• The Critical Minerals End-Game?

    To reduce greenhouse gas emissions, there’s been a dramatic uptake of renewable energy, primarily solar and wind, with a transition to lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and energy storage. The transition relies on increasing the extraction of critical minerals for their production.

  • Militaries, Metals, and Mining

    The U.S. aerospace and defense industries need access to critical minerals. Securing these minerals today may be an even more-complex task than it was during the cold war: the task requires more than deploying audacious subterfuge, as the CIA did in the 1960s to get titanium out of the Soviet Union. These minerals are now very much in the public eye, and they are also needed for the clean energy technologies that will help combat climate change.

  • Searching for Critical Minerals in New Mexico, Utah

    The U.S. Geological Survey will provide nearly $3.4 million to map critical-mineral resources in New Mexico in partnership with the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources, and more than $6.6 million to map critical mineral resources in Utah, in partnership with the Utah Geological Survey.

  • EV Batteries: Chinese Dominance Raises Thorny Questions

    Chinese firms currently dominate the electric vehicle battery supply chain — from mining and refining through to final assembly. This leaves Western automakers with little option but to rely on Chinese-made batteries.

  • Better Together: Japan and the Five Eyes Need to Focus on Critical Minerals

    Critical minerals are being consumed in greater volumes than ever before, and the level of demand will only increase over the next 10 to 20 years, and beyond. The governments of Japan and the Five Eyes countries (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States) are aware that critical minerals, including rare-earth elements, will be increasingly needed as the world shifts from fossil-fuel systems to renewable energy sources. The partner nations are also clear about the challenges and opportunities, especially given that the supply chains for several critical minerals have only one or few dominant key players.

  • Critical Metal Needs Rise as Cars, Trucks Decarbonize

    The demand for battery-grade lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese and platinum will climb steeply as nations work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through mid-century, but will likely set off economic snags and supply-chain hitches.

  • The Energy Transition Will Need More Rare Earth Elements. Can We Secure Them Sustainably?

    Decarbonizing the world’s power generation will require huge numbers of wind turbines, solar panels, electric vehicles (EVs), and storage batteries — all of which are made with rare earth elements and critical metals. Supplying these vast quantities of minerals in a sustainable manner will be a significant challenge, but scientists are exploring a variety of ways to provide materials for the energy transition with less harm to people and the planet.

  • Reducing Precious Metals in Catalytic Converters

    Precious metals in catalytic converters such as platinum, palladium and rhodium attract thieves, but researchers are working to reduce the amount of precious metals the converters need — down to single atoms — while still maximizing their effectiveness.

  • The Time to Prevent Shortfalls in Critical Materials Is Now

    Rare earth elements are—despite their name—everywhere. They’re in your cellphone, your car, maybe even in a crown in your mouth. They’re in satellites, wind turbines, night-vision goggles, laser-guided missiles, and fighter jets. All of which makes China’s near-total domination of the rare earth market a matter of economic and national security concern.

  • Making the Most of Australia’s Endowment of Critical Minerals

    The geostrategic scramble to reduce supply-chain dependencies for critical minerals has overshadowed opportunities for Australia to use its resources to provide major benefits for the nation.

  • New “Cosmic Concrete” Is Twice as Strong as Regular Concrete

    Building infrastructure in space is currently prohibitively expensive and difficult to achieve. Future space construction will need to rely on simple materials that are easily available to astronaut. Scientists have created a new material, dubbed “StarCrete,” which is made from extra-terrestrial dust, potato starch, and a pinch of salt. It could be used to build homes on Mars.

  • Australian Government Needs to Go ack to Basics to Build an Australian Rare-Earths Industry

    China has moved well beyond an aspiration to monopolize the production of rare earths. It aims for leadership in the production of the full range of goods making use of rare earths—from electric cars to wind turbines, MRI scanners, lasers and rocket motors.

  • The U.S. Needs to Ditch Its America-First Approach to Critical Minerals

    More and more countries with advanced economies have begun to prioritize the supply and value chains for critical minerals and rare-earth elements because of their links with advanced and low-emissions technologies. In some countries, governments have responded to the critical minerals challenge by adopting a new version of economic nationalism. But unilateral responses will not produce secure or reliable supply chains. Indeed, economic nationalism may actually aggravate the problem.

  • Looking for Critical Minerals in Mine Waste

    Mine waste is the material left over after mining. It consists of tailings, the material that remains after mined ore is milled and concentrated, as well as the topsoil, waste rock and other materials that were removed to get to the ore. Some critical-mineral commodities, like rare earth elements, are known to occur alongside more commonly mined minerals like iron or nickel. Because of this, mine-waste sites are now being revisited.

  • U.S., China Compete for Africa's Rare Earth Minerals

    African countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo have some of the largest deposits of these resources, but China currently dominates the supply chain as well as their refinement and the U.S. wants to reduce its reliance on the Asian giant.