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US Sits On Supply of Rare, Tech-Crucial Minerals
We've recently discussed China's position as the linchpin of the world's supply of rare earths, and their rumblings about restricting exports of of these materials crucial to the manufacture of everything from batteries to wind turbines. Now an anonymous reader sends this MSNBC piece on the status of the US's supply of rare earths. "China supplies most of the rare earth minerals found in technologies such as hybrid cars, wind turbines, computer hard drives, and cell phones, but the US has its own largely untapped reserves that could safeguard future tech innovation. Those reserves include deposits of both 'light' and 'heavy' rare earths... 'There is already a shortage, because there are companies that already can't get enough material,' said Jim Hedrick, a former USGS rare earth specialist who recently retired. 'No one [in the US] wants to be first to jump into the market because of the cost of building a separation plant,' Hedrick explained. ... [S]uch a plant requires thousands of stainless steel tanks holding different chemical solutions to separate out all the individual rare earths. The upfront costs seem daunting. Hedrick estimated that opening just one mine and building a new separation plant might cost anywhere from $500 million to $1 billion and would require a minimum of eight years. [But the CEO of a rare earth supply company said] 'From what I see, security of supply is going to be more important than the prices.'"
If these rare earths are so rare and valuable, and only going to become more so, why should the upfront cost matter? The plant should still make a huge profit, unless I am misunderstanding basic economics.
Seems people in America only want to invest in fraudulent get rich quick gambling schemes these days. Actual resource extraction and manufacturing is for the peons.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Buy cheap stuff from abroad while available and cheap. Mine locally if overseas supplies are restricted or prices get too high.
With such a high start up cost I'm guessing we would only be building one? Well, that makes for a good opportunity to pick a good location safe from natural disasters. Since we'd build it to protect national interests perhaps there would be funding from the defense side of the budget? It also seems to present a great reason to strengthen the railroad infrastructure for delivering ore from mining locations to the new plant. A strong rail system would be good for other reasons too and would probably sell well with the current administration.
YHBT. HAND.
I wonder does this make all those old pc's I havn't fixed yet. No I mean, circuit boards I have been saving worth more for salvage?
For the same reason they aren't drilling for oil off the coasts. You know, if you don't start now, it's going to take even LONGER before production is spun up. And by then, we'll have yet another dumb ass in office and we can't mine this stuff out for whatever reason (NIMBY, clean air, whatever). Even if the company stockpiles it, the material is still an asset and can be used when the Chinese decide to close their borders because of another cultural revolution.
'There is already a shortage, because there are companies that already can't get enough material,' said Jim Hedrick
May be, it's not just a shortage, but a cost of doing business. The real question is: if those companies were willing to pay ten times the amount for those rare earth minerals, would they be able to get them? Probably, I think. Personally, I think this is just another industry that's trying to get the government to subsidize 90% of its infrastructure costs.
One thing that does not seem to be talked about much is that all rare earth metals will be completely depleted, in any practically extractable reserves, within the next 50-100 years. The response to the shortage of rare earth metals seen here is similar to a fishing fleet who is pushing the fish population to total extinction through overfishing, doubling the number of fishing boats in order to make up production decline... it only speeds up the extinction process, and that repeatedly we see fishing industries opposing any efforts to allow fish populations to rebound, thus dooming destruction of the very fish population being fished, forever. This is short sighted thinking, it is far easier to carry on business as usual for fisherman even though the species is going extinct, in the short term, in the long term that behaviour leads to a much worse outcome.
A difference with these metals is they cannot regenerate. Once they are gone, thats it. Still today metals are being used like its an endless supply, and people throw away everything from electronics to batteries which contian precious metals. In the process, we are throwing away our future. Knowing this one realises that with all environmental and resource issues, recycling is not a joke, and the people who have been pushing for it desperately are not "environmental nutjobs", they understand what is really going on and the true ramifications. I find this is true with nearly all environmental issues which are often ignored by the vested interests from pollution which threatens to severely damage our health adn well being to resource depletion.
The concerns over metal are also existing for oil as well, which is now predicted to peak as soon as 2014, that is a question of when, not if.
