Arguing that while it is “possible to produce them here” he says that “onerous federal rules make it extremely difficult,”adding that “[w]e cannot sit idly by and hope our U.S. mining industry can cut through the red tape currently strangling it.”

Sen. Risch points to the long-standing and, against the backdrop of surging demand, increasingly dangerous practice of over-relying on foreign – and especially Chinese supplies of critical minerals, which has given our adversaries significant leverage over us. The senator points to China’s penchant for weaponizing the mineral supply chain, with recent examples being the restriction of gallium and germanium exports — key components of semiconductor production and defense technology, arguing that “[i]t is only a matter of time before China decides to punish the U.S. and ur allies again by holding minerals hostage. That will even apply to minerals that are mined in the U.S. but processed in China, like copper.”

Meanwhile, one of the key obstacles to increased domestic mining and processing according to Sen. Risch, is the Biden administration, under whose guise a “working group on mining regulations released recommendations that, if implemented would transition mineral rights to a leasing program and add a dirt tax to every shovelful of ore, regardless of the value of the mineral,” which, according to the senator “would add years to the already lengthy permitting process and stifle investment in mining projects.”

Followers of ARPN are familiar with the average permitting timeframe for mining projects of roughly seven to ten years.  Litigation from NIMBY environmental groups — Sen. Risch points to the Rosemont decision in the Ninth Circuit Court which “changed the interpretation of long-established mining law” and “hampers the industry while making mining significantly less efficient and cost-effective”– can further add years to the already onerous process.

With even U.S. car companies requesting that the Biden administration speed up the mine permitting process, a consensus is growing that reform should be a national priority.

Sen. Risch points to the U.S. Department of Defense being an outlier in the administration and having recognized the “danger we face, which is why it is awarding grants to critical mining projects.”  The senator highlights the stibnite gold project in the central region of his home state of Idaho, where Perpetua Resources is working to be the sole domestic source of antimony, a key component of military technology.

But of course, as followers of ARPN know, there are more projects receiving DoD support with even more expected to be announced on a rolling basis.

In ARPN’s latest post on the blog, we pointed a series of Presidential Determinations involving specific critical minerals which laid the foundation for this type of funding under Defense Production Act Title III authority.

Current projects, recently highlighted by Oregon Group’s Anthony Milewski, include:

• Graphite: a $37.5 million agreement between the DoD and Graphite One (Alaska) to fast-track a domestic graphite mine;
• Antimony (as highlighted by Sen. Risch): two awards — $24.8 million and $15.5 million — by the DoD to Perpetua Resources to secure a domestic source of antimony [an additional conditional award of up to $34.6 million under the existing Technology Investment Agreement was announced earlier last month];
• Lithium: a $90million agreement to secure lithium production between the DoD and Abermarle;
• Nickel: a US $20.6 million agreement between the DoD and Talon Nickel to increase domestic nickel production.

Closes Sen. Risch:

“Every aspect of our society and security relies on processed minerals and would therefore benefit from expedited permitting and easier access. We cannot afford to wait until China reduces or even cuts off our access to critical minerals.

It is time for America to see the power of the U.S. mining industry, invest in it, and secure our supply chains. The technology we depend on every day is only possible because of mining. To ensure not just our economic success but our national security, Congress must revamp our mining laws and substantially reduce irrelevant regulations.”

The stakes are getting higher by the day, and, as ARPN’s Daniel McGroarty pointed out years ago, “we can’t admire the problem any longer” because “we don’t have the luxury of time.” However, we are dealing with Washington, D.C., and the question is whether Congressional stakeholders will finally be able to put policy over politics in an election year.

The post U.S. Senator: Embrace Domestic Mining and Processing of Critical Minerals “Before It’s Too Late” appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

Milewski points to Russia having fired an estimated 11 million artillery shells in 2022, the majority of which can contain – depending on shell and manufacturing process – at least an estimate 0.5kg of copper. This, he says would amount to 5,500 tons of copper, or the equivalent of copper used in 1,170 wind turbines.

Copper demand is already forecast to increase by more than 100% by 2035 with many analysts warning there may not be enough copper to meet decarbonization goals in the next few decades after years of underinvestment in the mining industry and falling ore grades.  And those projections, according to Milewski, do not account for surging military demand against the backdrop of increasing geopolitical volatility around the globe.

Of course, copper is just the proverbial tip of the iceberg. According to the National Mining Association, the U.S. Department of Defense uses nearly 750,000 tons of minerals on an annual basis – a number that was calculated around 2016/2017 at a time when the U.S. was not facing any major conflicts.

Fast-forward to 2024 and the U.S. is supporting allies in the Ukraine and Israel while the situation in the Taiwan Strait looks increasing vulnerable.  Meanwhile, particularly ammunition stockpiles are running so low that NATO officials have warned that Western militaries are scraping “the bottom of the barrel” forcing NATO to provide Ukraine with supplies not from full warehouses, but rather “half-full or lower warehouses in Europe.”

The issue is compounded by the fact that production time to rebuild weaponry stocks can take anywhere between three and 18 years, depending on equipment according to the Centre for Strategic and International Studies – however that analysis focuses only on manufacturing and production times.

As followers of ARPN well know, supply chains for the metals and minerals underpinning U.S. military technology and munitions are “extremely vulnerable” due to a perennial over-reliance on supplies from adversary nations, i.e. China.

For all the talk about decoupling supply chains in recent years, the needle has not moved much, and the latest USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries still has the U.S. 100% import reliant for 12 metals and minerals, while an additional 29 critical mineral commodities had a net import reliance greater than 50% of apparent consumption — a small drop by two over last year’s report.

However, some important steps have been taken in recent years, and are beginning to bear fruit. Milewski lists several military budget ramp-ups to “try and resolve the massive shortfall.”

As ARPN previously outlined, a notable example of such efforts is the series of (Defense Production Act) DPA Presidential Determinations involving specific Critical Minerals, beginning with President Trump’s July 2019 designation of the Rare Earth permanent magnet supply chain as being “essential for the national defense,” followed by President Biden’s designation of what ARPN calls the “Battery Criticals” as DPA Title III eligible in March 2022, followed by Platinum and Palladium in a DPA Presidential Determination in June 2022.  Earlier this spring, two further Presidential Determinations (February 27, 2023 Presidential Determination, and DPA Presidential Determination (2023-5)), effectively created an entirely new category of critical minerals – “Defense Criticals” as ARPN calls them – by way of designating airbreathing engines, advanced avionics navigation and guidance systems, and hypersonic systems and their “constituent materials” as priority DPA materials.

