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.

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.

ARPN has been keeping a keen eye on U.S.-China relations, but if you needed a visual reminder on why it matters beyond economic and military might, Visual Capitalist is here to help and has released another great chart depicting China’s dominance of critical mineral supply chains.

Using USGS data, the expert chart makers have visualized China’s share of U.S. imports for ten critical minerals:

Sometimes a picture says more than a thousand words, but if you need more context, Visual Capitalist also provides some additional context here, and points to USGS estimates that if China were to cut off 40-50% of rare earth oxide production, it could disrupt global supply to the point where it would impact U.S. defense systems advanced component suppliers.

Followers of ARPN are aware of the increasing weaponization of trade in the context of U.S.-Chinese relations, and in particular the role of export controls, such as the ones imposed by China on germanium and gallium, as well as graphite and rare earths.

As such, it comes as no surprise that U.S. policy stakeholders are taking a firmer stance on policies relating to China, particularly in an election year. See our post on the U.S. House vote to overturn the waiver of “Buy America” requirements for taxpayer-funded EV charging stations here. 

However, these waiver requirements are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.  Mandates to source domestically or from allies can only work if there is a framework conducive to harnessing these resources, so this election cycle and beyond candidates and other stakeholders should prioritize strengthening domestic critical mineral supply chains where possible, and friend shoring, where necessary.

As geopolitical flashpoints continue to increase, so do the stakes.

The post A Visual Reminder Why China Matters in the Context of U.S. Critical Mineral Resource Policy 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.

Laments Lasley:

“The case for copper’s criticality is backed by commodity analysts who predict global copper production will need to double by 2035 to meet demands driven by global net-zero emission goals. Building that level of capacity in just 12 years, while at the same time not losing any output from existing mines, is a highly unlikely scenario.

(…)

Despite the growing consensus that it is going to require extraordinary measures to ensure that there is enough copper to achieve global net-zero carbon emission goals, the U.S. Geological Survey has remained steadfast in its refusal to add this metal to America’s critical minerals list.”

USGS Director Dave Applegate has publicly stated that while copper is considered an essential mineral, copper does not meet the agencies criteria for elevating the material onto the critical minerals list, an assessment that, in Lasley’s eyes, “seems to ignore the forecasts that demand will outstrip supply over the next two decades.”

Lasley points to the Copper Development Association’s (CDA’s) commissioning of an analysis mimicking USGS methodology employed for the 2022 Critical Minerals List, which the association maintains was based on out-of-date data.  The CDA-commissioned analysis concluding that copper does meet the “critical” criteria when basing the assessment on “the very latest available data.” 

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.

However, USGS has remained steadfast in its refusal to re-consider copper’s status even though the Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland has statutory authority to add copper to the Critical Minerals List without waiting for the next official update of the entire list, and has rejected a formal request by a broad coalition including federal lawmakers from both sides of the political aisle and more than 70 trade associations and unions to do so.

The U.S. Department of Energy, meanwhile, recognized the growing importance of copper and included it into its critical materials list as part of its 2023 Critical Materials Assessment. While agreeing with the USGS notion of a diverse and relatively low-risk global copper supply, the department’s inclusion of copper was prompted by a longer-time view that declining ore grades and growing competition for available resources might change the outlook so that “identifying and mitigating material criticality now will ensure that a clean energy future is possible for decades to come.”

USGS may have rejected a direct broad-based push to include copper into the overall government Critical Minerals List, but a congressional push is still underway, and the recent DOE elevation of copper’s status may provide a boost for U.S. Rep. Juan Ciscomani’s (R-Ariz.) Copper is Critical Act, which would do so with or without USGS consent.

As copper demand in an increasingly net zero world continues to grow, ARPN will watch the push to add the perhaps most critical non-critical to the official U.S. government list with great interest.

The post The Most Critical Non-Critical? A Look at Copper appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

Startups and joint ventures are stepping up to the plate, harnessing machine learning, cutting-edge chemistry, and breakthrough processes provided courtesy of the materials science revolution.

A case in point, as per a recent Wall Street Journal story: Startup Urbix, an Arizona-based graphite producer leveraging machine learning to discern how to create “uniform graphite anodes fit for use in EV batteries from a range of natural and synthetic forms of graphite.” The company says that its machine learning technique drastically reduces waste — whereas traditional methods result in a roughly 30 to 35 percent yield, Urbix’s technique allows for 80% of raw material inputs to end up in the final product.

Meanwhile, Locus Fermentation Solutions, an Ohio-based chemical business, has begun using bio-surfactants, chemicals from microbes capable of breaking a material’s surface tension, to increase the yield in the copper production process. According to the company, bio surfactants can be utilized for either of the main copper processing techniques and can increase copper yields by 7%, while at the same time saving energy as less rock needs to be crushed.

Mine tailings can also be fertile grounds for resource harvesting.  Massachusetts-based startup Phoenix Tailings currently specializes on finding mine sites free from radioactive materials such as thorium and uranium and recovering REEs from these sites. The company says that at its pilot facility in upstart New York, where it processes the tailings, zero waste is produced as leftovers from the process are recycled.

