ogden to avoid slowing effects the might be caused by zoning. However, the REE that will be processed there to final high purity materials may not come only from Sheep Creek.
• A 50 ton per day of feedstock facility could fit in a 20,000 to 30,000 square foot industrial facility. The primary input will be electricity requiring a dedicated highly stable grid-tie-in capable of delivering continuous industrial power to drive the electric reactor. 
• If the EMR is located at the staging area in Conner (for example) a CH-47 Chinook with a sling load capacity of 13 tons would have to make 4 flights per day; a CH-53 King Stallion with a capacity of 18 tons would need 3 flights per day. This bypasses road permitting and puts the 3 MW to 5 MW load closer to the utility grid. 
• The dry neutralized tailings (filter cake) will amount to 45.45 tons per day or 16,589.25 tons per year of harmless calcite and iron-bearing Dolomite (essentially natural limestone and marble). This low risk, non-radioactive industrial waste could be sold as fill or a neutralizing agent for agricultural soil or road construction aggregates.
• The annual pile would be as high as a five story building and as wide as a football field from one sideline to the other. Daily plant tailings pile would be 6 feet high and 18 feet wide, storable indoors.  

Area Map