Unlocking energy security: The essential role of critical minerals

Critical minerals are essential for clean energy technologies. Demand for critical minerals is accelerating as countries race to secure energy supplies. Securing sufficient and sustainable critical minerals to meet accelerating demand is crucial to ensure national energy security.

What’s happening

• Global energy demand is increasing.
• Accelerating demand for clean energy is boosting global need for critical minerals like lithium, cobalt, nickel, and rare earth elements.
• Critical minerals are essential for clean energy technologies such as batteries, solar panels, electrical wiring, and electric vehicle motors.
• Governments and companies are racing to secure reliable supplies of critical minerals.

Why

• In the next decade, demand for critical minerals could outpace production.
• Critical minerals are the subject of complex geopolitical competition.
• Regions that supply minerals are increasingly impacted by resource nationalism.
• China dominates the minerals processing sector and has used export controls to restrict trade.
• The extraction, processing, and trade of critical minerals can pose serious social and environmental challenges, such as community displacement, deforestation, and habitat destruction.

Why it matters

• Securing sufficient and sustainable critical minerals to meet accelerating demand is crucial to ensure national energy security.
• Policymakers, investors, and corporations must balance efforts to boost and streamline extraction and refining processes while using responsible mining practices.
• Pressure will continue to increase for developers to engage with local communities to obtain a social license to mine.

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