Other companies, and even governments are also looking to “turn the same stone twice.”

As ARPN previously outlined, in Australia, New Century Resources currently owns and runs the largest tailings retreatment operation at its zinc tailings operation in Queensland.

In the rare earths realm, Reuters lists 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, one of them being the above-referenced Phoenix Tailings, and the other being U.S. Energy Fuels.  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.

Beyond the rare earths, global miner Rio Tinto began producing 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. As America’s oldest copper mine, now in its 117th year of operations, there’s no telling how many critical minerals may reside in Kennecott’s historic waste piles.

In addition to recovering tellurium from Kennecott, after commencing production of battery-grade lithium from waste rock at a lithium demonstration site at its Boron mine site in California in 2021, Rio Tinto last fall 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. In Canada, the miner is producing scandium from titanium waste, becoming the first North American producer of scandium in the process.

Meanwhile, as Australia’s Financial Post reported earlier this summer, the Australian government has launched the “Atlas of Australian Mine Waste,”  a mapping project of sites containing mine waste with reprocessing potential.

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).

At a time when geopolitical tensions are rising along side ever-increasing pressures to accelerate the shift towards renewable energy, the materials science revolution — thankfully — continues to unlock new technologies and techniques allowing for the safe and commercially viable recovery of critical minerals from a variety of previously largely untapped sources, including mine tailings.  It’s ARPN’s view that stakeholders should embrace and further these developments in the context of a comprehensive all-of-the-above approach to bolster critical mineral supply chains.

The post Materials Science Revolution Unlocks Technologies and Techniques to Harness Previously Untapped Sources and Increase Material Yield appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

Arguing that changing copper’s designation would allow the federal government to more efficiently ensure reliable and secure supplies of the material in the future, Representative Juan Ciscomani (R-Ariz.) is introducing the “Copper is Critical Act.”  The bill is co-sponsored by Reps. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.), Jim Baird (R-Indiana), and David Schweikert (R-Ariz.), Eli Crane (R-Ariz.), and Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.)

The bill would amend section 7002 of the Energy Policy Act of 2020, and represents the first time this process is used in an attempt to broaden the scope of the U.S. Critical Minerals List.

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.

Policy experts agree.

In a recent piece, 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 elaborated 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.” 

With copper’s long list of applications growing in the context of the materials science revolution and with long-term demand scenario surging, ARPN will monitor the Copper is Critical Act as it moves through the legislative process.

The post Lawmakers Seek Critical Mineral Designation for Copper via Federal Legislation appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

Too wonky?  Who cares?  That’s what earbuds are for – no one has to know that you’re not binging True Crime or learning a new language.

Better to bone up on a metal that’s emerging as a mainstay of the net zero transition.

As ARPN previously outlined, a “relatively benign supply profile” kept nickel off the U.S. Government’s first List of Critical Minerals in 2018. However, the metal’s increased usage in EV batteries, and the USGS’s expanded criticality criteria to include materials with only a single domestic producer along their raw materials supply chains – identified as having a single point of failure – led to nickel’s incorporation into the 2021 update to the U.S. Government Critical Minerals List.

As followers of ARPN may recall, Indonesia, the world’s biggest nickel producer, has hinted at the possibility of Jakarta pursuing the creation of an OPEC-like cartel for nickel (and other key battery minerals).  Reportedly, the Indonesian government has reached out to the Biden Administration to explore a deal similar to those the U.S. has made with Japan and the European Union; however, Indonesia’s “lagging environmental and labor standards”, raise some hard questions on how broad the net of “friends and allies” can and should be cast.

In the case of nickel, once again ARPN’s touchstone is our all-of-the-above approach to mineral resource policy, rooted in the realization that as much as we want to rely on our friends and allies, to succeed and remain competitive in the 21st Century we will also have to harness our arguably vast domestic resource potential across the entire value chain, from mine to manufacturing.  And domestic nickel production looks to be given a boost by projects currently underway in Minnesota (see our post here), as well as  what appears to be vast untapped mineral potential in neighboring Michigan.

Currently, Michigan is the home of the only U.S. primary nickel mine in operation, the Eagle Mine.  Yet as the Detroit News reports this week, even with the Eagle nearing the end of its life cycle, according to the USGS, the Lake Superior region “could be home to as much nickel as Russia or Canada, some of the largest nickel producers in the world.” 

The Detroit News points to Talon Metals Corp.’s plan to explore 400,000 acres of the Upper Peninsula and seek exclusive exploration rights to an additional 23,288 acres from the state, as well as the Michigan Geological Survey’s search of portions of the region in the context of the United States Geological Survey’s current nationwide mapping project.

John Yellich, director of the Michigan Geological Survey based at Western Michigan University, believes that the area’s potential may go beyond nickel, and that new technology will help scientists gather “as much scientifically accurate information as possible” in an area where the federal government hasn’t done significant mapping for 70 years.

If the estimates hold up, Michigan (along with Minnesota) could be an important piece of the all-of-the-above puzzle for nickel for which a current oversupply is expected to dissipate and tip into a deficit by 2026, with EV battery technology as a key driver.