Those DPA actions, funded by Congressional appropriations, are now producing Department of Defense funded projects to encourage domestic development of these “defense criticals” and their supply chains.

Milewski highlights the following:

• Graphite: a $37.5 million agreement between the DoD and Graphite One (Alaska) to fast-track a domestic graphite mine;
• Antimony: two awards — $24.8 million and $15.5 million — by the DoD to Perpetua Resources to secure a domestic source of antimony [an additional conditional award of up to $34.6 million under the existing Technology Investment Agreement was announced earlier this week];
•  Lithium: a $90million agreement to secure lithium production between the DoD and Abermarle;
• Nickel: a US $20.6 million agreement between the DoD and Talon Nickel to increase domestic nickel production.

He closes:

“We see the U.S. military shifting its position and capacity to secure its critical mineral supply gaining more momentum than it has for arguably the past 30 years. However, the U.S. military is America’s largest government agency, and it will take time.”

However, with conflict brewing in many parts of the world, time is a luxury we do not have, and strengthening critical mineral supply chains should be a key priority for policy stakeholders in 2024.

The post U.S. Military Faces Compounding Problems – Surging Tensions, Depleted Stockpiles, Critical Mineral Supply Chain Challenges appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

For most, there’ll be plenty to talk or fight about, but if you’re in the fourth segment, or are simply looking for a different conversation topic at the viewing party you’re attending, here’s some food for thought and discussion, courtesy of the Minerals Council of Australia. The Council has put together a great wall calendar for this year, the year of the XXXIII Olympiad, visualizing the metals and minerals that make sporting moments possible.

Sports moments covered on the calendar range from the Australian Open in tennis over the U.S. Masters golf tournament to the premier bicycle race in the world, the Tour de France among others.

Not surprisingly, the Super Bowl, which has the Kansas City Chiefs facing off against the San Francisco 49ers at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas this Sunday, made the month of February in the calendar.

Take a look at the fun visual of what metals and minerals make up the giant LED mesh screen at Allegiant Stadium, enable the half time show, made the construction of the translucent dome tent possible, went into the motorized retractable turf field, and provide the comforts of a climate-controlled stadium here:

To followers of ARPN, most of the metals and minerals will look familiar because most of them also feature on the U.S. government’s Critical Minerals List (or, in the case of Copper, should be featured on it, as we have frequently outlined.) and make an appearance on the “Blue Wall of Dependency” in USGS’s most recent Mineral Commodity Summaries, as the U.S. is import-reliant for many of them.

With Taylor Swift having become a massive draw for the Chiefs and the NFL, the term “Era” gets tossed around a lot, alluding to the megastar’s record breaking concert series.  Some say Taylor Swift is in her “NFL Era,” many Swifties previously indifferent about football consider themselves in their “Chiefs Era,” and the NFL has been said to have entered the “WAG Era.”  While these labels are subjective and only apply to certain people or groups of people, there is no denying that collectively, we have all entered the Tech Metals Age, to keep with the time period label theme.

Once the motorized turf has been retracted at Allegiant Stadium, the conversation should shift towards securing the supply chains that underpin the technological advances of said Tech Metals Age that allow us to not only enjoy the Super Bowl, the Olympics and the World Series (all of which are also featured on the calendar), but also the conveniences of everyday life, as well as our national and economic security.

The post The “Chiefs Era” in the Tech Metals Age – How Critical Minerals Allow Us to Enjoy the Super Bowl and Other Sports Moments appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

Last year, we noted that our coverage of the report coincided with Groundhog Day, February 2^nd.  And just like in the Bill Murray classic movie, in which the clock jumps back to the same day all over again every morning, the Critical Mineral movie appeared to bring us back to a situation of ongoing deep dependency on foreign sourced metals and minerals every year – at least in recent memory.

This year, we’re once again back with a look at the report, and, lo and behold, it’s Groundhog Day all over again – and by the looks of it not only with regards to the date, but also in terms of what we’re seeing, especially on one of the most telling charts of the report – the depiction of U.S. Net Import Reliance, or “Blue Wall of Dependency” as we have dubbed it based on the many blue bars showing our significant degree of import dependence.

While there are some changes from last year’s report, the number of metals and minerals for which we are 100% import dependent stayed the same at 15.  The the number of metals and minerals for which we are 50% or more import-dependent has dropped slightly, after having gone up over the year before — with the new report pegging it at 49 versus 51 in 2023 and 47 in 2022.

When cross-referencing the U.S. Net Import Reliance chart with the 2022 Final list of Critical Minerals, the United States was 100% net import reliant for 12, and an additional 29 critical mineral commodities (including 14 Rare Earth lanthanides, which are listed under rare earths) had a net import reliance greater than 50% of apparent consumption — a small drop by two over last year’s report.

Once more, ARPN  can’t help but observe that the trendlines represent a stark contrast to U.S. import reliance for metals and minerals in 1984, when we were 100% import reliant for just 11 mineral commodities.

A few changes for individual metals and minerals included in the report are notable and significant, particularly in the context of the accelerating global green energy transition:

For the Rare Earths, a key group of tech metals underpinning 21st Century technology and the accelerating green energy transition, our import reliance had dropped from 100% in the 2021 report to “greater than 90%” in the 2022 report.  Last year’s report had, this number back up to “greater than 95%” and it remains at the same level in this year’s report, with rare earth concentrate being extracted in the U.S. currently sent to China for separation.  Once again, a single link lacking in a supply chain continues U.S. dependency.

For Lithium, perhaps the most frequently cited battery tech mineral, and Cobalt, another one of Lithium’s “battery critical” peers, U.S. import reliance stayed the same at “greater than 25%” for lithium, while Cobalt’s number dropped from 76% to 69%.

For Graphite and Manganese, both battery criticals – the USGS report shows both still pegged at an unchanged 100% import reliance, unchanged from last year.

For Nickel, the final battery critical and a new element on the 2022 Critical Mineral List, import-reliance saw a small jump from 56% last year to 57% in this year’s report, after a more significant jump the year before (from 48% to 56%).

Import reliance for Platinum represents one of the biggest changes over last year’s report, which had the metal pegged at 66%. That number increased to 84 percent in the 2024 report.

