But for all its traditional and new applications and surging demand in the context of the green energy transition, copper is currently not considered a “critical mineral” by the U.S. government.

A group of members of Congress have set out to change this, and have sent a letter to U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Deb Haaland urging the designation of copper as an official U.S. Geological Survey Critical Mineral.

The letter sent by Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (Ind.-Ariz.), joined by Sens. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Mike Braun (R-Ind.), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), and Mitt Romney (R-Utah) cites new findings by the Copper Development Association (CDA) indicating that copper’s increased supply risk surpasses the USGS threshold necessary to be added to the U.S. Government’s Critical Minerals List.

“By recognizing copper as a ‘critical mineral,’ the United States’ federal government can more effectively ensure a secure and reliable supply of domestic copper resources in the years to come at all points of the supply chain including recycling, mining, and processing. Given the enormous investment required, the time lag for new sources of supply, and projected demand, time is of the essence,” wrote the Senators.

In a recent piece that also calls for a reassessment of copper’s current non-critical mineral designation, Cullen S. Hendrix with the Peterson Institute for International Economics argues that while copper is widely mined and processed relative to listed critical minerals on the U.S. government’s list, “the security of diffuse global supply chains and production in US-friendly economies is still vulnerable to disruptions in producer countries. The ability and willingness of copper producing countries to keep supplying copper can change rapidly.”

He points to current trends in Peru, a key copper mining country, where resource nationalism has reared its head, as well as developments in neighboring Chile, that may indeed affect both countries’ “ability and willingness” to supply copper to the global market and elaborates that “designating copper as critical to national and economic security would lead to enhanced scrutiny from the USGS, which tracks minerals markets, production, and reserves. Industry advocates also believe that the designation might lead to streamlined permitting processes that would facilitate more domestic production.” 

In an interview, Sen. Sinema said that “[t]his should be a no-brainer,” adding that “[w]e have major gaps in both our ability to mine and process these minerals to ensure our energy security for the future, and the administration knows how important copper is to our domestic and national security.”

As followers of ARPN well know, ARPN’s Daniel McGroarty has called for the designation of copper as a critical mineral on several occasions, and has submitted public comments to USGS to this effect.

The U.S. Government Critical Mineral List is updated at least every three years and saw its last update in late 2022, but the underlying statute stipulates that the Secretary of the Interior can designate additional materials to be added — and with  geopolitical tensions and resource nationalism on the rise against the backdrop of surging copper demand, now would be a good time to change copper’s designation to “critical.”

The post Copper – A Mainstay Metal, Gateway Metal and Energy Metal, But Not a Critical Mineral? Some Think it’s Time to Change This appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

The New South Wales Department of Planning and environment has taken a closer look at solar panels, which, just like EV batteries, are at the core of the green energy transition, and outlines the top four metals and minerals that make solar panels work: 

Copper — a mainstay metal with perhaps unrivaled versatility, lending itself to a wide range of traditional and new applications,  and yields access to other critical minerals as a “gateway metal,” an indispensable component for advanced energy technology, ranging from EVs and wind turbines to the electric grid and solar panels.

For some of our most recent coverage of Copper, click here.

Silicon — the most abundant compound in the Earth’s crust, silicon takes the form of ordinary sand, quartz, rock crystal, amethyst, agate, flint, jasper, and opal. To produce pure silicon, the compound is hearted with carbon at extra high temperatures.  The material is used extensively in electronics because of its semiconducting properties. It is used in the manufacture of next-gen 5-nanometer (5nm) semiconductor chips, and is a key component of solar panels and photovoltaic cells.

For ARPN’s recent coverage of Silicon, click here.

Silver — By definition a “precious” metal like gold, it may come as a surprise to those who see silver primarily as shiny adornment or a means to store value that the biggest end users of silver may actually be specialized industries. More recently, the metal has evolved from “money metal to techno metal,” as North of 60 Mining News’s Shane Lasley termed it, with its true value lying in “more industrious properties that make it invaluable to high-tech applications such as solar panels, electric vehicles, and 5G networks.”

