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For years, ARPN and others in the mineral resource policy realm have lamented a lack of public focus on the importance of securing critical mineral supply chains.  Fast forward to a global pandemic prompting lockdowns, resulting supply chain shocks, Russia’s war on Ukraine and rising resource nationalism in the Southern Hemisphere, and the issue has gone mainstream.

Bearing testimony to these new realities, ABC News has put together a brief yet insightful video clip on “Critical Minerals in the Climate Fight.”

In the clip, policy experts Reed Blakemore, deputy director, Atlantic Council Global Energy Center and Abigail Wulf, vice president and director, critical minerals strategy at SAFE, underscore the need to — responsibly and sustainably — mine and process the metals and minerals that underpin the global push towards a net zero carbon future in the United States to ensure resilient supply chains.

Thankfully, the mining industry, as we have outlined on several occasions, is ready to meet the challenge and is leveraging the materials science revolution to sustainable develop and process the materials underpinning 21st century technology.

Says Abigail Wulf:

“We’re not just digging for digging’s sake. We’re trying to make sure that we can solve the climate crisis and also that we can make sure that we can compete in the new economies of the future, which will be electric and which will run on minerals.”

Click here to view the full clip.

 

It’s a brave new world.

Rising geopolitical tensions in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and increasing resource nationalism in the Southern hemisphere and booming material demand to power the accelerating global push towards net zero carbon are warranting a rethink on the part of policy stakeholders not just in the United States, but in the entire western world.

While followers of ARPN are aware of steps to strengthen critical mineral supply chains underway in the United States, our European partners, much more directly affected by the fallout of Russia’s unprovoked war on Ukraine, are also intensifying efforts to achieve “strategic autonomy” in critical minerals and metals.

Panelists at the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) Raw Material Summit held last month in Berlin agreed that “Europe’s demand for key material is only going to increase” warranting “sharp attention to overdependence.”

Maros Sefcovic, vice president of the European Commission for interinstitutional relations told attendees that against the backdrop of a very real risk of shortages of critical materials especially after 2030, “the fragility of Europe’s supply chain has become evident, and we have a strong mandate to act now.”

While the European Union’s emphasis has long been on securing raw materials supply through strategic partnerships and scaling up recycling and boosting sustainable domestic projects, the body is currently also exploring stockpiling options. Panelists also argued that a “change in attitude towards local mining was needed” and that “permitting processes in areas with lower environmental risks should be simplified.”

“Europe will need more refinery announcements in the next five years to keep pace with energy transition,” said Chris Heron, public affairs director at industry association Eurometaux, adding that “without urgent action now Europe’s ability to secure the right level of strategic autonomy for energy transition metals beyond 2030 is at risk.”

A vote to double down on the push to end the internal combustion-engine car on the part of the European parliament – rejecting an amendment that would have allowed some auto emissions from new vehicles after 2035 – may have just added more fuel to the fire, a metaphor that may prove difficult to understand when internal combustion-engine autos are in history’s rear view mirror.

As the world grapples with the confluence of geopolitical pressures and rising mineral resource needs, the comprehensive “all-of-the-above” approach appears to gain popularity not only on this side of the Atlantic, but in Europe, too.

The challenge, both here and abroad, will be to follow up verbal affirmations with swift and decisive action, and ultimately finding ways of, in the words of Reuters columnist Andy Home, “punching through the tangle of (…) regulations that is actively impeding more investment in the metals sector.”

As U.S. stakeholders grapple with the question of how to bolster U.S. supply chains for the battery criticals and other critical minerals amidst skyrocketing demand scenarios and growing geopolitical pressures, our allies are taking steps of their own to unleash their mineral potential. Looking north, in order to “secure Canada’s place in important supply chains with [...]

A confluence of factors — pandemic-induced supply chain shocks, increasing resource nationalism in various parts of the world, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine extending into its second month — has completely altered the Post-Cold War geopolitical landscape and mineral resource security calculus. Responding to the resulting growing pressures on critical mineral supply chains and skyrocketing [...]

Pandemic induced supply chain shocks, increasing resource nationalism in various parts of the world, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine exactly one month ago have brought the stakes for securing critical mineral resource supply chains to a whole new level. The emerging geopolitical landscape has sent countries scrambling to devise strategies to not only ensure steady [...]

With a single electric vehicle battery requiring between 10 and 30 pounds of cobalt content, the lustrous, silvery blue, hard ferromagnetic, brittle nickel and copper co-product has long attained “critical mineral” status. However, with most global supplies of the material coming from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where mining conditions often involve unethical labor standards and [...]

 While in the early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, concerns over how the war would impact global supply chains were mostly focused on oil and natural gas, it quickly became apparent that the ramifications of drawn-out hostilities would stretch far beyond the global oil and gas sector. With Ukraine considered the “breadbasket of Europe,” Russia’s invasion [...]

Already severely strained by the coronavirus pandemic, global critical mineral resource supply chains have taken another hit with Russia’s full-fledged invasion of Ukraine.  With no de-escalation of hostilities in sight, Western nations, including the United States, are stepping up their efforts to bolster domestic supply chains, not only for oil and gas, but also for non-fuel [...]

Set to deliver his first State of the Union address today (March 1, 2022), U.S. President Joe Biden will likely have to tweak the outline for his speech considering the latest developments in Ukraine, and the resulting implications for the United States, and the world as a whole. Against growing tensions, we recently highlighted mounting [...]

ARPN’s Year in Review —   a Last Look Back at the United States’ Critical Mineral Resource Challenge in 2021 Well, two words, for the sticklers.  Merriam Webster may have gone with “vaccine,” but for ARPN, there was really no doubt. As one article put it, “2021 is the year ‘supply chain’ went from jargon to [...]