Another change worth mentioning is the upward trajectory for Copper import reliance. In the 2010s, import reliance for Copper hovered around 30 to 35 percent, but in recent years, that number has gone up.  This year’s report has it pegged at 46%, up from 41% in the 2023 report.  This development that may be of particular relevance as in 2024, the U.S. Government Critical Minerals List is up for another update, on the 3-year timetable codified in federal law, and in spite of the metal’s inarguable growing importance in the context of decarbonization efforts and expert warnings that there may not be enough copper to meet decarbonization goals in the next few decades, the material has to date been left off the whole-of-government list. Congressional efforts to change this may have not succeeded in 2023, but the Department of Energy designated the material a critical material as part of its 2023 Critical Materials Assessment, further raising the material’s clout.

As in previous iterations of the report, China continues to be the elephant in the data room. And against all pledges in recent years for the United States to reduce import reliance on supplies from China, the 2023 Mineral Commodity Summaries lists China 24 times as one of the major import sources of metals and minerals for which our net import reliance is 50% or greater (which is down by one over last year) – and for all the talk about decoupling supply chains from China and against the backdrop of the escalating trade and tech wars between Beijing and Washington (see our coverage here), this continues to be a concern.

Like last year’s report, this year’s Mineral Commodity Summaries report features an expanded chapter on developments in the critical minerals realm, identifying trend lines, and supply chain security and U.S. government critical minerals initiatives as well as critical mineral investments.

Last year we noted that “while the urgency of the need to secure critical mineral supply chains has registered with stakeholders over the past few years, USGS’s findings underscore once more that supply chains in the 21st Century are extremely complex and meaningful change takes time – and the developments of 2022 ranging from increased resource nationalism in the Southern hemisphere over war in Ukraine to rising geopolitical tensions have not made untangling supply chains any easier.”

Since then, the stakes have only gotten higher as geopolitical tensions continue to rise and U.S.-Chinese relations appear to sour, but ARPN’s basic assessment of the situation stays the same.

So, with the report revealing more of the same, and in true Groundhog Day fashion, we revisit last year’s post, in which we stated:

“In Bill Murray’s movie, it took the protagonist several years to realize how to change behavior to break the cycle.  We know by now that to break our cycle of resource dependence, it will take a comprehensive ‘all of the above’ approach to critical mineral resource policy – and stakeholders have come to realize this and have increasingly embraced the concept.  We continue to stand by what ARPN’s Dan McGroarty stated during a congressional hearing in 2019 – ‘we can’t admire the problem anymore. We don’t have the luxury of time.’

If we act swiftly and comprehensively, there may just be a chance that we will wake up twelve months from now not to another Groundhog Day, but to a 2024 Mineral Commodity Summaries that paints a picture of reduced resource dependence.”

2024’s report was not the one to paint that picture, but in light of recent policy developments (see our recap of 2023 here and refer to page 18 – 22 of the report), there is still hope we will be getting closer by the time next year’s Groundhog Day rolls around.  Meanwhile, with apologies to Punxsutawney Phil’s cheery forecast of an early spring, ARPN is projecting another long winter ahead of Critical Mineral foreign dependency.

The post Groundhog Day All Over Again in Spite of Rising Pressures? USGS Releases Annual Mineral Commodity Summaries Report appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

– A Look at 2023
Through the Prism of Critical Mineral Resource Policy - 

In the waning days of December 2022, ARPN and others were gearing up for a watershed year in the critical minerals realm – a year which could be a “breaking point if there is to be an EV revolution/transformation,” and one that would give us a glimpse into the new world order in the Post Petro Age in which the sands of geopolitics have shifted.

We set out to track the following themes, all of which we found to be intertwined:

• A focus on the Super Criticals (see our Year in Review post for more info);
• the growing importance of geopolitics, with China taking center stage and alliances and partnerships continuing to be forged to reduce reliance on Beijing;
• the acceleration of the green energy transition which will require vast amounts of critical minerals;
• as well as industry’s efforts to sustainably green our future by harnessing the materials science revolution.

As we close out 2023 with ARPN’s annual attempt to take stock of what has happened on the critical mineral resources front in the past 12 months — to assess where we are, and, filled with hope for a New Year, where we are headed – we believe we picked the right themes.

2023 – Enter the Post-Petro Tech Age?

Early 2023

Geopolitics certainly took center stage on the critical minerals front with the Russia/Ukraine war continuing to place a strain on global supply chains and resource nationalism gaining a bigger foothold in particularly the Southern hemisphere.

As Peter Schechter and Juan Cortiñas had outlined in a February 2022 piece for Marsh McLennan’s Brink News ARPN featured at the time, the shunning of laissez-faire economics, particularly in Latin America, is not new. “What’s different this time,” they say, “is that these new interventionist policies are not only focused on the traditional energy sector. Instead, the region’s attention is turning to increasingly valuable minerals that are key to the new green economy quickly gaining momentum across the world.”  

Resource Nationalism 

In early 2023, we saw this trend play out in Chile, where President Gabriel Boric announced his plan to nationalize the country’s lithium industry to boost the Latin American nation’s industrial base and protect the environment.  While his plan fell short of full nationalization, observers called Boric’s announcement a “shock move”  – but it was one that tied into an overall trend in the region:

Chile’s move came on the heels of a comprehensive lithium nationalization plan enacted by Mexico which culminated in President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador signing a decree handing over responsibility for lithium reserves to the country’s energy ministry in February of this year.

Bolivia’s ruling socialists have also favored state control over the nation’s vast untapped mineral resources but are relying on Chinese partners to harness them.

Meanwhile, some speculated at the time that had it not been for his ouster, Peru’s President Pedro Castillo, who won a narrow victory in 2021 and had initially pledged to nationalize much of the country’s mining sector, might have pursued an approach similar to Boric’s in Chile.

The moves tied into a bigger trend, as indicated by prior similar developments in Indonesia, Myanmar and Zimbabwe.

 Tech War Theaters – Semiconductors and Critical Minerals 

Meanwhile, the Tech Wars between China and the West continued to intensify, and Western nations began taking steps to counter Chinese dominance in the critical minerals realm.