For Shane Lasley’s Treatment of Silver in the 2021 issue of “Critical Mineral Alliances” click here.

Zinc — primarily used in metallurgical applications, zinc is also a Gateway metal, yielding access to “criticals” Indium and Germanium. Today, zinc is also seeing greater application in green energy technology.

For examples of ARPN coverage of Zinc, click here and here.

These four may not make the top of the hour news at the moment, but silicon, for example, appears on the Australian and European Union’s critical minerals lists, while zinc, previously not on the U.S. Critical Minerals List, was afforded critical mineral status by the U.S. Government earlier this year, and is also deemed critical by the Canadian government.

As for copper – which Canada considers a critical mineral – followers of ARPN well know that there are good reasons to include Copper into the U.S. Government’s Critical Minerals List, and ARPN’s Daniel McGroarty has consistently argued in favor of doing so via public comments during the draft process of both the initial 2018List and its 2022 iteration.

See McGroarty’s public comments on the U.S. Critical Minerals Lists here and here.

The bottom line is, while people appear to be laser focused on achieving the green energy transition via securing supply chains for the battery criticals and rare earths, the issue is bigger than this limited group of metals and minerals.  With the materials science revolution continuing to yield research breakthroughs at neck-breaking speeds, demand scenarios for metals and minerals will be subject to change.

It is clear that in the words of Forbes contributor Wal van Lierop, “[w]ithout massive investments in base metals and key minerals, Europe and North America will fail to meet their carbon emission targets and face a new form of energy insecurity,” — but these investments have to be made in the context of a broad-based “all of the above” strategy.  

The post Not Just the “Battery Criticals” — Green Energy Transition’s Mineral Intensity Requires Broader Focus: A Look at the “Solar Metals” appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

Less flashy and headline-grabbing than some of its tech metal peers, copper deserves far more credit and attention than it is currently receiving. ARPN has long touted copper’s versatility stemming from its traditional uses, new applications and Gateway Metal status.

A quick look at a 2018 Visual Capitalist chart also makes unmistakably clear that copper is also an irreplaceable component for advanced energy technology, ranging from EVs over wind turbines and solar panels to the electric grid, and as such an indispensable building block of the green energy transition:

Copper — and its mainstay metal peer aluminum — are to be found in all four categories, hardware, electric motors, distribution & fuel and energy storage. The average EV requires four times more copper than gas powered vehicles, and the expansion of electricity networks will lead to more than doubled copper demand for grid lines, according to the IEA.

Consequently, it should not come as a surprise that a new report has taken a closer look at the copper supply picture in the context of the global push toward net zero carbon.

As reported by Bloomberg, a new S&P Global study “warns of ‘unprecedented and untenable’ copper shortfalls in the coming decade as suppliers grapple with a near doubling of demand by 2035. Prices that fell below $7,500 this week are seat to soar back above their $10,845 peak later this decade, driven by the metal’s key role in the clean-energy and transport industries.”

Current market slowdowns notwithstanding, forecasts see long term demand reaching around 50 million tons by 2035 from 25 million today, and an annual supply shortfall of almost 10 million tons could open up in 2035 according to the study — which would amount to the “equivalent to 20% of demand projected to be required for a 2050 net-zero world.”

The “burgeoning supply gap would increase the US’s reliance on copper imports from 44% to as much as 67% by 2035,” writes Bloomberg. Ultimately, supply shortages could become “so severe and prices so high in coming years that they risk delaying the global shift away from fossil fuels.”

As the Wall Street Journal pointed out earlier this year, there is no easy way out of the critical mineral resource challenge, as “years of underinvestment in new mines means they don’t have additional production that can be brought on quickly. After a decadelong focus on productivity, existing operations are mostly running at full tilt. Difficulties in getting permits to build pits and community opposition have slowed developments in some countries, and scuttled projects in others.”

