The Elements of Innovation Discovered
The Elements of Innovation Discovered
Critical Minerals Alliances 2024 - September 16, 2024
The Pentagon estimates that each F-35 contains roughly 900 pounds of rare earths plus 24 other critical minerals.
Welcome to Critical Minerals Alliances 2024, the fourth installment of this annual magazine that provides in-depth insights into minerals and metals critical to a robust economy, national security, and the transition to clean energy.
For the Data Mine North news team, Critical Minerals Alliances is more than an annual update on the rapidly changing critical minerals markets and policies. From the very beginning, it has been our hope that this annual magazine will play some role in helping to build critical minerals alliances "that are not crippled by irreconcilable differences between organizations and individuals that do not always see eye-to-eye but strengthened by a spectrum of ideologies with a common goal – a healthy, prosperous, and exciting future for humankind."
Over the three years since the first edition of Critical Minerals Alliances rolled off the printing press, we have witnessed a growing number of researchers, conservationists, consumers, governments, investors, local stakeholders, manufacturers, and miners come together to forge cohesive strategies to sustainably extract, reuse, and recycle the elements of 21st-century innovation.
The coalescence of this broad range of expertise and ideals has largely been driven by a common goal of transitioning the way the world powers transportation, industry, and everyday living away from fossil fuels and toward new clean energy sources.
While the previous three editions of Critical Minerals Alliances were, to a large degree, centered on the minerals and metals critical to the transition to clean energy and transportation, this issue takes a deeper dive into another vitally important side of the critical minerals equation – national security.
In preparation for publishing the original official list of minerals critical to the United States in 2018, the U.S. Geological Survey defined critical minerals as "non-fuel minerals or mineral materials essential to the economic and national security of the United States; vulnerable to supply chain disruptions; and serve an essential function in the manufacturing of a product, the absence of which would have significant consequences for the U.S. economy or security."
Due to the massive quantities of minerals needed to build electric vehicles, renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, and the infrastructure needed to transition from pipelines to powerlines, the shift to clean energy has dominated the critical minerals conversation since the original list of critical minerals under this definition was published.
While clean energy and transportation will be an enormous driver of critical minerals demand over at least the next two decades, this is only part of the story.
For the United States, which is dependent on imports for more than half its supply of 49 minerals and metals, there are also national security implications connected to being beholden to countries like China and Russia for critical minerals.
The criticality of minerals to America's clean energy future, economy, and national security are not mutually exclusive.
"Our ability to maintain our way of life, our ability to maintain our position in the world, our ability to fund our physical security – all of these things are dependent on a strong and robust economy," U.S. Department of Homeland Security Director Tim Moughon told industry leaders at the American Exploration & Mining Association conference last December. "The mining sector is critically important in this respect."
This is why Homeland Security is keeping close tabs on America's heavy dependency on critical mineral imports, and the Pentagon is investing heavily into reestablishing robust and reliable critical mineral supply chains in the U.S.
The urgency to establish a reliable domestic supply of the minerals essential to a strong and robust U.S. economy has been elevated by a growing number of restrictions on exports out of China, a country that dominates the global supply of critical minerals.
Since mid-2023, China has put policies in place that require government approvals for any gallium, germanium, graphite, and antimony exported out of the communist country.
Gallium and germanium are used in computer chips and are critical to America's tech sector; graphite is the single largest ingredient in the lithium-ion batteries powering EVs, and antimony is needed for munitions.
From the up to 20 pounds of lithium batteries carried by soldiers, to the electronic devices those batteries power and the ammunition in the magazine, all of these critical minerals are of strategic importance to the U.S. military.
Out of these four elements, only germanium is currently being mined in the U.S. This leaves American manufacturers beholden to China, which is the world's leading producer of 29 minerals deemed critical to the U.S. and other nations for their supply.
"China is weaponizing the world's access to critical minerals, and it's never been more urgent to secure the United States' critical mineral supply," said John Cherry, president and CEO of Perpetua Resources, a company that is advancing an antimony mine project in Idaho toward production.
With the strategic view that critical minerals security is a national security issue, the U.S. Department of Defense is backing the development of Perpetua's antimony mine and other critical mineral projects on American and Canadian soil.
These investments by DOD are part of an emerging all-of-government strategy to make America less reliant on critical minerals imports.
This strategy includes billions of dollars being invested by the Pentagon, Department of Energy, and Export-Import Bank of the United States to establish all-American critical mineral supply chains.
Critical Minerals Alliances 2024 takes a deeper dive into this all-of-government strategy to establish reliable and secure sources of the minerals and metals critical to North America's economic well-being, national security, and clean energy ambitions.
On behalf of the entire Data Mine North team, I am proud to present Critical Minerals Alliances 2024 and invite your feedback on this magazine designed to provide in-depth insights into the elements of innovation and encourage partnerships across the mine-to-American supply chain.
With more than 16 years of covering mining, Shane is renowned for his insights and and in-depth analysis of mining, mineral exploration and technology metals.
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