A key theater of the Tech Wars had emerged: Semiconductors, which have become indispensable components for a broad range of electronic devices. Semiconductors have been dubbed the “DNA of technology” which has “transformed essentially all segments of the economy” and are critical to national security where they enable the “development and fielding of advanced weapons systems and control toe operation of the nation’s critical infrastructure,” as the Department of Commerce-led chapter in the Biden Administration’s 100 Day Supply Chain Review report outlines.

While the U.S. took steps to impose new export controls to China’s access to advanced computing chips, its ability to develop and maintain super computers and manufacture semiconductors in 2022, Washington’s allies in Europe, Japan, Canada, Australia also took steps to reduce Chinese influence in their critical mineral industries. The governments of the Netherlands and Japan announced their intention to emulate the U.S. export controls in March.

A late 2022 proposal to bolster the Investment Canada Act (ICA) to empower government ministers to block or unwind critical mineral investments if these are considered as a threat to national security, considered a defensive measure against China which has invested $7 billion in Canada’s base metals sector in the past two decades, was expected to be finalized in the spring.

Australia’s Treasurer Jim Chalmers in early 2022 blocked a request by a Chinese company to boost its investment in Australian REE company Northern Minerals via a prevention order, the first move of this kind since the Treasurer had expressed concerns over the “concentrated nature of the China-dominated critical minerals supply chain” elevated by the Russia-Ukraine war, and a move that some considered a “sign of what’s to come.”

West Bolsters Domestic Supply Chains 

While these steps were taken to reduce Chinese influence over domestic industries, the West also stepped up efforts to strengthen its own critical mineral policies and sectors.

The European Union released its long-awaited action plan to “ensure the EU’s access to a secure, diversified, affordable and sustainable supply of critical raw materials” on March 16. The Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA)  includes a comprehensive set of actions aimed at shoring up European critical mineral supply chains by streamlining the permitting process for raw materials projects and allowing for selected “Strategic Projects” to benefit from support for access to financing and shorter permitting timelines (24 months for extraction permits and 12 months for processing and recycling permits).  The Act – which was finalized later in the year, also requires EU member states to develop national programs for resource exploration.

Australia also forged ahead with its push to strengthen critical mineral supply chains for its own industries and for the benefit of its partners with the federal government in Canberra releasing guidelines for “new grants to help develop Australia’s critical minerals sector, support downstream processing, create jobs across regional Australia and support global efforts to achieve net-zero” in early 2023.

The Canadian government, which had launched the Canadian Critical Minerals Strategy in December of 2022 backed by up to $3.8 billion in funding, announced details on the implementation and a first round of funding for new critical minerals programs and initiatives.

The Minerals Security Partnership (MSP), an initiative to bolster critical mineral supply chains while ensuring that “critical minerals are produced, processed and recycled in a manner that supports the ability of countries to realize the full economic development benefit of their geological endowments”  took its collaboration to the next level by formalizing and agreeing on guiding principles for how the MSP will develop projects around the world with local value-add, sustainability, and high environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards front and center. Meetings were followed by bilateral trade agreements as well as U.S.-EU discussions to launch a “critical minerals club.”

And stateside, U.S. President Joe Biden once more invoked Title III of the Defense Production Act (DPA) to strengthen critical mineral supply chains – and in doing so, effectively created a new category of Critical Materials – which ARPN has dubbed the Defense Criticals (see our post here). His February 27, 2023 Presidential Determination was followed by another DPA Presidential Determination (2023-5), designating airbreathing engines, advanced avionics navigation and guidance systems, and hypersonic systems and their “constituent materials” as priority DPA materials.

Mid 2023

We posited in early 2023, that against the backdrop of surging demand and geopolitical volatility, we could expect to see more active government involvement in the critical minerals sector – and the coming months certainly delivered.

China Tightens Export Ratches as West Gets Reality Check on Decoupling

In July, China upped the ante in the Tech Wars by placing export restrictions on gallium and germanium – key components of semiconductor, defense and solar technologies. Beijing’s move was considered a “show of force ahead of economic talks between two rivals that increasingly set trade rules to achieve technological dominance,” according to the Wall Street Journal. As Alastair Neill, board member of the Critical Minerals Institute, told the Wall Street Journal: “If you don’t send high-end chips to China, China will respond by not sending you the high-performance elements you need for those chips.” 

While some chipmakers downplayed 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,’”  prompted fears that more export curbs on critical materials, including on rare earths could be on the menu, and analysts called for  big investments on the part of the United States and its partners to reduce their reliance on China.

Later that month, China announced a new set of export controls — this one on certain drones and drone-related equipment — to “safeguard national security interests,” only to follow it up with restrictions on graphite later in October. The decision to require export permits for certain graphite products was seen by analysts as a play “to control supplies of critical minerals in response to challenges over its global manufacturing dominance.”

China’s moves also underscored the massive challenge of decoupling for Western nations.  In the case of graphite, which is the largest component by volume and mass in EV batteries and has been deemed the “unsung player” in the battery supply chain, China “is on track to retain over 85% of the global anode market share by the end of the decade,” according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.

While momentum to decouple was continuing to build, a new report by the consultancy Rhodium Group and the German Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) pointed to the real-world challenges of decoupling from China from a European perspective:

European national governments and the EU may have worked to devise policies to strengthen domestic and regional critical mineral supply chains, but Chinese companies continued to invest in the region: Overall, Chinese foreign direct investment in the EU and the UK dropped, but, as Mary Hui writes for Quartz, “for the first time since 2008, the value of Chinese greenfield investments have exceeded that of M&A flows,” and was “mainly driven by several large-scale initiatives by Chinese battery giants to build factories in Germany, Hungary, the UK, and France.”

As the Rhodium report determined, “Europe has become a key part of China’s global electric vehicle expansions,” adding that “[b]attery investments are now the mainstay of Chinese investment in Europe.” The emerging conundrum is not lost on EU policy makers, who resolved to formally “recalibrate” the EU’s China policy, with an emphasis on “de-risking” by screening investments more closely and resorting to more robust export controls.

The West’s resolve to break China’s dominance may be building, but as Christina Lu wrote for Foreign Policy:

“(…) there are more questions than answers about how these efforts will pan out. As lawmakers continue to hammer out new agreements behind closed doors, it remains unclear how they align with global trading rules and what this momentum means for countries that lack free trade agreements with the United States. Engineering supply chains isn’t as simple as finding new mines, either; it involves an entire ecosystem of processing, refining, and manufacturing capabilities.”