I have a friend who manages fab production at Intel chip plants in Oregon, New Mexico, and elsewhere. He tells me the cost of a new chip plant is about a billion dollars.
...like oil?
Them metals is warm.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
See, first we eat all of their pie, cheaply.
Then, when they're all out of ingredients to make cheap pie, we open up our fridge and start making
our own pies.
Then we can eat our pies, and if they want pies then they'll have to pay a lot more for it. Because we've got the only pie in town.
Support FSF: Stop thinking with your wallet, and think with your imagination. (cc/non-commercial)
Will the 1872 mining law apply? Let the plundering begin. (sarcasm)
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
said Jim Hedrick, a former USGS rare earth specialist who recently retired.
Wink, wink...
Well, being born in November 1942 would make you 67 years old now, eligible for proper retirement following your "retirement" from the public spotlight in 1970.
But come on, how about one final blast of "Star Spangled Banner" with your teeth, Jim... or should I say "Jimi"?
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
When the Manhattan Project needed rare earths, they turned to Frank Spedding, a chemist at Iowa State. He managed to get the job done with a lot fewer resources that what is being discussed here. I fear that we Americans have become too lazy and in love with a quick return on the buck. Some things are hard work, even if you are really bright. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Spedding. He also created the Ames Laboratory, the one near Offit Air Force Base, not the Ames Research Center near the Navy's Moffitt Field.
Think global, act loco
Does it really matter how short the supply is. The mighty US will bring democracy to couple more countries and build these plants in those countries, expose the people of those counties to any/all toxic waste and just get the processed rare earths.
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The vast mineral districts in the western US are very expensive and risky to develop even though there are large, high-value mineral deposits available there. While old mining sites are sort of grandfathered in, developing a new mining site is prohibitively expensive for regulatory reasons such that the value of the resource has to be atypically high to offset the regulatory overhead. In short, opening a new mine in the western deserts has become kind of like trying to build a new nuclear power plant. There are so many lawsuits and interminable amounts of politics and paperwork that it has become effectively impossible even if it is theoretically economical.
Instead of developing US mineral wealth, most mining companies are developing mineral resources in countries with less regulatory overhead and fewer environmental lawsuits. It is not that the mining companies do not want to develop US mineral wealth, it is that the US government has made it all but impossible to do so as a practical matter.
Almost funny, but rare earth != radioactive.
This is exactly why the warfare in the DR Congo is so important to the world. If anyone took a close look at it they'd realize that the modern world is raping that country by any means necessary in order to secure cobalt and other rare minerals. A lot of shady actions being taken by world governments and multi-nationals for control.
Thanks for the advice, Sam Walton
IIRC Sam Walton believed in buying locally, or at least domestically. Corporations do not always continue with the policies and practices preferred by their founders.
Yea, it could be the way you describe....or....
We could take "encourage development" as another way to say "keep the fucking government out of my business and let me run it". As a business owner in the process control industry, I bet I know which translation he means. Believe me, nobody wants to cozy up to the government right now and certainly not this administration. Companies only do so out of political favor or out of fear.
If you think otherwise, now is your chance to start your own company and deal with the government. (sarchasm on) I am sure they will treat you fairly and I am sure they will do everything they can to make sure you keep as much profit as you can since you are risking so much by starting your own company.(/sarchasm) If you are really lucky, you can work in one of the industries that government is currently "helping" with: finance, insurance, medical, or energy. Good luck!
What's that you say? You don't want to take that kind of risk? Well....neither does this CEO. That's why he wants the government in on the deal on the front end. It minimizes the risk that they will screw him down the road...
I may be silly, but if those are *rare* resources, and if they are to become more and more rare, shouldn't states pile them up or save them instead of encouraging companies to build expandable things like cars ??
What if we find that it can save millions of lives, or stop global warming or whatever, 20 years from now ?
Texas Li!
many of our greed/fear/ego based 'borders' are dissolving as we fail to communicate/care for one another etc...
never a better time to consult with/trust in your creators, who, it appears, are willing to share everything with everyone at no charge. wonder what the problem is? borders?
But we should seriously start suing countries like China for unfair trade practices like destroying the environment.