And, as Laura Skaer, a member of the board of directors of the Women’s Mining Coalition and former director of the American Exploration & Mining Association, outlined in a piece for Morning Consult last summer, the challenge is not just mining, but also processing:

“Last year, the United States imported 37 percent of the copper we used. China already refines 50 percent of the world’s copper and the United States only refines about 3 percent. National security experts have warned that relying on China for critical supply-chain materials like refined copper poses a serious threat to America’s national security interests.”

However, as we previously argued,

“from a U.S. supply perspective, there is reason to be optimistic. While snubbing the material again for its updated Critical Minerals List, the Biden Administration has recognized copper as an integral component of Lithium-ion battery technology, in the context of being what we have called a ‘gateway metal‘ to other critical materials, and for its ‘use across many end-use applications aside from lithium-ion cells, including building construction, electrical and electronic products, transportation equipment, consumer and general products, and industrial machinery and equipment’ in its 100-Day Supply Chain Review report.

Coupled with new reports that ‘US regulators are warming to approving new domestic sources of electric vehicle battery metals, as Washington bids to avoid a reliance on strategic minerals imports similar to that on crude oil,’ this is an encouraging development.”

Thankfully, the private sector is ready to step up to the plate, harnessing advances in materials science and technology to help develop critical mineral resource supplies while maintaining and advancing sustainable mining practices. With the stakes ever-increasing, now is the time to unleash our nation’s mineral potential.

The post New Report Warns: Looming Copper Shortfall Could Delay Global Shift Away From Fossil Fuels appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

The emerging geopolitical landscape has sent countries scrambling to devise strategies to not only ensure steady supply of oil and gas in the wake of looming cuts of exports from Russia, one of the major global supplier of fuel minerals, but also to secure current and future needs of the non-fuel metals and minerals underpinning 21st century applications, ranging from green energy to defense technology.

Over the past few weeks, we have looked at how Russia’s war on Ukraine and rising resource nationalism in Central and South America and parts of Africa is affecting the global supply picture for titanium, lithium, nickel and cobalt.

As we end the week, we’re taking a look at copper – which often gets lost in the media shuffle.

Followers of ARPN know that while this mainstay metal may be less flashy and headline-grabbing than some of its tech metal peers, it deserves far more credit and attention than it is currently getting.  We have long touted the versatility, stemming from its traditional uses, new applications and Gateway Metal status.  Copper is also an irreplaceable component for advanced energy technology, ranging from EVs over wind turbines and solar panels to the electric grid.   The average EV requires four times more copper than gas powered vehicles, and the expansion of electricity networks will lead to more than doubled copper demand for grid lines, according to the IEA.

The West’s severing of ties with resource-rich Russia has sent commodity prices skyrocketing. The Wall Street Journal this week cited a Morgan Stanley’s analysis which found that “there isn’t enough thermal coal, nickel, aluminum or palladium being produced to meet global demand this year. Other markets including copper, which were forecast to be in balance before the Ukraine conflict, could face material shortfalls if Russian supply dries up.”

This development comes less than a year after analysts warned that the world might be “running out of copper” amid widening supply and demand deficits, suggesting that prices could hit $20,000 per metric ton by 2025, and pointing to inventories at levels last seen 15 years ago.

As the Wall Street Journal points out, there is no easy way out of the critical mineral resource challenge, as “years of underinvestment in new mines means they don’t have additional production that can be brought on quickly. After a decadelong focus on productivity, existing operations are mostly running at full tilt. Difficulties in getting permits to build pits and community opposition have slowed developments in some countries, and scuttled projects in others.”

And, as Laura Skaer, a member of the board of directors of the Women’s Mining Coalition and former director of the American Exploration & Mining Association, outlined in a piece for Morning Consult last summer, the challenge is not just mining, but also processing:

“Last year, the United States imported 37 percent of the copper we used. China already refines 50 percent of the world’s copper and the United States only refines about 3 percent. National security experts have warned that relying on China for critical supply-chain materials like refined copper poses a serious threat to America’s national security interests.” 

