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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.”

Beijing’s recent decision to impose export restrictions on gallium and germanium – key components of semiconductor, defense and solar technologies — has ruffled feathers around the world and, as ARPN noted, ratchets up the weaponization of trade in the context of the Tech Wars between China and the West.

While some chipmakers have played down fears of shortages, former Chinese Vice Commerce Minister Wei Jianguo’s comments to the China Daily newspaper “that countries should brace for more should they continue to pressure China, describing the controls as a ‘well-thought-out heavy punch’ and ‘just a start,’” have prompted fears that more export curbs on critical materials, including on rare earths could be on the menu.

With China controlling roughly 90 percent of the global refined output of rare earths, and the specter of more Chinese export controls looming large, analysts suggest that the United States and its partners must kick their efforts to reduce their reliance on Chinese into high gear.

According to Goldman Sachs analysts, “China is the source of more than 70 percent of the world’s [neodymium and praseodymium] and accounts for over 90 percent of the downstream metal and magnet segment.”

To replicate China’s annual output of 50,000 tons, the West would have to invest anywhere between $15 billion and $30 billion, Goldman says.

The Goldman analysis brings into focus the immense challenges associated with decoupling from China — most notably perhaps permitting:

The analysts note that while demand for NdPr could exceed supply from 2028 onward in light of surging demand in the EV and wind turbine segment, “out of more than 20 projects outside China that could produce some 20,000 tons of NdPr annually, (…) only two to three of these projects can get off the ground this decade.”

Both the United States and the European Union have resolved to make permitting reform a key priority. In the U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) just told his colleagues that the push would be a focus in the weeks leading up to the August recess, while the European Union’s recently released Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) calls for streamlining the permitting process for raw materials projects.

However, as followers of ARPN well know, all affirmations of a desire to strengthen domestic supply chains aside, the perennial not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) sentiment is still strong – not just in the United States, but also in Europe.

Meanwhile, the urgency for reform cannot be overstated, as Beijing will not slow down its global quest for resource dominance, and the critical minerals arms race in the context of the Tech Wars will continue to heat up.

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 [...]

Two weeks after the U.S. Geological Survey rebuffed a bipartisan call from members of Congress for an “out-of-cycle”addition of copper to the U.S. Government’s official List of Critical Minerals, House Republicans from Western mining states are pushing to achieve the “critical mineral” designation for copper via legislation. Arguing that changing copper’s designation would allow the federal government to more efficiently [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

The coronavirus pandemic and associated supply shocks, surging demand for critical minerals against the backdrop of an accelerating global push to net zero carbon emissions, as well as rising geopolitical tensions on the heels of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the looming tech war between China and the West have catapulted the issue of securing [...]

The Biden Administration has announced the “most aggressive” plan to curb tailpipe emissions to date, with new vehicle pollution standards proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and announced by the White House last week. If finalized, the proposed rules would require automakers to reduce carbon emissions by 56% in their 2032 models compared to 2026 models.  The expectation is [...]

The time has come for the United States to get “serious about mining critical minerals for green energy,” writes Saleem H. Ali for Nature. Ali points to the inherent irony of the green energy transition — renewable technologies requiring vast and increasing amounts of metals and minerals like lithium, copper, nickel, cobalt, manganese and REEs, but [...]

As ARPN outlined earlier this week, the European Union has dropped its response to the United States’ Inflation Reduction Act passed last summer: the just-dropped Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) paired with sister legislation, the Net Zero Industry Act (NZIA), which aims to support investment in manufacturing capacity in ‘net zero emissions’ technologies in Europe. The CRMA not only seeks to streamline [...]