While scholars may argue that the drones swarming the sky are the future of warfare, the real answers could lie in the soil beneath us. Not just any soil, either. The key to future military power might just be resting in a pile of red mud.

Red mud, also known as bauxite residue, is a byproduct of aluminum extraction and is often discarded as industrial waste. It contains heavy metals, making it an environmental hazard. Now, Utah-based rare earth exploration company U.S. Critical Materials is seeking to transform red mud into a potential industrial resource by extracting metals from it—specifically rare metals scandium and gallium, which American defense manufacturers critically need to be able to produce weapon components for futuristic technology, like hypersonic missiles. In April 2026, the company paired up with Columbia University in a two-year research agreement called the “Mud to Metal” project to see if they can harvest these hidden gems.

“Gallium and scandium are critical minerals essential to a wide range of defense manufacturing industries and equipment,” Mike Cadenazzi, assistant secretary of war for Industrial Base Policy, said last November in a Pentagon release about new efforts surrounding the metals.

It’s estimated that about 78 percent of weapons manufactured for the Defense Department depend on these minerals as critical components—including the radars and semiconductors vital to guiding hypersonic missiles and fighting electronic warfare. If China moved to cut off U.S. access to these minerals, America would be prevented from developing these arms.

Gallium is the backbone of solar cells, electronic warfare systems, missile seekers, satellites, and all sorts of semiconductors such as batteries, computer chips, touchscreens, and more.

Meanwhile, scientists have dubbed scandium “the miracle metal” for its ability to form many different types of metal alloys used within the defense industry, particularly for aerospace manufacturing. According to the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency, scandium is used for manufacturing pistols, lasers, lamps used for military landing gear, plus an array of electronics.

Broadly, rare earth minerals’ potential uses extend further than we realize, according to Greeshma Gadikota, PhD, professor of earth and environmental engineering at Columbia, who is leading the scientific endeavor. For example, they can be used to produce magnets.

“Strong permanent magnets made with neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, and terbium are used in precision-guided missiles, fighter aircraft, naval propulsion systems, drones, radar, and electric motors,” she says.

Both gallium and scandium are needed across industries in the U.S. but aren’t harvested domestically, an Achilles’ heel in American defense manufacturing; both minerals have made it onto a list of critically needed minerals that the U.S. Department of the Interior released last November. Now, the Mud to Metal project could close that crucial gap.

While high iron content makes the mud appear red, gallium and scandium cannot be perceived with the naked eye, Gadikota explains. It’s impossible to tell from looking at a pile of mud how much critical metal it could yield. That can only be discovered through a painstaking, multistep process.

First, scientists will need to gather up enough mud and then pull metals out of it using a special solution that dissolves the mud and separates its particles, Gadikota explains. Then, they’ll need to sort through what they find, since only certain metals are useful in hypersonic missile production.

America is deeply dependent on gallium and scandium, and relies on foreign imports of both. While happily using gallium and scandium raked in from abroad, the government has neglected to ensure we have domestic infrastructure to mine and process the metals domestically, according to a recent Congressional Research Service report.

The metal blind spot was made painfully obvious when China began strategically choking U.S. supplies of critical metals, including gallium, in 2023 with a series of export controls before opting to block U.S. access completely. China currently produces an estimated 99 percent of the world’s gallium—not because China boasts a bumper crop of metal, but rather due to years of stunting competitors to establish a monopoly.

The lack of domestically produced U.S. minerals prompted the Trump administration to prioritize mining. A stibnite mine that produced 90 percent of U.S. antimony ore used to make weapons and vehicles during World War II was resurrected last September after decades of silent disarray. The administration has also increased mineral bonds with Australia in an attempt to regain global strategic balance.

“Unlocking the use of red mud is crucial for achieving self-sufficiency,” according to Gadikota, who adds that between 30 and 50 million metric tons of red mud can be found throughout the United States. Domestic gallium consumption falls between 20 and 30 metric tons per year, with scandium consumption hitting between 7 and 10 metric tons, Gadikota says. She believes that U.S. Critical Materials could potentially harvest a bounty of the minerals from a site in Gramercy, Louisiana, where about 30 million metric tons of red mud is located. Other sites of interest include a facility in Burnside, Louisiana, and another near Corpus Christi, Texas.

“We only need to extract approximately one-thirtieth of the gallium in the Gramercy site to meet domestic gallium demand. Any gallium extracted in excess can be exported,” says Gadikota.

Could this new project create a mudslide powerful enough to turn critical defense mineral production in America’s favor? It’s difficult to say at this point. The effort is still in its early stages. While a small team of scientists is needed to develop the initial technology, many more people will need to get involved to get the initiative off the ground.

Scaling up could make all the difference to the United States, meaning rare earth minerals could become an arms race in their own right. America has been balancing on one leg in terms of defense production, making hypersonic missiles and other weapons courtesy of foreign imports. Having a steady back stock of gallium and scandium would ensure that, if the U.S. ever needed to deploy its hypersonic arsenal, it could also manufacture new missiles at speed without being hamstrung by global competitors.

However, even if the U.S. were to suddenly become awash in gallium and scandium, Russia and China are still taking the lead in magnesium and titanium production—also essential for defense technology, and resources that the U.S. is still in dire need of, according to the Congressional Research Service. Faced with a shortage of rare earth minerals, the U.S. has a long road ahead to forge the building blocks of success—including for hypersonic arms. Ironically, those building blocks may turn out to be made of mud.