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While many first think of the human dimension and health implications of the recent outbreak and ongoing spread of the coronavirus — and quite rightly, given the potentially  fatal consequences — the crisis with pandemic potential has ramifications that reach far beyond the health sector. In a new piece for Tech Metal News, Shane Lasley takes a closer look. He writes:

“Instead of export restrictions resulting from politics or trade disputes, it now seems that the novel coronavirus pneumonia (NCP) outbreak could leave the U.S. and the rest of the world with an REE shortage.”

The spread of the virus, which originated in Wuhan, capital of the Chinese province of Hubei, earlier this year, has indeed had – in the words of analyst Jack Lifton, a “foreseeable but unintended consequence.” 

As Lasley outlines, an increasingly limited workforce and slowed transportation as truck drivers refuse to enter areas of concern and travel is restricted have prompted reports that China’s rare earth sector has slowed “to a crawl” and is currently “running at about 20 percent capacity.” This has prompted industry experts to warn that “dwindling REE stockpiles could result in supply chain disruptions both within the country and globally,” if the“sector does not get back up and running soon.”

To ARPN Principal Daniel McGroarty, whom Lasley quotes throughout his piece, this prospect is hardly surprising.  He says:

“It’s not necessary to predict how severe the coronavirus will be or how long it will last, to see even at this early point that, in our interconnected global economy, near single-source reliance for a critical material is a vulnerability.”

…All of which underscores the need for the United States to diversify its sources of mineral resource supplies — for rare earths and beyond. 

Concludes McGroarty:

“Saying an event is a ‘black swan,’ beyond anyone’s power to predict, is no excuse for failing to develop more diverse supply. (…) Just as world health organizations are laser-focused on developing an anti-virus vaccine, we’ve got to take steps to ensure the U.S. economy builds up its immunity to global shocks that can destroy growth and GDP – and a key part of that is avoiding extreme dependencies on any one country for critical minerals.”

Steps taken over the past few months point in the right direction, and have resulted in U.S. domestic production of“critical rare-earth mineral concentrates [having] increased by 8,000 metric tons (over 44%) in 2019 to 26,000 metric tons, making the U.S. the largest producer of rare-earth mineral concentrates outside of China,”according to USGS.

However, it is important to note that all of the U.S.-produced rare earths concentrate was exported to China for separation into individual rare earth elements, since that portion of the supply chain doesn’t exist in the United States.

Here’s hoping that policy makers well beyond the public health sector see the coronavirus as a the wake-up call that it is.

In the latest issue of Metal Tech News, a new publication we recently featured, editor Shane Lasley zeroes in on opportunities offered by the World Bank’s Climate Smart Mining initiative.

The initiative, which “supports a low-carbon transition where mining is climate-smart and value chains are sustainable and green,” kicked into high gear in May of 2019 with the launch of the so-called “Climate-Smart Mining Facility.”  This multi-donor trust fund has the stated goal of “help[ing] resource-rich developing countries benefit from the increasing demand for minerals and metals, while ensuring the mining sector is managed in a way that minimizes the environmental and climate footprint.”

Writes Lasley:

“World Bank said wind, solar and the batteries that store this energy and power electric vehicles will be the biggest low-carbon technologies that will drive global demand for metals in the coming three decades.

[…]

The batteries needed to store wind and solar energy, as well as power zero-emissions vehicles, are expected to be the biggest renewable energy driver of minerals and metals demand.

Many of these renewable energy minerals and metals are found in developing countries, which provides enormous economic opportunities for the more than 3 billion of the poorest and most vulnerable people on Earth.”

(Read Lasley’s full article here.)

The initiative is timely, and ties into the overall context of the growing realization that the current push towards a lower-carbon future is not possible without mining, as – in the words of Dr. Morgan Bazilian, Dr. Morgan Bazilian, Director of the Payne Institute and Professor of Public Policy, Colorado School of Mines – “[t]he future energy system will be far more mineral and metal-intensive than it is today. Many of these advanced technologies require minerals and metals with particular properties that have few to no current substitutes.”

As Bazilian has pointed out:

“The opportunity for the mining industry is tremendous. An industry that has experienced enormous public pressure and critique, accompanied by offshoring production overseas, can now evolve into one fundamental to supporting a shift to a low-carbon and sustainable energy system based on domestic natural resources.”

The World Bank’s Climate Smart Mining initiative is one facet of approaches taken to sustainably green our future, but, as we recently outlined, it does not end here. In an effort to offset some of the carbon costs of resource development, mining companies have started to incorporate renewable power sources into their operations, and we’ll continue to feature these efforts (as we have done here) in the months to come.

We blinked, and 2020 is knocking on our doors. It’s been a busy year on many levels, and mineral resource policy is no exception. So without further ado, here’s our ARPN Year in Review. Where we began: In last year’s annual recap, we had labeled 2018 as a year of incremental progress, which had set [...]

Irrespective of where you come down on the political spectrum, there is no denying that we find ourselves in the midst of a green energy transition. At ARPN, we have long made the case that the current push towards a lower-carbon future is not possible without mining, as green energy technology relies heavily on a [...]

Critical minerals are a hot button issue.  Materials that long seemed obscure like Rare Earths, Lithium, Cobalt, Graphite, and Nickel have entered the mainstream and are making headlines every day.   Against the backdrop of the ongoing materials science revolution and the intensifying battery arms race, it is only fitting that this month, three pioneers of Lithium-ion battery technology [...]

Earlier this week, ARPN’s Daniel McGroarty shared his views on the coming tech metal age and its policy implications at In the Zone 2019 – Critical Materials: Securing Indo-Pacific Technology Futures – a conference hosted in cooperation with the University of Western Australia to look at critical mineral resource issues through the prism of the [...]

Rare earths and lithium-Ion technology metals and minerals may be the talk of the town these days — and for good reason — and stakeholders are finally pursuing policies aimed at facilitating secure access for them.   However, as a new analysis by Wood Mackenzie shows, we should not forget about the more traditional mainstay [...]

Wherever you come down on the political spectrum —  there is no denying that we find ourselves in the midst of a green energy transition.  Followers of ARPN know that the current push towards a lower-carbon future  hinges on sustainable and reliable access to metals and minerals, which are the building blocks of renewable energy [...]

In a new piece for The Hill, ARPN’s Dan McGroarty zeroes in on the inter-relationship of trade and resource policy, which has been an increasingly recurring theme over the past few months. McGroarty argues that the removal of U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum coming from Mexico and Canada, which have been a “dead weight on [...]

“Something does not come from nothing. That fact can be easily forgotten when it comes to seemingly abstract concepts like ‘energy,’” writes Angela Chen in a new piece for technology news and media network The Verge. Chen zeroes in on four key metals and minerals that have become indispensable components of green energy technology – Neodymium, [...]