![]() supply chains, and mineral-rich Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has only exacerbated the problem. ![]() This dependence was a serious concern even before the COVID pandemic revealed major gaps in U.S. Department of Energy figures show over 50% import reliance for the remaining critical minerals, and 100% reliance for 14 of them. imported almost all the rare earth elements it used in 2018, with 80% coming from China. “The problem is we are highly dependent on other countries for both production and processing,” said Sarma Pisupati, professor of energy and mineral engineering and director of the Center for Critical Minerals at Penn State. By 2030, according to Bloomberg, demand for nickel and aluminum will increase 14-fold, with graphite and lithium not far behind. With the accelerating shift toward renewable energy, need for these materials is rising sharply. That number includes the so-called rare-earth elements - the 15 lanthanide metals at the bottom of the periodic table plus scandium and yttrium - along with the battery metals lithium, cobalt, nickel, and manganese, as well as platinum, aluminum, and graphite, among others. economy or its national security or both. Geological Survey (USGS) currently designates 50 minerals as critical to the U.S. Or the systems that undergird our national defense: lasers and missile guidance, radar and sonar.Īll of these depend on critical minerals. Think of the devices we depend on for work and play: smart phones, computer hard drives, flat screen monitors, rechargeable batteries. Think of any technology that’s part of a clean-energy economy: electric vehicles, wind turbines, solar panels.
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