• Magnesium Market Highlights Continuing Fragility of Global Supply Chains

    Magnesium is a critical input for major and emerging economies’ economic and industrial development. It has diverse high-tech applications in a wide range of sectors, from renewable energy to aerospace, defense to transport, and telecommunications to agriculture. The problem is that for both industry and governments, magnesium supply chains are vulnerable to sudden disruptions.

  • Simple Process Extracts Valuable Magnesium Salt from Seawater

    Magnesium has emerging sustainability-related applications, including in carbon capture, low-carbon cement, and potential next-generation batteries. These applications are bringing renewed attention to domestic magnesium production. A new flow-based method harvests a magnesium salt from Sequim seawater.

  • Helping Alaska Map Critical Mineral Resources

    The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) announced that Alaska will receive more than $6.75 million to conduct geologic mapping, airborne geophysical surveying, and geochemical sampling in support of critical mineral resource studies in the state.

  • The Electric Vehicle Boom Could Bring Lithium Mines Back to North Carolina

    Today, less than 1 percent of global lithium is mined in the United States, all from one mine in Nevada; the vast majority comes from Chile, Australia, and China.But as nations seek to cut emissions and transition to clean energy sources, demand for the metal is increasing, and the U.S. is looking to ramp up production within its borders.Mining companies are once again eyeing North Carolina as they seek to capitalize on the booming market for electric vehicles and renewable energy storage. Not all locals are happy about it.

  • Critical Minerals Competition Uses AI to Accelerate Analytics

    The United States depends on a variety of raw, non-fuel materials dubbed “critical minerals” to manufacture products considered essential to national security. Increasing demand, coupled with limited domestic supply and increasing reliance on foreign companies to import these critical minerals, poses significant risks to the U.S. supply chain. DARPA is offering prizes for automating aspects of USGS critical mineral assessments.

  • California Mining Firms Seek to Clean Up Lithium's Production Footprint

    Three large mining projects based in California’s “Lithium Valley” aim to recover lithium with minimal environmental impacts. They have the potential to simplify the global lithium supply chain.

  • Doubts Grow Over Turkey's Discovery of Huge Rare Earths Deposits

    Turkey has announced the world’s second-largest deposit of rare earth elements (REEs) — critical metals needed to build electric cars, wind turbines, weapon systems, among other things. But is the Turkish REE grade good enough, and are the deposits found large enough to allow Ankara to end China’s REEs dominance?

  • Rare Earths in Australia Must Be About More Than Mining

    REEs are a group of 17 metals—15 elements from the lanthanide series and two chemically similar elements, scandium and yttrium. Each has unique properties vital for a range of commercial and defense technologies, including batteries, high-powered magnets and electronic equipment. China’s rare-earth production exceeds that of the world’s second-largest producer, the U.S., by more than 100,000 tons per year. The U.S. still relies on China for most rare-earth imports. In some cases, like heavy REE processing, China has 100 percent control of the market.

  • China’s Disinformation Campaign Against Rare Earth Processing Facilities

    China dominates the production and processing of rare-earth elements (REEs). In order to lessen this dependence on the critical minerals, the U.S. government has been supporting the development of U.S. REE sources. China has been trying to prevent this shift by launching a disinformation campaign: China’ intelligence services have created social media accounts of fake local environmentalists who spread disinformation to local communities about the REE facilities being built nearby.

  • Separation and Purification of Rare-Earth Elements by Microorganisms

    Using naturally occurring and engineered proteins and bacteria, scientists will separate and purify rare-earth elements so they can be used in the defense sector.

  • U.S. Invests $74M in Federal-State Partnership for Critical Mineral Mapping

    The Department of the Interior announced that, thanks to a substantial investment from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, over $74.6 million will be distributed in 30 states to invest in geoscience data collection, mapping, data preservation, and scientific interpretation of areas with potential for critical minerals. Improving our understanding of domestic critical mineral resources is a key step in securing a reliable and sustainable supply of the critical minerals.

  • Recovering Rare-Earth Elements from E-Waste

    DARPA has selected multiple teams of university researchers for the Recycling at the Point of Disposal (RPOD) program. RPOD will evaluate the technical feasibility of recovering multiple low-volume fraction critical elements present in end-of-life electronics hardware (e-waste). The project aims to redefine tech for distributed, small-footprint recycling of critical elements.

  • Addressing China’s Growing Influence over Latin America’s Mineral Resources

    The United States and its partners in the hemisphere must address a major strategic challenge: China’s growing influence over Latin America’s critical and natural mineral resources. Adina Renee Adler and Haley Ryan write that “Allowing a geostrategic competitor like China to wield disproportionate influence over access to critical minerals—or allowing production to become concentrated in a single geographic region—poses a serious risk to the United States and its allies.”

  • China Looks to Africa in Race for Lithium

    Electric cars, and other green technologies, are dependent on lithium, and growing demand has caused the prices for lithium to increase by almost 500 percent in the past year. Africa has ample resources of lithium, and China is leading the race to control the continent’s lithium resources.

  • The "Rock-to-Metal Ratio" of Critical Minerals

    A new metric to quantify the amount of waste rock generated by mining for minerals essential to 21st century society has been created by the U.S. Geological Survey and Apple.