The Rise of Geopolitical Swing States

As the West continued to assess its options against the backdrop of an increasingly assertive China leveraging its advantage in the Tech Wars, a new class of states have entered the spotlight in the context of the global geopolitical realignment – the “geopolitical swing states,” as Goldman Sachs’s Jared Cohen suggested this June, and their role could grow exponentially in the coming years.

Cohen defines a geopolitical swing state as “critical to the world economy and balance of power” but without “the capacity by themselves to drive the global agenda, at least for now.” He adds that “as long as the tensions between the U.S. and China continue to get worse, they will have outsized abilities to navigate geopolitical competition and take advantage of and influence it.” 

According to Cohen, there are four – often overlapping — categories of geopolitical swing states:

• Countries with a competitive advantage in a critical aspect of global supply chains;
• Countries with a unique ability to make themselves attractive for nearshoring, offshoring, or friend-shoring;
• Countries with a disproportionate amount of capital and willingness to deploy it around the world in pursuit of strategic objectives; and
• Countries with developed economies and leaders who have global visions that they pursue within certain constraints.

As Cohen concluded, “[t]he rise of geopolitical swing states may balance the great powers and help stabilize the global order. Their interest-based decision-making could be a source of consistency in uncertain times. Or their newfound prominence may increase global instability by putting more actors and variables in play. But even if today’s world is not yet multipolar, a rising group of countries recognize that they can determine the course of world events. Those geopolitical swing states are aware that their power may be unsustainable, or event fleeting and they are determined to take advantage of the current window of opportunity.”

While the rise of the geopolitical swing states has business implications for multinational businesses and investors, these trendlines are have real-world implications for U.S. stakeholders from a policy perspective, and, in the critical mineral resource realm, underscore the importance of a comprehensive all-of-the-above approach to securing critical mineral resource supply chains.

Fall/Winter 2023 

Critical Mineral Focus Grows, New Players Emerge

Meanwhile, real world challenges associated with securing supplies for the metals and minerals underpinning 21st Century technology prompted more countries to emphasize supply chain security and define their own sets of metals and minerals critical to their own domestic industries.

Perhaps most consequential in light of the fact that it has overtaken China as the most populous country in the world this year, may be India’s push onto the global critical minerals stage.  Following the release of a comprehensive Critical Minerals List, consisting of 30 metals and minerals deemed critical for India’s ambition for cleaner technologies in electronics, telecommunications, transport and defense, in the summer, along with a pledge to encourage public and private investment in exploration, mining and processing to secure the country’s critical mineral supply chains, India announced its consideration of an export ban on four key metals – lithium, beryllium, niobium and tantalum – in a move to ensure the country’s self-sufficiency in crucial minerals for India’s national security and technological advancements. In late November, the Indian government announced its first ever auction of critical mineral leases for commercial mining by the private sector.

But another player has arrived – perhaps in another indication that we have indeed entered the Post-Petro Tech Metals Age: Saudi Arabia.

As part of his Grand Vision 2030 plan to transform the Saudi economy, the oil giant’s Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman is preparing to invest billions of dollars into the mining sector to harness the potential of more than $1.3 trillion worth of metals and minerals the Saudi government claims are buried in the kingdom, and effectively make mining the so-called “third pillar” of the economy next to oil and gas. Rumors of a deal with Tesla have been swirling, even though they have been denied by Elon Musk himself.

Analysts say that while the crown prince’s plans are met with plenty of skepticism, even if only partially successful, implications of Saudi Arabia turning into a metals hub could have far-reaching implications not just for metals mining, but geopolitics and trade, especially if the other component of the crown prince’s plan to buy up resources from elsewhere to be refined and processed at new facilities in Saudi Arabia.

As Bloomberg reports, the kingdom’s long game is to position itself as an alternative supplier to China for the metals and minerals underpinning the green energy shift and 21st Century technologies.  The news outlet cites Khalid Al Mudaifer, vice minister of mining affairs, who said in an interview that “Saudi Arabia needs more than one engine to achieve its vision,” and that to transform itself into an economic and industrial powerhouse, the kingdom needs minerals.

Global Tensions Mount – Gaza and Tech War Confrontation

If the watershed moment for geopolitics in 2022 was the Russian invasion of Ukraine, this year’s defining moment was probably the Hamas-led incursion from the Gaza Strip into the Gaza envelope of neighboring Israeli territory on October 7, 2023, which initiated the ongoing Israel-Hamas War. Throwing a wrench into arguably efforts to de-escalate tensions in the Middle East, the conflict threatens domestic stability in many states in the region and has exposed the deep-rooted nature of obstacles to normalization.

While China has claimed neutrality and has called on both sides to exercise restraint, China, while criticizing Israel’s massive bombardment of Gaza in response to the incursion, but never officially condemned the initial attack started by Hamas. Experts believe that the Israel-Hamas war is viewed in Beijing as a convenient opportunity to gain ground against the United States in the battle for influence in the Arab world, as tensions between China and the West, and specifically the U.S. continue to mount. 

As Hot Wars Rage, All Arrows Point to Escalation of Tech War 

 With hot wars raging in Central Europe and the Middle East, the question is, do we have bandwidth to focus on a war that’s metaphorical – for now, at least:  The Tech War pitting China versus the U.S.?

While the recent meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the APEC summit in San Francisco last month was seen by some as a step towards alleviating tension between the two global powers, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo’s latest speech and subsequent comments at the Reagan National Defense Forum in California left no doubt that, at least on the trade front, all arrows very much point to confrontation.

The Secretary did not mince words, stating: “(…) make no mistake about it, China’s not our friend, and we need to be eyes wide open about the extent of that threat. I am ready to win, and I’m ready to do that with all of you, but it’s time to open our aperture and challenge the way we’ve done business in every way if we’re going to meet the threat China poses.”

When asked if there were other U.S. origin products or types of technologies that the U.S. Government was “looking at in a similar fashion right now” – i.e. would consider imposing export controls on, she said:

“Absolutely, in biotechnology, AI models, AI products, cloud computing, supercomputing. So short answer is yes.”

Unsurprisingly, China has already voiced criticism of Raimondo’s comments with officials lamenting the “Cold War mentality” on the part of the U.S. which showed its “desire for hegemony.”

Diplomatic efforts to improve ties between the countries in the wake of Raimondo’s remarks may continue but to the keen observer it appears all but certain at this point that we’ll be seeing a further escalation of the Tech Wars in the coming months, with the export control ratchet playing a central role.

