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American Resources Policy Network
Promoting the development of American mineral resources.
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Tech Metals, the Building Blocks of the 21st Century, “Punch Well Above Their Weight” – A Visual

It’s visualization time.

And while your Thanksgiving-focused brain may trick you into believing the infographic you see here represents the proportions of turkey to sides, Visual Capitalist has put together an important reminder for those working in the realm of mineral resource policy, and quite frankly, everyone else.

VCE_All_the_Metals_We_Mined_2022-Nov-14-1

Using USGS data, the infographic (click here for a full-size look and the underlying data) visualizes the entirety of the 2.8 billion tonnes of metals mined in 2022 worldwide.

Comprising 93% of the global mined total, the metals mining landscape is clearly dominated by iron ore. In 2022, 2.6 billion tonnes of the material were mined, with 98% of the ore dedicated to steelmaking.

The second tier of the infographic comprises the industrial metals, which accounted for 185,111,835 tonnes of mined content in 2022, representing 6.5% of all metals mined last year.   Of these, aluminum accounted for nearly 40% of global production.

Meanwhile the transformative tech metals – as ARPN has called them — the Battery Criticals and Defense Criticals – only account for less than 1% of all the metals mined globally in 2022.

While this may come as a surprise to a layman – after all Critical Minerals are making frequent headlines these days largely fueled by the green energy transition and supply chain challenges exacerbated by geopolitical and trade issues – followers of ARPN well know what these key building blocks of 21stCentury technology “punch well above their weight” – both figuratively and literally.

They say visualization — essentially seeing with the mind’s eye or hearing with the mind’s ear – can be a powerful tool to reinforce concepts that can help you “understand complex information and make better decisions.”

Here’s hoping stakeholders seeing this infographic feel prompted to make “better decisions” to swiftly devise policies to incentivize these formerly minor metals and minerals that have such a major impact on the technologies transforming our world.

Recent developments show – see our most recent coverage of China cranking its critical mineral export control ratchet here and here – our adversaries won’t wait for our food coma and tryptophan to wear off as they escalate the Tech Wars.

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