However, from a U.S. supply perspective, there is reason to be optimistic. While snubbing the material again for its updated Critical Minerals List, the Biden Administration has recognized copper as an integral component of Lithium-ion battery technology, in the context of being what we have called a “gateway metal” to other critical materials, and for its “use across many end-use applications aside from lithium-ion cells, including building construction, electrical and electronic products, transportation equipment, consumer and general products, and industrial machinery and equipment” in its 100-Day Supply Chain Review report.

Coupled with new reports that “US regulators are warming to approving new domestic sources of electric vehicle battery metals, as Washington bids to avoid a reliance on strategic minerals imports similar to that on crude oil,” this is an encouraging development. In this context, U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm and other officials have been cited as stating that “the need to domestically produce more metals is rising as EVs go mainstream,” but that new mines must not harm the environment.

This is where the private sector is increasingly stepping up to the plate, with the latest case in point being a deal between Lion Copper and Rio Tinto America for a stake in copper assets in Mason Valley, Nevada, where the stakeholders will “explore the potential commercial deployment of (…) Nuton copper leaching technologies in a historical mining district with a large copper endowment,” and look to not only “unlock additional copper, but to also deliver low carbon production with significant environmental benefits through reprocessing old stockpiles and tailings, and reducing waste from new and ongoing operations.”

ARPN has featured other examples of industry harnessing advances in materials science and technology to help develop domestic critical mineral resource supplies while maintaining and advancing sustainable mining practices on numerous occasions, and will continue to do so.

As the National Mining Association’s Rich Nolan wrote earlier this week for RealClearEnergy:

“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its effect on global commodity markets has added new urgency to get to work. Fortunately, our challenge is one of policy, not geology. We have the resources to supply significant domestic production for many of the metals most essential to advanced energy technologies.” 

Now is the time to get serious about harnessing them.

The post The Reorganization of the Post-Cold War Geopolitical Landscape and its Impact on Critical Mineral Supply – A Look at Copper appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

Meanwhile, remarks by U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo made in late November point to another wrinkle in the U.S. push to catch up in and ultimately win the EV race.  Commenting in the context of a push to shore up support for the congressional “Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) for America Act,” legislation aimed at taking on China, Sec. Raimondo told the Detroit Economic Club, a nonprofit business group, that automakers ambitious EV plans are threatened by the ongoing semiconductor shortage.

“As companies like Ford and GM compete to grab a foothold in the electric vehicle market, we know that innovation in the American battery market will be stifled if we aren’t also investing in domestic semiconductor innovation at the same time,” she said.

Sec. Raimondo had also told Detroit News before the Detroit Economic Club event that the Biden Administration’s plans for 50% of all vehicle sales to be electric by 2030 depends U.S investment in semiconductor production, stating that “[i]f we’re serious about restoring American leadership in the global economy, we have to start by rebuilding our semiconductor industry so we can meet the demands of this moment.”

As followers of ARPN know, supply chains for these highly specialized high-tech components are extremely complex, and, as outlined in the White House 100-Day Supply Chain Report, require “hundreds of essential inputs, many of which are raw materials, chemicals and gases. These materials have their own complex supply chains, and likely contain hidden choke points that could disrupt production.”

In light of these complexities, while it’s great to see the Biden Administration focused on the issue, the same caveats that apply for critical mineral resource supply chains apply with regards to semiconductors.

As ARPN’s Daniel McGroarty pointed out last year against the backdrop of excitement over the recent announcement of Arizona as the site for Taiwan Semiconductor’s new next-gen semiconductor factory to manufacture their new 5-nanometer (5nm) chips: “the first word in supply chain is ‘supply.’”