The question is, which critical mineral will find itself in the crosshairs this time. 

Turning the Same Stone Twice

With more confrontation on the horizon, there are some silver linings, thankfully.  Not only are domestic policy stakeholders more attuned to the critical minerals challenge and are working on policy solutions including permitting reform, the mining industry itself has been stepping up its game.

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, harnessing the materials science revolution to unlock minerals that were previously bound up, and extracting minerals from unconventional sources such as rock piles and tailings.

In 2023, ARPN featured several of these initiatives:

• The “Atlas of Australian Mine Waste”, an Australian government mapping project of sites containing mine waste with reprocessing potential,
• The USGS’s solicitation for proposals for FY2023 grants to collect data on mine waste using funds from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act in the context of the Earth Mapping Resources Initiative (Earth MRI), in the context of which more than $5.8 million will go towards mapping critical-mineral resources in Alaska in partnership with the Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys. Minerals included in the context of USGS and the Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Survey research projects Alaska are: Arsenic, antimony, bismuth, cobalt, graphite, indium, platinum group metals, rare earth elements, tantalum, tellurium and tin.
• Australia-based New Century Resources current operation of the largest tailings retreatment operation at its zinc tailings retreatment operation in Queensland,
• A Reuters lists of six major projects outside of China aimed at extracting the critical minerals from waste or byproducts, including Iluka Resources Ltd’s and VHM Ltd’s operations in Australia, Rainbow Rare Earths Ltd’s endeavor in northeast South Africa, Swedish state-owned LKAB’s plans to extract REEs from two existing mines, and two U.S. operations:

• Phoenix Tailings, a privately held U.S. company plans to launch operations using waste materials from a former iron ore mine in New York using its own processing technology.

• U.S. Energy Fuels, originally focused on uranium production, started acquiring monazite, a byproduct of mineral sands, to extract REEs with plans to open its own separation plant by 2024.

• Global miner Rio Tinto’s production of tellurium at its Kennecott copper operation in Utah, where roughly 20 tons of the material are generated from by-product streams generated during the copper refining process; and the company’s partnership with CR Minerals Co. LLC to extract a material called pozzolans from Rio Tinto’s Boron California operations, which can be substituted for or combined with cement to decarbonization construction materials. Meanwhile, in Canada, the miner is producing scandium from titanium waste, becoming the first North American producer of scandium in the process.
• The October 2023 Fortune Minerals/Rio Tinto announcement of a collaboration to develop technology to improve the recovery of cobalt and bismuth from co-product streams of minerals recovered at Rio Tinto’s Kennecott smelter in Utah which will be processed at Fortune Minerals’s smelter operations.

As the materials science revolution marches on and continues to unlock new technologies allowing for the safe and commercially viable recovery of mine waste tailings, harnessing this – to date largely untapped — potential could play a significant role in a comprehensive “all-of-the-above” approach to bolstering critical mineral supply chains.

U.S. Supply Chain Initiative, Plan to Release National Defense Industrial Strategy

On the policy front, the Biden Administration recently announced new steps to bolster supply chains for U.S. domestic industries. One highly anticipated component with implications for the critical minerals sector is the Department of Defense’s release of a first ever National Defense Industrial Strategy (NDIS), which, according to the White House, “will guide engagement, policy development, and investment in the defense industrial base over the next three to five years.”

2023 – Metals in Focus

From Battery Criticals to Defense Criticals, and Copper’s Rising Star

In keeping with last year’s trend lines, ARPN-dubbed Battery Criticals – Lithium, Cobalt, Graphite, Nickel and Manganese – continued to dominate the critical minerals discourse (along with the Rare Earths) against the backdrop of surging needs of the green energy transition.

See our coverage of these materials here.

As previously outlined, however, President Biden’s invocation of Title III of the DPA effectively created a new category of Critical Materials – which ARPN has dubbed the Defense Criticals – a whopping list of 35:

See our post with more context here.  

Meanwhile, one mainstay metal’s star has continued to rise in 2023 – Copper. 

Copper prices may have dropped, however demand for the metal, which is not only a key mainstay metal, but also an indispensable component in green energy technology, is expected to increase drastically to keep pace with the material requirements of the global push towards net zero carbon emissions.

According to the Financial Times, its growing application in this field will result “in it being dubbed the ‘metal of electrification’, with forecasts that it will double to a 50mn tonne market by 2035 compared with 2021 levels, according to S&P Global, which predicts a ‘chronic gap’ between supply and demand.”

While U.S. import reliance for copper hovered around 30 to 35 percent in the 2010s, that number has gone up to more than 40 percent in the 2020s, according to the USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries. 

Miners are pointing out that a confluence of complex permitting timelines, rising inflation and the fact that the commodity is “harder to find in high quantities in the ground” may have led to a situation “where it’s likely there won’t be enough copper to meet decarbonization goals in the next few decades.”

While Copper is a key component of technology in the context of decarbonization efforts, the material was left off the overall U.S. government’s critical minerals list. Congressional efforts to change this may have not succeeded in 2023, but the Department of Energy designated the material a critical material as part of its 2023 Critical Materials Assessment, further raising the material’s clout.

Meanwhile, on December 16, 2023, the Australian government released an update to its list of critical minerals deemed essential to the nation’s energy and security requirements, and also released a new Strategic Materials List of commodities with plans to scope the creation of Strategic Critical Minerals Hubs around the country.   Bearing testimony to the material’s strategic and economic value, Copper made the Australian Government’s Strategic Materials list (along with nickel, aluminum, phosphorus, tin and zinc), a list that identifies commodities which, while not currently considered at risk of supply chain disruption, are essential for the energy transition and the Australian government “will continue supporting the extraction and processing of these minerals and monitoring their market developments.”

It remains to be seen whether the Australian developments will provide a further boost to U.S. domestic efforts to afford copper Critical Mineral status, but it is clear that with or without government action, the material’s star is not going to fade anytime soon.

Conclusion

Time may tell whether 2023 was in fact a watershed year in the critical minerals realm. It appears that we have indeed entered to Post-Petro Tech Age, and it was certainly a year in which tensions between two key global players – the U.S. and China – have reached new heights. Whether or not China overplays its hand in the long run is almost beside the point, as, in the short- to medium term its chokehold in the sector is strong, and we know that the country does not shy away from confrontation.   To not fall behind in the Tech War, decoupling the West’s critical mineral supply chains from China must be the name of the game.

