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Followers of ARPN are well aware that China has long dominated the global mineral resource wars on the development and processing fronts, and the United States in recent months has taken a series of unprecedented steps in an effort to decouple U.S. critical mineral supply chains from China.

A recent paper published by the American Chemical Society (ACS) zeros in on recycling of Lithium-ion batteries and shows that untangling the web of mineral resource dependencies is even more complicated than it looks on the surface, as China is not only the fat spider in the net when it comes to resource development and processing, but also has a leg up on the United States when it comes to recycling.

Writes Maria Virginia Olano in a recent piece discussing said paper for Canary Media:

“China is the global leader in recycling of lithium-ion batteries, far outpacing all other nations. As of late 2021, China had more than three times as much existing and planned lithium-ion battery recycling capacity as the U.S..”

Olano adds that China began promoting lithium-ion battery recycling via policy as early as ten years ago, and has since adopted a regulatory framework conducive to spurring the creation of an entire lithium-ion battery recycling sector, with a 2018 regulation requiring manufacturers to “collaborate with recycling companies to improve the recycling process.”

Meanwhile, in the United States, according to Olano, “lithium-ion battery recycling is a nascent industry, but it’s starting to develop.” Policy efforts are underway, but measures “that would support or even super-charge the industry have not yet been adopted.”

The Department of Defense’s report in response to last year’s Executive Order 14017, Securing America’s Supply Chains titled “Securing Defense-Critical Supply Chains” released this spring assessed supply chains in the defense industrial base and reached a similar conclusion:

Building upon the Department of Energy’s 2021 National Blueprint for Lithium Batteries and last year’s bipartisan infrastructure law, the report stresses Beijing’s global supply chain dominance “in all aspects of the lithium battery market” and, according to a legal summary, “identified a standards gap that creates a barrier to successful DoD leveraging of the $515 billion in active global auto industry investment in advanced battery technology.” The report, according to the summary, further concludes that “domestic preferences and other incentives built into DoD acquisitions are insufficient to generate the type of demand required to benefit from domestic battery production.”

Both the ACS study and the DoD report make clear that to succeed in the 21st century resource wars, we must be ready to engage on all fronts.

A piecemeal approach that leverages only certain aspects of the policy spectrum or only focuses on “friend shoring” or research and development is insufficient to meet the challenge. As the stakes continue to rise, the only path forward lies in the context of a true “all-of-the-above” approach from mine to manufacturing and beyond, across the entire value chain.

The mining industry, building on decades of innovation and the materials science revolution stands ready to meet the challenge. Now it is up to policy stakeholders to created the framework conducive to unleashing U.S. ingenuity and our nation’s resource potential.

As the U.S. House of Representatives has passed its version of the FY 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), another piece of legislation enacted earlier is beginning to bear fruit in the context of strengthening our nation’s critical mineral supply chains.

Earlier this summer, the U.S. Department of the Interior announced it had set aside more than $74 million to invest in research and mapping of areas that show potential for critical mineral development under the USGS Earth Mapping Resources Initiative (Earth MRI) to be distributed across thirty states.

Most of the funding was contained in the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) enacted in the fall of 2021.

Said U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), who, along with U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va) was a key champion of the infrastructure package:

“Allowing America’s foreign mineral dependence to continue is not only a risk to our national security but is a hindrance to our ability to maintain a robust domestic supply chain. (…) By improving the research and data surrounding critical minerals, we will be able to better pinpoint what locations in the U.S. hold the greatest opportunities for responsible resource production. We will also further improve our ability to harvest those resources in the most environmentally responsible and sustainable manner possible.”

As supply chain challenges unearthed by the coronavirus pandemic persist, Moscow’s resolve to continue its relentless assault on Ukraine appears unbroken, and resource nationalism is not only rearing its head in South and Central America, but also in Southeast Asia. As such, the need for the United States and its allies to secure critical mineral resource supply chains underpinning 21st century technologies and in particular the shift towards net zero carbon, is becoming more and more pressing.

Last summer, the Biden Administration embraced an “all-of-the-above” critical minerals strategy in its 100 Day Supply Chain review and subsequent policy statements. Efforts to promote closed-loop technologies, recycling and “friend-shoring” have garnered broad-based support, but the same could not be said for initiatives aimed at strengthening domestic resource production and processing, and NIMBY-ism began rearing its head in Washington, DC. However, the urgency of the situation and the mineral intensity of a low carbon future has begun to resonate with stakeholders, particularly as it becomes more evident that “friend-shoring” can be an important piece of the American resource puzzle, but is no panacea.

The invocation of the Defense Production Act in March by President Biden via Presidential Determination to accelerate buildout of domestic supply chains for battery criticals bears testament to this development, and the funding of domestic mapping initiatives via the infrastructure package can further pave the way towards more resource security by helping garner a “better scientific understanding of critical mineral resources available in the country, including minerals found in mine waste materials.”

As critical mineral supply chain challenges deepen against the backdrop of a global pandemic, Russia’s war on Ukraine, and rising resource nationalism in the Southern Hemisphere, U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm sounded the alarm during the beginning of the Sydney Energy Forum, an event co-hosted by the Australian Government and the International Energy Agency, [...]

As U.S. policy makers and other stakeholders scramble to secure supply chains to meet rising demand for battery criticals against the backdrop of a pandemic, geopolitical tensions and war, as well as rising resource nationalism in the Southern hemisphere, a newly enacted law threatens to make President Biden’s already ambitious push to require that 50 percent of [...]

Underscoring the growing awareness that our nation’s overreliance on foreign supplies of critical minerals underpinning 21st century technology stretches beyond the much-discussed Rare Earths and battery criticals lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite, and manganese, the U.S. House Committee on Armed Services has released draft legislation to address China’s stranglehold on the supply chain for antimony. Used [...]

In yet another indication that increasing demand and supply chain challenges in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and war in Ukraine have raised the geopolitical stakes, U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken explicitly referenced critical minerals and the United over-reliance on China both in terms of mining and processing in a speech outlining U.S. policy [...]

Acknowledging the vast material inputs required to power the EV revolution in the context of the push towards net zero carbon — as well as the significant supply chain challenges associated with the sought-after shift — the Biden Administration has announced a $3.1 billion funding program for U.S. companies producing and recycling lithium-ion batteries. According to Secretary [...]

While critical mineral resource policy is finally receiving the attention it deserves against the backdrop of increasing supply chain challenges, a look at the materials stealing the spotlight would have you believe the list of metals and minerals deemed critical from a U.S. national and economic security perspective is much shorter than it is. The [...]

Against the backdrop of the accelerating global push towards net zero carbon emissions, the authors of a May 2021 KPMG study on “geographical and geopolitical constraints to the supply of resources critical to the energy transition” and the associated “call for a circular economy solution” titled the first chapter of their report “From OPEC to ‘OMEC’: the new global energy ecosystem.” In a [...]

In case anyone needed a visual reminder of how the EV revolution is adding fuel to the fire of the overall critical minerals challenge we’re facing, Visual Capitalist has put together a handy graphic depicting the material inputs for EV batteries. Here’s a snippet – for the full graphic and context, click here. The infographic [...]