However, as is the case with neighboring Minnesota, and as U.S. House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Pete Stauber (R-MN) recently outlined,

“[I]f we’re going to unlock the full potential of our resources and secure our domestic mineral supply chains, we need the political will to implement permitting reform.”   

As Michigan and Minnesota make clear, the U.S. has vast resource potential for precisely the metals and minerals needed to power our 21^st Century economy.  What the U.S. needs now is policy reform that unlocks the investment and innovation to realize that potential.

The post A Nickel for Your Thoughts: New Potential for U.S. Nickel Supply appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

While the number of metals and minerals for which the U.S. remains 100% import dependent may have dropped by two from 17 to 15, the number of materials for which we are more than 50% or more import dependent has actually gone up over last year.

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 31 critical mineral commodities (including 14 lanthanides, which are listed under rare earths) had a net import reliance greater than 50% of apparent consumption.

Recent policy developments, such as the Biden Administration’s invoking of the Defense Production Act (DPA) for the five “battery criticals” — graphite, lithium, cobalt, nickel and manganese –  as well as the rare earths, declared DPA priority materials during the Trump Adminstration, plus the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, the energy provisions of which contained EV tax credits observers said would send important signals to investors and industry that the U.S. was serious about domestic supply chains, provide hope for a positive change.

But, after decades of dwindling domestic resource production and rising import reliance, no one ever said turning an aircraft carrier this size would be easy.  As Morgan D. Bazilian of the Colorado School of Mines and Gregory Brew from the Jackson School of Global Affairs at Yale University argue in a recent piece for Foreign Affairs, while this general trend represents “welcome and overdue progress, (…) implementing plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions could be stymied in part by a material obstacle: the procurement of critical minerals such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, and copper that are essential to clean energy systems,” which in their words have so far been “myopic.”

At the same time, as scholars at the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Center have pointed out, “the Biden administration’s efforts to free up federal funds for domestic mining activities has highlighted the inherent conflict between accessing the minerals needed for climate action and the administration’s commitment to environmental and social justice.” 

Developments like the recent Biden administration halt on progress on the Ambler Road project in Alaska, which proponents say would unlock access to critical minerals and create new jobs, or the cancellation of the two mineral leases held by Twin Metals Minnesota LLC which seeks to mine copper, nickel and other commodities near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, point to conflicting viewpoints between the President’s stated objectives and his Administration’s policy.

This week’s State of the Union Address to both chambers of Congress could have provided important impetus to strengthen critical mineral supply chains. However, while professing that his administration understood the importance of making sure that “the supply chain for America begins in America,” the President’s speech never once referenced the terms “critical minerals,” “mining,” or “processing.”  

That is in spite of the fact that there are promising developments underway – especially for the “battery criticals.”  Over the next few weeks ARPN will be looking at each of these materials, now deemed under President Biden’s DPA determination to be “essential to the national defense,” and the U.S.-based projects working to urgently needed new supply into production.

Let’s start with graphite, one of the materials for which USGS noted an ongoing 100% import dependence this year.

As the key raw material in the battery anode, graphite is the largest component of lithium-ion batteries by weight. In light of “phenomenal demand growth from the EV battery sector and delays to new capacity as well as rising power costs,” the graphite supply chain represents a significant and growing challenge for automakers looking to reduce the carbon footprint of the materials they use for their EVs.

However, that’s not for lack of known graphite resources.  As USGS noted in February 2022 in its updated U.S. Mineral Deposit Database, the Graphite Creek deposit near Nome, Alaska – being developed by Graphite One, Inc. — is America’s largest graphite deposit.

Graphite One recently announced it is cooperating with two U.S. national laboratories under the Department of Energy umbrella in an effort to establish a mine-to-manufacturing all-American graphite supply chain.

In January, the company announced that it had entered into an agreement to have active anode material and other materials sourced from Graphite Creek tested to verify conformity to EV battery specifications by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL).

Aside from these public private partnerships according to Metal Tech News’s Shane Lasley, at least three automakers to date have also taken notice and are currently testing Graphite One material for use in their EV batteries.

In keeping with the new generation of miners looking to harness the materials science revolution to responsibly green our energy future [see ARPN’s post series on mining companies’ sustainability initiatives here], the company is also collaborating with Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico to explore the lab’s award-winning green extraction methods to recover materials other than graphite from Graphite Creek – providing, in Lasley’s words, an opportunity to “provide an ancillary income stream for Graphite One while maximizing the Alaska deposit’s potential to supply minerals critical to the U.S” or – to use the President’s State of the Union verbiage — an opportunity to make sure that “the supply chain for America begins in America.”

As ARPN recently pointed out,

“If U.S. Government efforts to develop an American-based EV and lithium-ion battery supply chain have any hope of succeeding, looking for ways to help projects like Graphite Creek down the path to production will be, in a word…. Critical.”

The post As Critical Mineral Dependencies Persist, Promising “Battery Criticals” Projects Provide Opportunity to Ensure that “the Supply Chain for America Begins in America” – A Look at Graphite appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

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.