This is one of the funniest things I have ever read on Slashdot. Really? Sue the Chinese because they are polluting the environment? What if they turn around and sue us for jealousy?
Ummm. what happened to the existing plants....
You know, the plants that were here in the U.S. back when we used to make stuff here.
Probably torn down and the stainless steel sold for scrap.
Where the factory and separation plant was is probably now a warehouse for stuff made in china.
Bah, Wall Street, sacrifice long term viability for short term profit.
When interests rates get so high, all the capital in a market floods to the finance industry because it offers large and immediate returns without many associated costs. The effect of deregulation, including the abolishment of usury laws early in the 20th century, has led to a world financial market that's basically a hundred trillion dollar casino. The Dow Jones number is perfectly meaningless in relation to the real economy. How many people are employed? What real goods are they producing? These are questions that land on deaf ears in the modern economy.
The legal rate, it is to be observed, though it ought to be somewhat above, ought not to be much above the lowest market rate. If the legal rate of interest in Great Britain, for example, was fixed so high as eight or ten per cent. the greater part of the money which was to be lent, would be lent to prodigals and projectors, who alone would be willing to give this high interest. Sober people, who will give for the use of money no more than a part of what they are likely to make by the use of it, would not venture into the competition. A great part of the capital of the country would thus be kept out of the hands which were most likely to make a profitable and advantageous use of it, and thrown into those which were most likely to waste and destroy it. Where the legal rate of interest, on the contrary, is fixed but a very little above the lowest market rate, sober people are universally preferred, as borrowers, to prodigals and projectors. The person who lends money gets nearly as much interest from the former as he dares to take from the latter, and his money is much safer in the hands of the one set of people than in those of the other. A great part of the capital of the country is thus thrown into the hands in which it is most likely to be employed with advantage.
Adam Smith
Book II, Chapter IV
Wealth of Nations
Money can't be a problem, just borrow it from China!
we can finally control the worlds economy...
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We have all sorts of off-shore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, and when Hurricanes Katrina and Rita came through back-to-back, none of 'em leaked a drop. There were some minor spills from beached tankers, but none from the drilling platforms and piping. It can most certainly be done safely. We're already doing it wherever NIMBY political obstructions don't prevent it.
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but lets say, start now
six years from now, it's 85% built out and
1- someone finds a better way to build end products without rare earths
2- someone finds a simple method of separation that does not require a billion dollar facility
3- we start finding alternative sources for reasonable cost (an asteroid of platinum)
4- a new carcinogen is discovered as a by product of the process that shuts you down
5- economic upheaval destroys your financing
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Oh, I'm sure that the plant, when it eventually gets built, will have to be sited well away from the people who actually matter; but there are options for that, especially once demand makes itself properly known.
If demand for coal can effectively sell Appalachia's transformation into a lunar theme park, even to many of its residents, I'm sure demand for rare earths can manage to site a chemical plant or two somewhere where the output won't kill anybody important.
[But the CEO of a rare earch supply company said] 'From what I see, security of supply is going to be more important than the prices.
He must be awesome at security, because I've sure as heck never heard of a rare earch ...
This seems like a strategic decision more than anything, much like sitting on our tremendously huge oil reserves and not letting anyone drill them. The problem is, we lack refining capacity for raw materials such as petroleum, rare earths, and have even lost steel refineries in recent decades. Should there be a WWIII, without the production facilities in place, the US will be a sitting duck. We buy all our shit from China and Russia, who in reality are not our friends, never were, and make no attempts today to be. They're happy to sell us stuff while we keep shutting down refining and manufacturing facilities, and helping us spend our way into bankruptcy. Should there be a war with China or even Russia, how can the US possibly win with no access to local manufacturing?
We've happily been selling China our banks, manufacturing tooling that 'we don't need anymore' (GM sold a lot of automotive manufacturing tooling to China, including Saab 9-5 tooling) and we've likewise shifted North American manufacturing to Mexico and Canada by and large (is your "American" car really american? Chances are the unibody, chassis and brake components were manufactured in Mexico, the electronics and interior items in China, and it was slapped together in either Canada or the USA by lazy low-skilled union workers. What manufacturing and oil refining base do we have domestically, aside from rubber dog poop factories?