And while the Biden Administration plans to “bolster its partnership with the private sector in domestic semiconductor manufacturing and R&D,” and “strengthen engagement with allies and partners to promote fair semiconductor chip allocations, increase production, and promote increased investment,” stakeholders must begin at the beginning – the sourcing of the metals and minerals that go into the manufacture of semiconductors, like Gallium and Indium — and incorporate strategies to promote the domestic development of these materials into their overall approach.

Thankfully, the U.S. is not only in the fortunate position to have known resources for both Gallium and Indium (in Texas and Alaska, respectively), both metals can also be “unlocked” in the “co-product” development of their Gateway Metals Aluminum (for Gallium) and Zinc and Tin (Indium) — another reason stakeholders should focus more on the inter-relationship between Gateway Metals and the critical co-products they unlock.

The post Another Wrinkle in the EV Race – To Address Semiconductor Shortage, Let’s Begin at the Beginning appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

This, as USGS notes, is largely the result of “splitting the rare earth elements and platinum group elements into individual entries rather than including them as mineral groups” – as we argued in our last post, a welcome development likely to “encourage policymakers to understand that Rare Earth and PGM deposits can and will differ in the degree to which they afford access to the full range of these key materials.”

Perhaps even more interesting, however, is the addition of Nickel and Zinc, which, as followers of ARPN may recall, puts us at two for four:

In a statement submitted during the official comment period leading up to the release of the final 2018 Critical Minerals List, ARPN’s Daniel McGroarty had called for adding Copper, Zinc, Nickel and Lead to the List.

Reviewing several scenarios outlined in the Reconfiguration of the National Defense Stockpile Report to Congress from 2009, McGroarty concluded these four metals/minerals should be added based on relevant defense criteria — and, in the case of Copper, Zinc and Nickel, based on their Gateway Metal status.

Arguing that the 2018 draft list did not convey the “relationships of various metals and minerals,” and most importantly the fact that many of them “are not mined in their own right, but obtained as ‘co-products’ of primary mining,”McGroarty pointed to the fact that Copper, Nickel, Zinc and Lead offered access to seven unique minerals deemed critical on the list, with Copper being the most versatile, since it “unlocks” five potential co-products included in the 2018 List, and submitted a graphic underscoring his point.

The U.S. Government was unmoved, making no changes to the List.

Nickel’s star has since risen.

Against the backdrop of the accelerating battery arms race, the Biden Administration, in its 100-Day Supply Chain review report released in June, acknowledged Nickel’s Critical Mineral status, noting that

“In contrast to cobalt, nickel content per battery will increase in the coming years, as R&D focused on high-nickel in cathodes has shown significant and accelerated commercial adoption. The potential shortfall from this increase in demand poses a supply chain risk for battery manufacturing globally, not just in the United States; given the pervasive need, the established nickel industry is ramping up production and processing, and the United States is falling further behind China in this critical material.”

The Department of Energy-led chapter of the 100 Day Report further concluded that “If there are opportunities for the US to target one part of the battery supply chain, this would likely be the most critical to provide short- and medium-term supply chain stability,” noting the urgent need to develop a strategic framework for securing Class 1 nickel. As we commented at the time, no other “non-Critical” received more mentions in the White House report than Nickel.

Add in the fact that Nickel provides Gateway access to Cobalt and the PGMs, and the case for including Nickel into the 2021 Critical Minerals list just got even more compelling.

Zinc, primarily used in metallurgical applications, is also a Gateway metal, yielding access to “Criticals” Indium and Germanium, is also seeing greater application in green energy technology, and, according to Mining Weekly the “increasing concentration of global mine and smelter production and the continued refinement, as well as the development, of the quantitative evaluation criteria” put zinc above the threshold for inclusion.

If Nickel and Zinc are ARPN’s two “hits,” we still stand by our two remaining “misses:”  Copper and Lead.

Less flashy than some of its tech metal peers, Copper’s traditional uses, new applications and Gateway Metal status make it highly versatile.

