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While lithium remains the poster child of the green energy transition, stakeholders and media have started to pay closer attention to the other four “battery criticals” graphite, cobalt, nickel and manganese (for more ARPN coverage click on the respective metal) — and rightfully so.

However, one of the key components of 21^st century renewable energy technology, copper, often continues to fly under the radar — possibly because many of us take it for granted as a mainstay metal, and because the U.S. Government does not consider copper a Critical Mineral.

Followers of ARPN well know that copper is an irreplaceable component for EVs wind turbines, solar panels, the electric grid and other green applications. Its Gateway Metal status (see ARPNs gateway metal report here) coupled with the material needs in the renewables sector have led to projections that ““[t]he world will need the same amount of copper over the next 25 years that it has produced in the past 500 years if it is to meet global demand.”

A recent Wall Street Journal “News Explainer” video clip, accessible here, explores why copper is crucial to the global economy, and how its availability — or, more precisely, looming supply shortage — threatens the green tech transition.

Meanwhile, in spite of numerous pushes for copper’s addition to the United States government’s Critical Minerals List  – including ARPN’s Daniel McGroarty’s Public Comment responding to the Department of Interior’s draft Critical Mineral List — the United States Geological Survey (USGS) has thus far opted against affording the material “critical mineral” status.

Following the most recent USGS rejection, House Republicans from Western mining states set out to achieve “critical mineral” designation for copper via legislation.  As the WSJ explainer makes clear, the coming supply crunch puts an exclamation point on the case for copper as “critical.”

The global push towards net zero carbon emissions against the backdrop of rising geopolitical tensions and associated supply chain challenges has undoubtedly directed stakeholder attention to the need to strengthen critical mineral supply chains.

However, as followers of ARPN well know, the challenges of detangling supply chains and decoupling from adversary nations, i.e. China, are immense, and warrant a comprehensive all-of-the-above approach to mineral resource security.

A recent policy event in Washington, DC has brought the focus back to an area that holds great promise for the U.S. as it seeks to re-shore its critical mineral supply chains: Alaska.

A two-day summit hosted las week by the Department of Energy Arctic Energy Office, the Wilson Center, Rand Corp. and the University of Alaska entitled “Critical Minerals in the Arctic: Forging the Path Forward” brought together state and federal policy leaders – including ARPN’s Dan McGroarty, who served as co-moderator of one of the non-public panels — to advance “policy recommendations for development of critical mineral resources in the Arctic, in the context of U.S. national security, energy, climate, and technology goals.” 

The event built upon an inaugural August 2022 conference entitled “Alaska’s Minerals: A Strategic National Imperative” hosted by the University of Alaska, U.S. Arctic Research Commission and the Wilson Center, which coincided with a USGS announcement that the state was slated to receive more than $6.75 million in funding for geologic mapping, airborne geophysical surveying, and geochemical sampling in support of critical mineral resource studies in the state.

The funding has merit.

As Brett Watson, assistant professor of applied and natural resource economics at the Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of Alaska, Anchorage, Steven Masterman, affiliate of University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and Erin Whitney, Director of the Arctic Energy office, U.S. Department of Energy wrote in a “read ahead document” for the event,

“Alaska’s complex geological history has led to formation of a wide array of mineral deposit types containing commodities many list as critical. Alaska either has, is, or could produce almost all of the commodities on the US Geological Survey’s 2022 list of critical minerals. Alaska is the largest producer of zinc in the nation, contains the nation’s largest graphite deposit, is the state with the only domestic tin resources and, has been a producer of critical minerals in times of national need, e.g. During WWII Alaska contributed tin, PGE’s, chrome, tungsten and antimony for the war effort. Most of the commodities produced to support the war effort have not been significantly produced since, and the resources remain in place, creating a ripe environment for meeting the nations need for these critical minerals.”

Keynoting the event’s second day, Alaskan U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski cited China’s recent decision to impose export restrictions on gallium and germanium as a real time example of critical minerals really being our nation’s “Achilles Heel.”   While acknowledging that progress has been made – Murkowski cited the U.S. government’s Critical Minerals List and key pieces of federal legislation such as her American Mineral Security Act, the bipartisan infrastructure package, some “gentle” permitting reforms of which we need more, the Inflation Reduction Act and the Defense Production Act of 2022 — but acknowledged that all of these steps are merely a beginning, and that more must be done.

Chiefly among the things that need to be done, according to Murkowski, are more mapping, more permitting reform, “opening more valves of federal support,” and “maybe learn[ing] on the fly when it comes to processing and refining.” Perhaps equally important, she said, was turning the tide of public opinion, which too often is “agnostic or downright hostile to mining.”

Murkowski cited the example of natural graphite, for which the United States has long been 100% import dependent as one of the promising opportunities Alaska holds for reducing our overreliance via the Graphite Creek deposit owned by Graphite One, Inc., which USGS has deemed the largest U.S. graphite deposit and among the largest in the world.  With Alaska home to many critical minerals, the Senator called on stakeholders and the policy community to engage in more dialogue and devise ways in which federal policy could support and strengthen projects like Graphite One’s, because the issue of critical mineral resource security is “too key to Alaska’s future, it’s too key to our country’s future.” 

Here’s hoping that stakeholders are listening.

The Wilson Center provides publications related to the conference, as well as complete video streaming on its website and on its YouTube channel, and will make proceedings from the tabletop exercise and briefs from the working sessions publicly available once finalized. 

Earlier this week, China placed export restrictions on gallium and germanium – key components of semiconductor, defense and solar technologies.  The unspecified restrictions are set to take effect on August 1, 2023. Beijing’s move is considered a “show of force ahead of economic talks between two rivals that increasingly set trade rules to achieve technological dominance,” according to the Wall Street [...]

As nations all across the globe scramble to secure critical mineral supply chains against the backdrop of surging demand in the context of the green energy transition and rising geopolitical tensions, India is stepping up its critical mineral resource policy game. This week, the Indian Ministry of Mines released a comprehensive Critical Minerals List, consisting of 30 [...]

The West is getting serious about reducing its vulnerabilities against the backdrop of an increased threat of China weaponizing its control of critical materials supply chains. As the Financial Times reports, the Minerals Security Partnership, convened by the U.S. in June of 2022 which encompasses 12 countries plus the European Union, is planning to release by [...]

Graphene has long been heralded as a wonder material – almost from the time Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov used scotch tape to peel individual layers of the material off a chunk of graphite in 2004.  What sounds like a 6th Grade science fair experiment won the physicists the Nobel Prize in 2010. In the dozen [...]

Resource nationalism has arrived in Africa. After Zimbabwe banned lithium ore exports last December in a move that only permits concentrates to be shipped out, Namibia has banned the export of unprocessed lithium and other critical minerals, according to Reuters. The country is largely known as a source for uranium, but also has significant deposits of lithium [...]

In their quest to secure critical mineral supply chains against the backdrop of surging demand and rising geopolitical pressures, stakeholders are leaving no stone unturned – quite literally — and have in fact begun turning the same stone twice. As Australia’s Financial Post reports, the Australian government has completed a mapping project of sites containing mine [...]

Even before the Biden Administration announced the “most aggressive” plan to curb tailpipe emissions to date with new vehicle pollution standards proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last month, automotive OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers were facing difficulties getting both the parts and raw materials needed for their electric vehicle (EV) components. The newly proposed rules [...]

If history holds one important lesson for us, it’s that most things in life are cyclical. Low tide and high tide, ups and downs, times of war, times of peace.  What holds true on a personal level, also applies to bigger fields like economics. As value investor and author Howard Marks phrased it: “Mechanical things can go [...]