It's one thing to strategically set aside certain reserves for the sake of defense and possible combat or economic warfare, but it's a half-assed step at maintaining such leverage because if it takes 5-10 years to build production facilities, or oil refineries, and so forth, what good does having the reserves do but to give the would-be winners of any war unfettered access to the reserves? Even if the US decides to restrict mining/pumping and production of those materials, the infrastructure should be in place and be continuously running at levels which will ensure that not only do the production facilities work, but manpower and distribution are on hand to quickly ramp up production if required.
Why do we continue to build up the manufacturing base of potential enemies, and either destroy or export our own to those same potential enemies?
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Except of course if they have moved on and developed new technologies that doesn't require the said rare minerals/resources. You then end up missing making a profit. I believe that the US is sitting on a stockpile of oil based on this pie analogy. If the rest of the world moves away from oil and use other sources of power, then those stockpiles will become worthless. You also forget that that while you are buying their resources cheaply, they are making a big profit and with rival countries like China, this means you will have a rich and more powerful rival to contend with.
Half a million dollars, or even a billion is a lot of money, but put in context, I don't see why it would be a barrier. We are building billion dollar football stadiums, some without public subsidies. One would think that a processing plant for vital rare materials to make the engines of commerce turn would get some love.
Yes - some of those tanks probably even contain dihydrogen monoxide! When will those evil corporations quit exposing us to such diabolic chemicals! Not to mention that some types of stainless steel even contain molybdenum - anything spelled that weirdly must be bad! :D
The constitution is a contract, established between "the several states", the people of said states, and the federal government. If you tried to interpret any other contract as a "living document", granting one party new rights and privileges according to its own interpretation of changing conditions, you'd be laughed out of court. The contract has a process for dealing with changing conditions--it's called an amendment! Now I happen to agree with you that the clean air act is constitutional (under the commerce clause, because air pollution is interstate) but this "living document" stuff is a formula for tyranny. It takes what was intended to be a written constitution, with strictly enumerated powers, privileges and rights, and turns it into something like the Roman Republic, which had no written constitution--just traditions. And we all know how that ended up.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
oil, oil shale, and natural gas that we cant touch thanks to environmentalists and their willing accomplices in the Gov't... what make you think we will be allowed to tap these resources?
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
This strictly enumerated stuff is nonsense. The founders knew damn well that things like "general welfare," "necessary and proper," and "regulate commerce" are hopelessly vague. The reason they're vague is because then, as now, the founders couldn't agree on exactly what powers the federal government should have. It should be noted here that the people who didn't want a strong federal government came by that position because they wanted to keep their slaves. In drafting the purposefully vague language in the constitution the founders kicked the can down the road so that we could adapt the language as we needed to be a properly functioning nation.
See the debate over the constitutionality the alien and sedition acts and the the first and second banks of the united states - that were engaged in by the founders themselves.
"Middle America's aversion to industry"? WTF?
I'm from a small town in the Midwest, and we would have *killed* to stop industrial jobs from leaving our area for Mexico and China.
NIMBYism is something that you find in Washington, Oregon, California, and the East Coast...not in Ohio and Kansas.
You misunderstand what "living document" means.
In regards to the Constitution, it means that the document is not fixed forever. It can be amended via procedures established within it.
The problem is that conservatives (in the true sense of the word) have taken that option off the table... so instead of changing the contract by the mechanism provided, we work around the contract. This happens all the time, in business and in government. When you have a contract that doesn't suit any of the parties to the contract, but cannot edit the contract for some reason, you work around the contract. It's not the ideal way to operate, but sometimes you just need to get shit done.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Little Jeff-reyy is probably too young to remember when Walton was still alive and Wal-Mart sold domestically produced products almost exclusively.
Wal-mart under Sam Walton was also a technology pioneer. They computerized all their stores, hooked them up to headquarters via satellite, computerized sales and inventory and had near real time snapshots back in the 1970s. They incentivized suppliers to computerize so they could plug into Wal-mart's near real-time sales data. Sales data could be viewed from national to regional to store levels. They pioneered automatic digital purchase orders for inventory restocking, computerized logistics and rebalancing, ...