Copper is an irreplaceable component for advanced energy technology, ranging from EVs over wind turbines and solar panels to the electric grid.   The manufacturing process for EVs requires four times more Copper than gas powered vehicles, and the expansion of electricity networks will lead to more than doubled Copper demand for grid lines, according to the IEA.

Add in Copper’s Gateway Metal status and a 2019 mining executive’s projection that “[t]he world will need the same amount of copper over the next 25 years that it has produced in the past 500 years if it is to meet global demand.”  The just-passed federal infrastructure package and recent announcements of new EV goals and fuel efficiency standards — will only add to the outlined Copper demand scenarios.

Meanwhile, Lead continues to be a key ingredient in battery technology, with the lead-acid battery industry accounting for about 92% of reported U.S. lead consumption during 2020. On the Co-Product front, Lead is Gateway to two “Criticals,” Arsenic and Bismuth.

While the rationale for including Copper (and to a lesser extent Lead) into the latest iteration of the U.S. Government’s Critical Minerals List remains strong, and is perhaps, in the case of Copper, stronger than ever, we choose to see the glass as half-full, and are encouraged by the inclusion of Nickel and Zinc — testament to the fact that policy makers and other stakeholders are increasingly acknowledging the challenges associated with providing reliable supplies of the Critical Minerals underpinning our “Tech Metal Era.”

The post Two For Four — New Critical Minerals Draft List Includes Two of Four Metals Recommended For Inclusion by ARPN in 2018 appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

In its 100 Day Supply Chain Report, the Biden Administration dedicated an entire chapter to the supply chains of semiconductors — for good reason.

Semiconductors have become indispensable components for a broad range of electronic devices, and their importance cannot be overstated. The Department of Commerce-led chapter in the report cites the transformational impact of the colloquial computer chip as the launching point of its review:

“Semiconductors are the material basis for integrated circuits that are essential to modern day life and are used by the typical consumer on a daily, if not hourly, basis. The semiconductor-based integrated circuit is the ‘DNA’ of technology and has transformed essentially all segments of the economy, from agriculture and transportation to healthcare, telecommunications, and the Internet.

(…)

In addition to the central role they play in the U.S. economy, semiconductors are essential to national security. Semiconductors enable the development and fielding of advanced weapons systems and control the operation of the nation’s critical infrastructure. They are fundamental to the operation of virtually every military system, including communications and navigations systems and complex weapons systems such as those found in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. They are key to the ‘must-win’ technologies of the future, including artificial intelligence and 5G, which will be essential to achieving the goal of a ‘dynamic, inclusive and innovative national economy’ identified as a critical American advantage in the March 2021 Interim National Security Strategic Guidance.”

According to the report, the supply chains for these highly specialized hi-tech components are extremely complex, as the manufacturing of semiconductors “requires hundreds of essential inputs, many of which are raw materials, chemicals, and gases. These materials have their own complex supply chains, and likely contain hidden choke points that could disrupt production.”

The manufacturing of semiconductors begins with polysilicon, for which the U.S. currently has some production capacity. However, according to the Department of Commerce, “U.S. technological leadership and production of semiconductor-grade polysilicon is at risk due to China’s actions to increase its dominance of both the semiconductor and solar supply chains.” That risk is further heightened now that China is under U.S. import sanctions for producing polysilicon using forced labor in the Province of Xinjiang. U.S. companies importing Chinese products containing polysilicon from Xinjiang risk having those products impounded at American ports by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Two other key semiconductor materials are Gallium and Indium — for both of which the United States is 100% import reliant, both of which made the 2018 official U.S. Critical Minerals List released by the Department of the Interior, and both of which are primarily sourced from China.

Due to the extremely complex and geographically dispersed nature of the semiconductor supply chain (which results in the typical semiconductor production process spanning multiple countries and products crossing international borders up to 70 times according to the Department of Commerce), there are many access points for supply chain vulnerabilities along the way.

