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As the global battery arms race continues to heat up amidst surging demand for EV battery technology and energy storage systems, a recent Financial Times piece explores the themes of urban mining and closed-loop solutions to increase critical mineral resource supply.

The piece outlines a significant challenge with regards to today’s critical mineral resource supply chains:

“The biggest source of cobalt at the moment is the DRC, where it is often extracted in both large industrial mines and also dug by hand using basic tools. Then it might be shipped to Finland, home to Europe’s largest cobalt refinery, before heading to China where the majority of the world’s cathode and battery production takes place. From there it can be shipped to the US or Europe, where battery cells are turned into packs, then shipped again to automotive production lines. 

All told, the cobalt can travel more than 20,000 miles from the mine to the automaker before a buyer places a “zero emission” sticker on the bumper.” 

The piece cites proponents of closed-loop systems suggesting that car emissions can be cut by more than half if the batteries used are continually recycled, and points to a  2019 World Economic Forum estimate that a “circular battery value chain” could account for 30 per cent of the emissions cuts needed to meet the targets set in the Paris accord and “create 10m safe and sustainable jobs around the world” by 2030.

While promising – with some arguing that not only could recycling aid supply constraints and help the environment but also prove to be cheaper — bringing urban mining to scale remains challenging, with one issue being design parameters of products failing to consider the product’s end of life and making disassembly “so laborious that it becomes impractical.”

However, against the backdrop of “broad political support for electric vehicles and policies to address climate change” the Financial Times piece argues that while “niche today, urban mining is set to become mainstream this decade.”    Advanced materials science is doing its part, and we have previously featured several research projects and promising initiatives by several mining companies to close the loop in their operations.

The rise of the urban mine and the circular economy will undoubtedly continue.  However, we stand by what we said a while back:

“Urban mining will by no means obviate the need for traditional mining and is as such not a panacea for supply woes.  With innovations in the field and concerted efforts to not only improve extraction technologies, but to also develop products and materials in ways that lend themselves to easier reclamation of metals, it does, however, represent a viable opportunity to alleviate pressures – and as such deserves to be factored into any comprehensive mineral resource strategy.”

As Brian Menell, founder of TechMet, a partly U.S. government-owned investment company told the Financial Times:

“In 10 years’ time a fully optimised developed lithium-ion recycling battery industry will maybe provide 25 per cent of the battery metal requirements for the electric vehicle industry (…) So it will be a contributor, but it’s not a solution.”

The solution to our mineral resource and supply chain challenges lies in a comprehensive “all-of-the-above” approach.  There is no immediate silver bullet, but against mounting resource pressures, focusing on closing the loop AND building out domestic production and processing capabilities — while at the same time fostering cooperation with close allies and scaling up research and development — is the only viable path to success in the long run.

“The U.S. has for too long ceded control of the front end of our manufacturing supply chains to foreign nations, assuming the materials we require will be there when we need them,” writes National Mining Association president and CEO Rich Nolan in a recent Boston Herald piece. In doing so, the U.S. has allowed China to establish “dominance of key mineral supply chains that it has now leveraged into stunning dominance of battery manufacturing, the very technological heart of EVs and home to so many of the auto jobs of tomorrow.”

Followers of ARPN are well aware of the “battery arms race” (see our recent post on the issue here) which has led to almost 150 planned for or operational lithium-Ion battery megafactories in China versus fewer than a dozen lined up in the U.S.

Nolan laments that “[d]espite vast domestic resources, the U.S. has one operational lithium mine and just one rare earth mineral mine that must export its production to China for processing. Conversely, China controls 80% of the global rare earth mineral market and 60% of the lithium market. China’s control of other key battery metals like cobalt and graphite is nearly as complete.”

Thankfully, stakeholders in the U.S. after several wake up calls are beginning to realize the urgency of the situation (see our post from earlier this week here) — and the Senate-passed bipartisan infrastructure passage contains several relevant critical mineral provisions.

However, Nolan is concerned that while there is a sense of urgency within the Biden Administration for accelerating EV deployment to reduce emissions, the “urgency to build a secure, responsible and homegrown material supply chain has yet to materialize.”

Nolan makes a clear appeal for an all-of-the-above approach aligned with the Biden Administration’s 100-Day Supply Chain Review (see our report on it here):

“The scale of the demand coming our way is too large and growing far too quickly for half measures. We must be active participants in securing U.S. EV supply chains, and we must take an all-of-the-above approach to ensure mineral supply chains become an enabler of U.S. EV deployment and American climate action, not an impediment.

Working with allies to source our mineral needs and standing up a robust material recycling sector should be critical pieces of this effort, but they are at best complements to vastly expanding domestic mineral production and processing by American workers under world-leading environmental and labor standards. It’s essential we recognize that U.S. mining policy is now foundational to energy and climate policy. We can be a global leader in the EV revolution, but it won’t happen if we supercharge domestic mineral demand while failing to ramp up U.S. mineral production.”

As lawmakers get back to business after Labor Day, we will look for signs that that the U.S. Government is ready to do more than pay lip service to all of the above, and embrace policy, programs and projects that address the deep shortfalls in Critical Mineral supply — across the entire value chain and with the entire arsenal at its disposal.

In the wake of several eye-openers regarding our nation’s critical mineral supply chain woes — the coronavirus pandemic, increasing trade tensions with adversary nations like China, and reports underscoring the mineral intensity of our green energy future — the bipartisan infrastructure package passed by the U.S. Senate before the August recess contained a series of (…) more

It’s no secret in the critical minerals space — and increasingly beyond — that “we are in the midst of a battery arms race.”  Today, “battery arms race” is a frequently used phrase to describe the rise of lithium Ion battery megafactories, but did you know that it was one of the ARPN expert panel members who (…) more

In a recent piece for Reuters, columnist Andy Home unpacks the U.S. Senate-passed bipartisan infrastructure package.   While the bill has yet to make it through the U.S. House of Representatives and a likely conference committee, it is worth taking a look at what its passage could mean for the critical minerals sector. According to Home, the (…) more

As governments around the globe continue to push towards carbon neutrality, Alan Howard and Brenda Shaffer, faculty members at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, warn against the hidden dangers of the — rushed — electrification of the U.S. military in a new piece for Foreign Policy. Against the backdrop of the Pentagon having commissioned studies (…) more

On the heels of the recently-released White House 100-Day Supply Chain report, momentum to strengthen U.S. supply chains is building. On July 22, 2021 the House Armed Services Committee’s bipartisan Defense Critical Supply Chain Task Force, chartered in March of 2021 to “review the industrial base supply chain to identify and analyze threats and vulnerabilities,” released its (…) more

Amidst the global push towards carbon neutrality, “Critical Minerals” has become a buzzword.  As the green energy transition has gone mainstream and electric vehicles and renewable energy sources dominate the news cycle, so has talk about growing demand for some of the specialized materials underpinning this shift — most notably the Rare Earths, and the battery (…) more

After years of inertia, the Critical Minerals space has seen a lot of activity lately. While the coronavirus pandemic has exposed significant supply chain vulnerabilities and critical mineral resource dependencies, recent studies have highlighted the mineral intensity of the global pursuit of a low carbon energy future. This week’s developments in Washington — movement on (…) more

Current news coverage may have you believe that when it comes to critical minerals, all we’re talking about is Rare Earths and battery tech metals, such as Lithium, Cobalt, Manganese, Nickel and Graphite. However, while certainly extremely important for 21st Century technology, these materials and the sectors in which they find key applications only represent (…) more