The data mining Wal-mart pioneered discovered many interesting behaviors. For example when big storms are heading towards Florida and the Gulf Coast pop tart sales skyrocket. I think Wal-mart tied in weather reports to their system and automatically move pop tarts from the heart land to the coast when major storm alerts are issued.
And on "general welfare", its co-author James Madison explicitly explained that the phrase does not mean what you're reading it to mean. In fact, the idea that it could be misread that way was something he took as a sign of paranoia among Anti-Federalists. See Federalist Paper #41. Short version: "If we'd meant to give the federal government a power to do whatever is good for the country, we wouldn't have worded it in such an obscure way, followed it in the same sentence with a list of specific granted powers, [and then added an amendment spelling out that the federal government lacks unlimited power]." I don't think you can point to a single person in the Founders' generation who, before ratification (Hamilton changed his tune later), claimed there was an open-ended "general welfare" power and didn't oppose the Constitution on that ground.
You need to amend the Constitution if you think it's not well-suited to today's situation.
Revive the Constitution.
The US Constitution was last amended in 1992, a scant 18 years ago. You seem to be saying that it's not as easy as you like to amend it, even though you know it can be and is amended legally, so you choose to violate its terms. That's why multiple states are starting to say outright, "No, we're not going to obey certain federal orders, because they go against the contract." See eg. the Tennessee and Montana Firearms Freedom Acts, and Virginia's new pre-emptive nullification of any order for all citizens to buy health insurance.
Why, yes, you might be able to force your way on everyone, but since you're already saying you advocate "working around" the basic laws of the country, aren't you admitting you're legally in the wrong?
Revive the Constitution.
> the US has its own largely untapped reserves that could safeguard future tech innovation
Oh, sure, that'll help. With the lunatic left running things we will never manage to open another mine - no matter how crucial the material might be to "future tech". In fact, it's usefulness in future tech is probably proportional to the amount of protest it will create at proposals to mine it.
Yeah, not sure what part of Middle America the grandparent poster is thinking of, but any part I've been to (including 22 years as an Iowan, now ten in Colorado as an Iowan in Exile) would love to have real manufacturing and basic industry jobs - good, relatively stable work with an actual product. Midwesterners tend to be pragmatists, and realize that industry=jobs=money, but that there are tradeoffs. I'd say you'd be much more likely to throw a rock and hit a NIMBY on the coasts than you would in the Midwest.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/softwood_lumber/
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
We have international courts and trade agreements. If they don't play fair, they can get slapped with tariffs or outright bans. And if they won't play ball at all, well, by our own rules we should not be trading with them.
You seem to be under the impression that our international treaties were written in a way to provide a fair shot for communities that favor strong environmental and labor protections over bottom-feeding rent-seekers.
Unfortunately, the WTO cares far more about trade barriers than the environment. While the WTO recognizes the right of nations to protect human health and their natural resources, it does not recognize any restraint on trade in "like products." So, for example, if you want to ban tuna caught in a way that threatens dolphins, you can't do that under WTO/GATT precedent if the end products (canned tuna) is the same. It doesn't matter that the method of making the product is different, and that customers may be concerned. Dolphin-safe & dolphin-unsafe canned meat is physically the same.
Here is a good list summarizing the big mixed-bag of WTO & GATT v. the environment lawsuits. Generally speaking, a law that governs the effects of a product once on US soil are fine, as long as you treat foreign and domestic products equally. A law that tries to govern how a product is made in another country which is indistinguishable from an equivalent product made elsewhere is generally not okay.
Reading about WTO/GATT cases is often very frustrating. Sometimes it's because the international bodies make decisions that seem grossly obstructionist to protecting the environment. Other times it's because countries are trying to hide flagrantly protectionist measures against foreign goods (while safeguarding domestic goods) under the rubric of protecting health & the environment. (Take the Thai cigarettes case, where the US sued Thailand for blocking cigarette imports for health reasons ...but still allowed the sale of domestic cigarettes.)