To address the semiconductor supply chain challenge, the Biden Administration seeks to “bolster its partnership with the private sector in domestic semiconductor manufacturing and R&D,” and “strengthen engagement with allies and partners to promote fair semiconductor chip allocations, increase production, and promote increased investment.”

However, let’s be clear: As ARPN’s Daniel McGroarty pointed out last year against the backdrop of excitement over the recent announcement of Arizona as the site for Taiwan Semiconductor’s new next-gen semiconductor factory to manufacture their new 5-nanometer (5nm) chips: “the first word in supply chain is ‘supply.’”

As the Biden Administration begins to tackle the complex semiconductor supply chain challenge in the context of its “all of the above” approach to decouple from adversary nations, it must begin at the beginning.

Thankfully, the U.S. is not only in the fortunate position to have known resources for both Gallium and Indium (in Texas and Alaska, respectively), both metals can also be “unlocked” in the “co-product” development of their Gateway Metals Aluminum (for Gallium) and Zinc and Tin (Indium) — another reason stakeholders should focus more on the inter-relationship between Gateway Metals and the critical co-products they unlock.

The post “Supply Chain” Begins With “Supply:” Department of Commerce 100-Day Report Chapter on Complex Semiconductor Supply Chain appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

In this context we have long argued that while it is essential to focus on the metals and minerals that are driving headlines, such as the Rare Earths and battery tech metals like Lithium, Cobalt, Nickel, Manganese and Graphite, we must not forget about the inter-relationship between what we have been calling “gateway metals” and their “co-products.”

Gateway metals – which include mainstay metals like Copper, Aluminum, Nickel, Tin, and Zinc, are not only critical to manufacturing in their own right, but “unlock” tech metals increasingly indispensable to innovation and development. For too long, these “unlocked” tech metals were dubbed “by-products,” or even “minor metals” — labels that don’t do these materials and their increasingly broad applications justice.

Courtesy of the ongoing materials science revolution, both groups of metals and minerals are increasingly becoming the building blocks of 21st Century technology, which is why we believe the “by-products” should be referred to as “co-products.” Meanwhile, many of them are fraught with similar dependency issues like the news-grabbing Rare Earths or battery tech metals.

As such, we were pleased to see that the DoD-led chapter of the White House’s 100-Day Supply Chain Report not only draws attention to this issue complex, but also appears to have embraced the “co-product” label – using it interchangeably with the term “byproduct.”

Under the header “Byproduct and Coproduction Dependency,” the DoD chapter argues that “[b]yproduct production of strategic and critical materials can add significant value to an existing production operation and improve the business case for a nascent producer. However, some strategic and critical materials are derived exclusively from byproduct production, which means a fairly small market depends on the prevailing dynamics of a separate but much larger commodity market. (…) In some cases the concentration of supply can be so extreme that U.S. or global production is concentrated in a single source. (…) More generally, in DoD modeling of strategic and critical materials under national emergency conditions, a domestic sole-source provider exists for 29 of the 53 unclassified shortfall materials, and 18 materials have no domestic production at all.”

This is a significant development, because unlike the recently released Canadian government’s official critical minerals list, the U.S. Government’s List of 35, released in 2018, did not acknowledge the connection between primary mining materials and their critical-co-products.

With the gateway/co-product challenge finding its way into public discourse by way of the 100-Day Supply Chain report, there is hope that the drafters of a forthcoming updated U.S. Government Critical Minerals List will acknowledge the importance of Gateway Metals — and that policy makers will factor this issue complex into the “all of the above” approach. As yesterday’s “minor metals” become major materials in tech applications, America’s mineral resource security may well hinge on encouraging innovative sources of supply.

The post DoD Chapter of 100-Day Supply Chain Report Acknowledges Gateway/Co-product Challenge appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

A result of extensive collaboration and consultation of various levels of government and the private sector, the list “prioritizes building an industrial base for the low-carbon, digitized economy, and provides greater certainty and predictability to industry, trading partners and investors on what Canada has to offer.”

