Eric Burlison Asks Witness: Is U.S. Manufacturing ‘Standing On The Shoulders’ Of Foreign Technology?

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During Tuesday’s House Oversight Committee hearing, Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO) questioned Kevin Czinger, the Founder and Executive Chairman of Divergent 3D, about the United States’ manufacturing reliance on foreign technology.

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00:00thank you i now recognize myself for five minutes um i want to start mr zinger um

00:06during one of the previous witnesses testimony it was said that uh that you you um the american

00:14manufacturing is standing on the shoulders of 3d printing um that was developed by other

00:20governments in japan would you would you say that that's accurate that you're standing on the

00:25shoulders of of that technology specifically as to what we do our printing machine is not based on

00:35any japanese patents it's solely based on u.s inventions a u.s supply chain and is built within

00:46our factories in the u.s thank you um many critics argue that manufacturing simply can't return to the

00:54u.s because we have high labor costs from your perspective what is the strongest counter argument

01:01to that strongest counter argument is that right now we have european car makers that we are

01:12in a relatively high cost labor market california shipping to aston martin and other companies so

01:22aston martin bugatti mclaren mercedes and porsche these are customers of an american company with

01:30american workers shipping today i think that is because american innovation can create tools for

01:39american workers that allow them to do things faster better and cheaper and when that happens then you

01:47create uh a competitive manufacturing infrastructure which we absolutely can have and we absolutely can

01:59rebuild our global manufacturing market share but it has to be based on new leapfrog technology that

02:07exists today commercially can you give us an insight as to the the issues regarding supply chain um for

02:16example the resources that you need you have some objects in front of you that are printed with a type of

02:22aluminum um i think that aluminum the last aluminum smelter was in southeast missouri it's no longer there

02:30in the united states is there is there any concerns about the core materials in that supply chain

02:38i'd say we have a variety of materials that range from aluminum alloys we develop to uh high temp materials

02:46for hypersonic applications to high strength materials for munitions from the very start and the company

02:53was founded about a decade ago we wanted to make sure that we had a secure supply chain so we use

03:02uh u.s allied suppliers what i would say is these are metal powders that atomization process there is no

03:11reason that with uh you know different uh areas in the united states that have cheap abundant energy

03:21such as natural gas that we couldn't bring back atomization production of metal powders and scale that

03:29as we build uh advanced manufacturing and that is something we absolutely can do and should do

03:37mr power we have had previous hearings on the the situation with our energy infrastructure and the

03:45can you expound on what a company is you know what's going through their process when they're deciding

03:51where to locate a facility and and how much does elect electricity costs and availability play into

03:59that thank you for the question mr chairman energy costs and regulations related to energy are a huge

04:07part of where we decide to put new factories in the united states um firstly uh just for speed of

04:13building you would be probably surprised at how hard we could build a factory faster than we could get

04:19the permits to rig up electricity to it in certain states which is a huge barrier to speed and pace

04:24especially in the united states and energy costs are such a huge part of our cost base that you know

04:31compared to china i think our energy cost is 10 to 20 times without subsidies and the second point

04:36i'd make on energy costs is 95 of the cost of aluminum as an example is actually the cost of energy

04:46so having energy too cheap to media in the united states is not just helpful for running factories

04:50and having energy grids that can scale with all these advanced factories but also for the raw material

04:55costs and inputs that are being passed on to our customers so i think it's incredibly important and

05:00strength of the grid clean power and then the cheapness and scalability of that power really drive a

05:06lot of the decisions of where we put factories where we put data centers and any advanced facility going into

05:11the american states thank you

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