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Well, it is sort of *like* a contract, but it is definitely *not* a contract in any reasonable sense of the word.
Is it possible to be a party to a contract without consenting? Well, did *you* vote for the Constitution? How about all the people who voted *against* ratification. Are they a party to the "contract"?
No. The Constitution is *a* constitution; not a contract. It is not a binding agreement between two parties, it is a specification for the structure, function, and limitations of government. We the people can use its terms to call the government to account, but that's a very different process than calling being party to a breach of contract suit. For one thing if it *were* like a contract suit, that suit would be adjudicated in a court *which is constituted by the Constitution*.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
How can unobtainium not be a tag?!
It's dumb..
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
I predict within twenty years or so, you can do this kind of separation in your backyard. Rare Earths are actually pretty common. Some people who realize that may not want to put in all the money for a conventional plant?
Meanwhile, the US spends a trillion dollars a year of "defense". But can't be bothered to have a plant in the country to produce strategic materials... What an odd notion of "security".
If you're going to bother to set up such a complex extraction facility, why not go all the way, for exactly the reasons you outline? This sort of process talked about around 1980 can extract and separate anything in there from regular old rock or seawater:
"Advanced Automation for Space Missions"
http://www.islandone.org/MMSG/aasm/
"Flowsheet and process equations for the HF acid-leach process"
http://www.islandone.org/MMSG/aasm/AASM5E.html#f541
The chemistry was thought doable even then. Look at the things they worried about being infeasible back then: "If each of the 13 sector components is as complex as the HF acid leach system (certainly a gross overestimate), then the total computer control capability required is about 6 megabytes or 9.4X10e7 bits using 16-bit words."
I have far more than that capacity on my cell phone...
The problem is that in the USA, all these industrial processes are separated due to the logic of the "free market", so no one can plan comprehensive materials extraction, production, and recycling facilities of the sort NASA was envisioning thirty years ago...
But no, the USA has to make plans to attack China (to the cost of trillions if the USA was so foolish) to keep them in line because there are not enough "rare earths" around...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_earth_element
"The term "rare earth" arises from the rare earth minerals from which they were first isolated, which were uncommon oxide-type minerals (earths) found in Gadolinite extracted from one mine in the village of Ytterby, Sweden. However, with the exception of the highly-unstable promethium, rare earth elements are found in relatively high concentrations in the earth's crust, with cerium being the 25th most abundant element in the earth's crust at 68 parts per million."
Do you ever get the feeling somebody is just laughing at us?
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
" ... 'No one [in the US] wants to be first to jump into the market because of the cost of building a separation plant,' Hedrick explained. ... [S]uch a plant requires thousands of stainless steel tanks holding different chemical solutions to separate out all the individual rare earths. The upfront costs seem daunting. Hedrick estimated that opening just one mine and building a new separation plant might cost anywhere from $500 million to $1 billion and would require a minimum of eight years. ..."
Great Western Technologies, Troy Michigan
http://www.gwmg.ca/html/great-western-technologies-section/index.cfm
I think they should sue the US government for covert propaganda campaigns.
Can't speak of washington or cali, but I live in the northeast and I can think of two.. three projects off the top of my head that are being prevented by nimbyism, and one is a wind farm proposed to be sited off-shore on shoals. There's no down side* and the fight has still gone on for a decade.
*assuming the project takes place, as the company proclaims, without public subsidy. But this is NE I'm talking about. Once a large project breaks ground, it's not going to be completed without public subsidy.
NEers don't want anything new. We love our ugly weatherbeaten saltbox homes (and secretly love our saltbox-inspired, but much less expensive, cookie cutter ranch homes. shhh, don't tell anyone).
We don't need jobs, either. We can just hire more teachers!
After all, it is the sacred duty of every President to invade a country for resources.
So, now we invade ourselves?
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
>>>The Constitution is *a* constitution; not a contract.
Yes it is, and if you read the original words of the Founders they will call it a "contract". The U.S. Constitution is a contract between the 50 State Legislatures plus the central U.S. government, in the same way the Lisbon Treaty is a contract between the European Member States and the central EU government.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
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