While slightly shorter, the Canadian list largely mirrors its U.S. peer — the list of 35 minerals deemed critical to the United States’ economic and national security well-being as released by the U.S. Department of the Interior in 2018.

A significant difference, however, is that Canada’s list acknowledges the importance of what we would consider traditional mainstay metals like Copper, Nickel and Zinc — which, as followers of ARPN well know, are not only key components of 21st Century technology in their own right, but are also “gateway metals” that “unlock” a slew of other critical metals and minerals.

(for reference, see ARPN’s “Through the Gateway” report here.)

During the public comment period for the U.S. critical minerals list, ARPN’s Daniel McGroarty provided comments advocating the inclusion of the above-referenced gateway metals the processing of which in turn yields access to Cobalt, Arsenic, Rhenium, Tellurium, REEs, PGMs, Indium and Germanium. (Read his comments here).

The release of Canada’s critical minerals list is an important signal that Canada — one of the United States’ closest allies next to Australia when it comes to challenging China’s critical mineral supply chain dominance – grasps the connection between primary mining materials and their critical co-products. Here’s hoping that the inclusion of Copper, Nickel and Zinc in the Canadian list will also prompt the drafters of a forthcoming updated U.S. critical minerals list to acknowledge the importance of Gateway Metals.

The post Canada’s Just-Released List of 31 Critical Minerals Includes Key Gateway Metals appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

Why are we talking about space other than the fact that the focus on SpaceX is giving us a short, but much-needed break from the ever-consuming coverage of the coronavirus pandemic?

As followers of ARPN will know, aeronautics is a field in which we owe many breakthroughs in recent history to metals, minerals, and the materials science revolution.

Scandium is a case in point.  Dubbed the “super metal that the aerospace and electric vehicle industries dream of” because of its alloying capabilities that promote lightweight, strength and corrosion resistance, it has become an indispensable tech metal, particularly in the context of the ongoing lightweighting revolution. 

Aluminum-Scandium alloys have helped reduce aircraft weights by 15% to 20%, without compromising the strength of the building material.   3D-printed Scandium and Aluminum-based high-performance alloys may become even more relevant as the U.S. government embarks on a path to create a U.S. Space Force, and a successful launch of the SpaceX Crew Dragon may further increase demand for hi-tech metals like Scandium.

While all systems may be go for Scandium demand to take off, the supply side has been challenging. 

As we  outlined a few years ago:

“[W]hile on paper, Scandium resources may in fact be abundant, it is rarely concentrated in nature, making commercially viable deposits extremely rare. Because it is at present largely recovered as a co-product during the processing of various Gateway Metals, including Tin and Nickel, total global production rates are quite low.  Scandium may also be present in certain Copper and Rare Earth deposits.”

To date, the U.S. has been 100% import-dependent to meet our domestic Scandium needs and has had to rely on China and Russia — arguably not our most reliable trading partners — to meet demand. In recent years, with demand forecasts for Scandium on the upswing,  mining companies have begun exploring the possibility of primary Scandium recovery and researchers — on behalf of developers of multi-metallic deposits began studying the inclusion of scandium recovery into their project plans.

And while the launch of SpaceX has to be postponed, news of a breakthrough with potential to change the Scandium supply picture arrived today.  

As Reuters reports, researchers at Rio Tinto have developed process to extract scandium from waste tailings in the titanium dioxide production process in one of its production facilities in Quebec, Canada.

The company had previously joined forces with the Critical Materials Institute (CMI), a U.S. Department of Energy research hub, to study new ways to capture Gateway Metals and Co-products that are increasingly becoming indispensable in clean power manufacturing — an endeavor we highlighted in the context of our “Profiles of Progress” series highlighting public-private partnerships proving to be valuable tools in the effort to alleviate supply risks for critical raw materials. 

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