Shane Lasley is known to followers of ARPN for his stellar reporting on critical mineral resource issues from an Alaskan perspective.  Today, his Metal Tech News project has published the second iteration of what may just be the most comprehensive North American primer on critical minerals:

Critical Minerals Alliances 2022 is a magazine covering 29 metals and minerals (when counting rare earths as 14) deemed critical to North American supply chains, as well as U.S. and Canadian resource policy issues, the mineral intensity of the green energy transition, as well the material inputs going into EVs, among other topics.

This year’s rare earths section mirrors what the updated U.S. Government critical minerals list has done, treating the elements individually, with a special emphasis on magnet REEs.

In his opening column for the publication, Lasley says that the “shift away from the fossil fuels that powered the Industrial Revolution and transported humankind through the 20th century and toward the clean energy technologies that will propel us into the future has the world at an inflection point – the decisions we make on how to supply, use, and recycle the minerals and metals that are the basic building blocks of the Renewable Energy Revolution will shape the world we leave for posterity.” 

He argues that “[t]he optimum solution to laying the foundation for the next epoch of human progress will only be discovered through the forging of unlikely alliances between the woke and old school, environmental conservationists and natural resource developers, liberals and conservatives, national laboratories and private sector entrepreneurs, local stakeholders and global mining companies, venture capitalists and innovators, and everyone else with visions of a cleaner, greener, and high-tech future.”

This in-depth treatment of critical minerals and the issues surrounding them could not come at a more opportune time with nations all over the globe struggling to untangle complex supply chains and reduce over-reliance on adversary nations against the backdrop of mounting geopolitical challenges and socio-economic pressures to forge ahead towards a net zero carbons emissions future.

Metal Tech News has all the articles available for your reading pleasure on their Critical Minerals Alliances page.

If you prefer to read from a handy pdf version, click here to download the Critical Minerals Alliances pdf.