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As Commodities Now reports, a new Bloomberg New Energy Finance report anticipates that China’s power sector will go through substantial changes through 2030.

As part of these expected changes, the country will “add 88 GW of new power plants annually from now until 2030, which is equivalent to building the UK’s total generating capacity every year.” While coal will likely remain a dominant source of power through to 2030, China has started a shift towards renewable energy sources and is committed to head towards a “cleaner future.”

These looming changes will have an impact that will be felt far beyond China, says Michael Liebreich, chief executive of Bloomberg New Energy Finance:

“It is hard to underestimate the significance of China’s energy consumption growth and its evolving generation mix. The impacts will reach far beyond China and have major implications for the rest of the world, ranging from coal and gas prices to the cost and market size for renewable energy technologies.”

However, the implications are not limited to the energy sector. Renewable energy technologies require significant amounts of critical non-fuel minerals. For example, the copper content of an industrial-size wind turbine weighs in at more than three tons, and copper also yields selenium, a little-known metal which a key component in next-gen solar panels.

In our 2012 report “Reviewing Risk. Critical Metals and National Security” we found that China is a top provider of 18 metals and minerals for which the U.S. is 91 to 100% import-dependent. The country also leads the pack of lead suppliers for metals for which our import dependency is smaller. Thus, any change in China’s willingness to export – be it for geopolitical reasons or due to increased domestic demand as China’s power shift towards a “cleaner future” evolves, will be felt in the U.S., and the rest of the world.

How the numbers break down remains to be seen, but prudence would dictate that we take steps to reduce our overreliance on foreign minerals, and particularly Chinese supply. With an estimated $6.2 trillion worth of key minerals beneath our own soil, this should not be out of the question.

In a comprehensive interview with The Metals Report, analyst Mark Seddon explains why Tungsten should be on people’s watch list, or, as the interview headline suggests: “Why you should look twice at an ugly duckling metal.”

Like some of the other critical metals and minerals we have covered on our blog – Antimony and Cobalt come to mind – Tungsten lacks the “sex appeal that made investors fall for the rare earth story.”  Says Seddon:

“One of the big differences between tungsten and REEs is their applications. Tungsten is a very industrial metal. It’s mainly used as a carbide or “hard metal” in drilling and cutting tools used in heavy industry. Tungsten is not sexy in that sense. It’s a very solid industrial market. This contrasts with REEs, which are used in a lot of newer, high-tech applications that are much easier for the investment community to make into an exciting story.”

While Tungsten may be used in industrial applications that don’t get people as excited as, say, green technologies, there are no viable substitutes at this point.

Meanwhile, there is a strong geopolitical aspect factoring into the Tungsten narrative:  As is the case with Rare Earths, most of the world’s Tungsten comes from China, which accounts for roughly 80 percent of global Tungsten output, a fact that invites similar challenges as the ones manufacturers relying on REES have seen in the past.

Further complicating the supply picture for domestic manufacturers is the fact that Tungsten from the Eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and surrounding regions, another main source of supply, has been labeled a conflict mineral and subjected to a series of (confusing) reporting requirements under the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law and respective rules handed down by the SEC in 2012.

A partial solution to at least some of the challenges may lie in the domestic development of our Tungsten supplies, which would allow for reducing our overreliance on foreign minerals and allow for “conflict-free” sourcing.  In any case, however, the Tungsten narrative once more shows that critical resource policy cannot occur in a vacuum, as the strategic implications of our supply issues stretch far beyond the now often-discussed Rare Earths story.

An article in the latest issue of the Journal of Turkish Weekly indicates that when it comes to metals and minerals exports, Iran is becoming a force to be reckoned with. According to the piece, Iran has acquired the technology necessary to produce Antimony ingots – an indispensible component for many sectors, including the electronics, [...]

Bloomberg reports that “Chinese interest in Greenland’s mineral wealth is reigniting the Arctic island’s campaign to sever ties with Denmark after almost 200 years of colonial rule.” According to a February 24 story, calls for the territory’s independence are growing louder as Denmark, which controls Greenland’s foreign policy, opposes Greenland’s plan to cooperate with Chinese [...]

In a letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal, a reader from Arizona responds to American Resources Principal Daniel McGroarty’s op-ed “America’s Growing Minerals Deficit.” Citing Canada-based Augusta Resources’ Rosemont copper mine project in southern Arizona as an example, the reader alleges McGroarty “overlooks one very important consideration. There isn’t any assurance that [...]

ProEdgeWire’s Graphite and Graphene Weekly Review sees surging demand for graphite and its derivative graphene, not least because of their important role in battery technology, where graphite continues to be a traditional component, while graphene is considered a major factor in future generation batteries. Recent reports of aircraft batteries catching fire won’t change that – [...]

In an opinion piece for U.S. News and World Report, Eric Hannis, senior fellow in defense studies at the American Foreign Policy Council, makes the case for U.S. Rare Earths independence from China. With China having flooded the market with cheap Rare Earths in the 1990s, thus pushing U.S. and other foreign competitors out of [...]

Against the backdrop of mounting tensions in the territorial dispute between Japan and China over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, Japan has recently been stepping up its efforts to diversify the sources of its mineral resource supply. Japan-based Sumitomo Corporation will import Rare Earths from Kazakhstan, according to the website Finance GreenWatch. With the backing of the [...]

E&E reporter Manuel Quinones explores U.S. mining interests in the Arctic and related geopolitical and legal issues in a piece for GreenWire. Portraying the region as a hotbed of territorial disputes precisely because of its mineral potential, Quinones quotes American Resources principal Daniel McGroarty, who points to the pivotal role Alaska can and must play [...]

Graphite’s uses have long been diverse, but, according to the experts at Industrial Minerals Data, the “emergence of the Li-ion battery era” – with Li-ion technology being key to our everyday portable electronic gadgets – has the “potential to turn the industry on its head.” Coupled with the ostensibly endless potential applications for the “new [...]