As the West continues this quest, a wary realization appears to have emerged — that the need to coordinate Critical Mineral policy coexists with the growing awareness that even increased supply of essential metals and minerals may not keep pace with rising demand.

How the U.S. and its allies navigate this new resource relationship – multiplied across several score of Critical Minerals – may be one of the principal commercial, diplomatic and national security challenges of this century, and will be a guiding question for 2024.

The post ARPN’s Year in Review – 2023 appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

As Dario Pong, founder and managing director of Ferro Resources, a Hong Kong-based automotive ferrite magnet company operating in mainland China, told attendees during a panel discussion on supply chains at a conference organized by the think tank branch of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund in Hong Kong earlier this month, he is more concerned about copper and nickel, stating that “[t]here is enough rare earth in the world. There is also enough cobalt in the world.” 

But with regards to copper and nickel he said:

“These are the big-ticket items, not the so-called minor materials, and China is also worried about not having enough copper and nickel. That is why China is working together with the world to secure that.”

As governments around the globe place more emphasis on securing critical mineral supply chains, China has a leg up on the West because, as Pong says, the country planned for the run on critical minerals before the West began focusing on it.  While China has scarce copper resources, Pong says that Beijing has close trade relationships with its main suppliers from Latin America (including Chile and Peru) along with Kazakhstan, Mongolia and Central Africa, and has made significant strategic investments in these leading copper mining countries, while “[t]he West has overlooked their manufacturing sectors in the past few decades.”

Indeed, as followers of ARPN well know, China has, through decades of strategic planning, achieved a stranglehold on most segments of the supply chains for many critical minerals.  Copper may not be as flashy as some of its peers – but, as followers of ARPN well know, it is also an indispensable component in green energy technology, and demand for the “metal of electrification,” as it has been dubbed by the Financial Times, is expected to increase drastically to keep pace with the material requirements of the global push towards net zero carbon emissions.

While U.S. import reliance for copper hovered around 30 to 35 percent in the 2010s, that number has gone up to more than 40 percent in the 2020s, according to the USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries. 

Miners are pointing out that a confluence of complex permitting timelines, rising inflation and the fact that the commodity is “harder to find in high quantities in the ground” may have led to a situation “where it’s likely there won’t be enough copper to meet decarbonization goals in the next few decades.”

And with China “tightening its grip on copper” as Bloomberg News phrased it recently, there is potential for more competition and confrontation between China and the West, an already fraught relationship, on the horizon.

Perhaps now would be a good time for the U.S. Government to revisit its omission of Copper from the latest Critical Minerals List.  The Department of Energy has already opened the door by adding the metal to its 2023 Critical Material Assessment list – USGS only needs to walk through it.

The post China Zeroes in on Copper appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

Its conductivity makes it a key component of decarbonization and electrification technology ranging from solar power to hydro, thermal and wind energy, as well as energy storage and transportation.

The looming copper gap, to which ARPN called attention years ago, has prompted industry and academia to once more harness the materials science revolution providing advances in materials exploration and development, to join forces to identify sedimentary hosted copper deposits.  According to a newly-founded consortium of stakeholders led by the University of Western Australia’s Centre for Exploration Targeting (CET), these deposits offer a “promising and more sustainable alternative for meeting the increasing global demand for this energy transition critical mineral.”

According to mining.com, the deposits “account only for 20-25% of the world’s total copper production today and offer several advantages compared to non-sedimentary alternatives (…) being globally more widely distributed [and] present ESG opportunities by promoting economic distribution and reducing transport emissions.”

The sedimentary deposits are said to require less energy-intensive processing methods, and, as an added benefit in light of surging demand of battery critical materials against the backdrop of the green energy transition, sedimentary hosted copper deposits also contain significant amounts of cobalt.

The consortium, which also comprises the University of Warsaw, First Quantum Minerals, Teck Resources, BHP and Getech, a locator of subsurface resources, has launched a three-year Kupferschiefer project to create maps of promising areas within the Central European Basin using “proprietary gravity and magnetics data, as well as Globe earth model and spatial analytical expertise.” 

The materials science revolution appears to once more deliver, and the project is a promising endeavor with long-term prospects.  However, as followers of ARPN well know, the looming copper gap warrants immediate action.

The Financial Times predicted that copper’s growing application in this field will result “in it being dubbed the ‘metal of electrification’, with forecasts that it will double to a 50mn tonne market by 2035 compared with 2021 levels, according to S&P Global, which predicts a ‘chronic gap’ between supply and demand.”

U.S. import reliance for copper hovered around 30 to 35 percent in the 2010s, but in the 2020s, that number has gone up to more than 40 percent in the 2020s, according to the USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries. 

In addition to looking to turning to newly unlocked (courtesy of the materials science revolution) deposits the Wall Street Journal outlined earlier this fall that mining companies are also targeting “a new but also old source – closed mines, also known as brownfield sites.”  The Journal points to Sweden-based miner Bluelake Mineral, seeking to reopen a mine site in northern Norway that closed 25 years ago, as well as to Rio Tinto’s Resolution Copper project near Superior, Arizona.

As ARPN outlined earlier, the project is considered one of the most significant undeveloped copper deposits in the world and would reuse the historic Magma Mine which started production in 1910 and operated until 1996. While the project has strong support from the surrounding community, and began the permitting process in 1997, it is still awaiting permits to begin operation.

For all its uses and growing demand profile, copper incredulously has not (yet) been added to the overall U.S. government’s critical minerals list (though the Department of Energy recently designated the material a critical material as part of its 2023 Critical Materials Assessment).

However, with demand and geopolitical volatility surging, securing key mineral supply chains becomes more pertinent than ever, and stakeholders should look to embrace a multitude of opportunities – both traditional and new – to diversify away from our adversaries and unleash our domestic mineral potential where possible.

The post Old Metal, New Uses, New Demand Profile, New Technologies – A Look at Copper appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

Copper prices may have dropped, however demand for the metal, which is not only a key mainstay metal, but also an indispensable component in green energy technology, is expected to increase drastically to keep pace with the material requirements of the global push towards net zero carbon emissions.

According to the Financial Times, its growing application in this field will result “in it being dubbed the ‘metal of electrification’, with forecasts that it will double to a 50mn tonne market by 2035 compared with 2021 levels, according to S&P Global, which predicts a ‘chronic gap’ between supply and demand.”

