> spend some of your research budget on figuring out how to do the mining without the downsides.

Well now see that'd be government spending and the majority of our voters/government don't want none of that

Tangentially, attending the USGS talks gave me a huge appreciation for the excellent, useful work that (some?) of our federal agencies do, which just made me that much more livid at the senseless cuts that DOGE & Republicans have done.

> Well now see that'd be government spending and the majority of our voters/government don't want none of that

What do you mean? Trump spent more than the US government has ever spent before just this year. He did so in his last term too.

He just doesn't want to spend it on necessary things. After all, they're necessary. If he doesn't do it, someone will, right? There's a slight issue with this reasoning: it usually ends in the state having to do it anyway, at greatly increased cost, further increasing the already eye-watering spend Trump did.