While U.S. import reliance for copper hovered around 30 to 35 percent in the 2010s, that number has gone up to more than 40 percent in the 2020s, according to the USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries. 

Miners are pointing out that a confluence of complex permitting timelines, rising inflation and the fact that the commodity is “harder to find in high quantities in the ground” may have led to a situation “where it’s likely there won’t be enough copper to meet decarbonization goals in the next few decades.”

As the Wall Street Journal outlined earlier this month, these circumstances have prompted mining companies to target “a new but also old source – closed mines, also known as brownfield sites.” The Wall Street Journal points to Sweden-based miner Bluelake Mineral, seeking to reopen a mine site in northern Norway that closed 25 years ago, as well as to Rio Tinto’s Resolution Copper project near Superior, Arizona, which is considered one of the most significant undeveloped copper deposits in the world and would reuse the historic Magma Mine which started production in 1910 and operated until 1996. While the project has strong support from the surrounding community, and began the permitting process in 1997, it is still awaiting permits to begin operation.

With Copper becoming increasingly critical in the context of decarbonization efforts – the material has not (yet) been added to the overall U.S. government’s critical minerals list, the Department of Energy recently designated the material a critical material as part of its 2023 Critical Materials Assessment – and with geopolitical volatility reaching heights not seen in decades with this month’s Hamas assault on Israel, securing key mineral supply chains becomes all the more pertinent, and U.S. stakeholders should look to embrace domestic opportunities to unleash our mineral potential where possible.

The post More Mines Needed to Provide Enough Copper, the “Metal of Electrification,” for Green Energy Shift appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

With the continent’s “geopolitical stock” on the rise, observers see African countries becoming more assertive in negotiating mineral deals with external actors, and resorting to resource nationalism “in some economies where we see an insistence on local processing, more stringent local content requirements and generally attempts to integrate these critical mineral supply chains with a broad drive for industrialization.”

Most recently, Kenya is making headlines with legislation pending that would establish a Mining Regulatory Authority to replace the current Mining Rights Board, which would, unlike its predecessor which was an advisory body, “control the exploration, extraction, production, processing, refining, transportation, storage exportation, importation and sale of minerals.”

Kenya is home to significant deposits of copper, graphite, manganese, nickel and iron ore, demand scenarios for which are surging.

With the coronavirus pandemic spotlighting supply chain security issues for critical minerals and against the backdrop of ever-increasing demand, export controls have gained in popularity as a policy tool.

Earlier this summer, reports of India considering an export ban on four key metals – lithium, beryllium, niobium, and tantalum — made headlines on the heels of China announcing export restrictions on gallium and germanium, followed by controls on certain drones and drone-related equipment.

Zimbabwe banned lithium ore exports last December, and Namibia recently banned the export of unprocessed lithium and other critical minerals.

All these announcements tie into a larger trend, which has been noticeable particularly in Latin America, a region with a historic penchant for nationalism, but also elsewhere.

ARPN has featured recent nationalist moves in Chile, Mexico and Bolivia, as well as in Myanmar, Indonesia, and China, and has showcased that even in the Western world, government involvement in the critical minerals sector is on the rise.

Some argue that rather than seeing emerging resource nationalism as a cause for concern, we should embrace it and understand it as an opportunity as “raw material export bans would encourage the construction of processing facilities in producer countries, allow them to claim a larger share of the value chain, (…) encourage the global dispersion of processing capacity that is today dangerously concentrated in China,” and the U.S. could harness this development via an expansion of its friend-shoring network.

Opportunity or threat – resource nationalism is increasingly becoming a policy tool the U.S. and our allies will have to factor into our efforts to decouple from adversary nations, i.e. China. In the process, as ARPN previously outlined, we will have to carefully balance domestic and global policy approaches — as well as public and private sector roles with economic and security concerns to reflect the geopolitical realities of our times.

And, as followers of ARPN well know, this can be best achieved within the context of a comprehensive all-of-the-above approach that focuses on domestic resource development where possible and leverages partnerships where needed.

The post Resource Nationalism Growing Factor as Nations Continue Quest to Reduce Reliance on China for Critical Minerals appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

A case in point: The recent Fortune Minerals/Rio Tinto announcement of a collaboration to develop technology to improve the recovery of cobalt and bismuth.

As part of the partnership announced earlier this month, co-product streams of minerals recovered at Rio Tinto’s Kennecott smelter in Utah will be processed at Fortune’s planned cobalt and bismuth refinery operations in Alberta, Canada, with testing set to take place at both locations.

The agreement ties into the overall context of the buildout of a comprehensive North American critical minerals supply chain, which was agreed upon by the U.S. and Canadian governments in 2020 with the signing of the Joint Action Plan on Critical Mineral Collaboration.  Cobalt and bismuth, both sustainable energy materials, feature on both countries’ critical minerals lists.

With geopolitical pressures and resource nationalism on the rise, looming supply chain challenges have prompted more and more companies and even governments to begin to “turn the same stone twice.” 

In addition to the above-referenced partnership, Rio Tinto already produces tellurium as a co-product at its Kennecott operations where roughly 20 tons of the materials are generated from by-product streams generated during the copper refining process. The company also began partnering with CR Minerals Co. LLC in an effort to extract a material called pozzolans from the facility’s tailings, which can be substituted for or combined with cement to decarbonization construction materials. Meanwhile, in Canada, Rio Tinto is producing scandium from titanium waste, becoming the first North American producer of scandium in the process.

Acknowledging the potential held by mine waste and tailings, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) earlier this spring solicited proposals for FY2023 grants to collect data on mine waste, using funds from Bipartisan Infrastructure Act in the context of the Earth Mapping Resources Initiative (Earth MRI).

Many other efforts have sprung up in the past few years, and ARPN has, and will continue to feature examples on our blog.  (See ARPN’s recent coverage on the industry’s effort to “turn the same stone twice” here and here)

As ARPN stated before,

“As the materials science revolution marches on and continues to unlock new technologies allowing for the safe and commercially viable recovery of mine waste tailings, harnessing this – to date largely untapped — potential could play a significant role in a comprehensive ‘all-of-the-above” approach to bolstering critical mineral supply chains.”

The post More Efforts to Turn Same Stone Twice – Companies Announce Partnership to Improve Recovery of Cobalt and Bismuth from Co-Product Streams appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.