{"id":609,"date":"2025-06-09T19:12:59","date_gmt":"2025-06-09T19:12:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/audiomateria.com\/?p=609"},"modified":"2025-06-12T11:01:31","modified_gmt":"2025-06-12T11:01:31","slug":"the-clean-energy-transition-cant-happen-without-these-minerals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/audiomateria.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/09\/the-clean-energy-transition-cant-happen-without-these-minerals\/","title":{"rendered":"The clean energy transition can\u2019t happen without these minerals"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Silver Peak lithium mine in Clayton Valley, Nevada.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The world is hungry for more stuff<\/em>: televisions, phones, motors, container ships, solar panels, satellites. That means the stuff<\/em> required to make stuff<\/em> is in high demand, and none more so than what are known as \u201ccritical minerals.\u201d <\/p>\n

These are a handful of elements and minerals that are particularly important for making the modern devices that run the global economy. But \u201ccritical\u201d here doesn\u2019t mean rare so much as it means essential \u2014 and alarmingly vulnerable to supply chain shocks. <\/p>\n

In the US, the Geological Survey has flagged 50 minerals<\/a> as critical to our economy and security. And including some among that larger group, the US Department of Energy is focused on 18 materials that are especially important for energy<\/a> \u2014 copper for transmission lines, cobalt for cathodes in batteries, gallium for LEDs, neodymium for magnets in motors, and so on. <\/p>\n

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For governments, these minerals are more than just industrial components \u2014 they\u2019re potential bottlenecks. If producers of these substances decide to restrict access to their customers as a political lever, if prices shoot up, or if more industries develop an appetite for them and eat into the supply, companies could go bankrupt and efforts to limit climate change could slow down. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s because these minerals are especially vital for so many clean energy<\/a> technologies. They\u2019re essential for the tools used to produce, store, transmit, and use electricity without emitting greenhouse gases. They\u2019re vital to building solar panels, batteries, and electric motors. As the worldwide race for cleaner energy speeds up<\/a>, the demand for these products is surging. According to the International Energy Agency<\/a> (IEA), mineral demands from clean energy deployment will see anywhere from a doubling to a quadrupling from current levels by 2040. <\/p>\n

But these minerals aren\u2019t spread evenly across the world, which could leave some countries bearing most of the environmental burdens from mining critical minerals while wealthier nations reap the economic benefits and other countries get left out of the supply chain entirely.<\/p>\n

\u201cA world powered by renewables is a world hungry for critical minerals,\u201d UN Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres said at a panel last year<\/a>. \u201cFor developing countries, critical minerals are a critical opportunity \u2014 to create jobs, diversify economies, and dramatically boost revenues. But only if they are managed properly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Right now, the US is a major consumer of critical minerals, but not much of a producer \u2014 a fact that\u2019s become an obsession for the Trump administration. The president has signed several<\/a> executive<\/a> orders<\/a> aimed at increasing critical mineral production within the US by relaxing regulations and speeding up approvals for new critical mineral extraction projects. In Congress, lawmakers are mulling spending billions of dollars<\/a> to build up a critical mineral stockpile similar to the strategic petroleum reserve<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Even as the US government takes those steps, the international trade war that the Trump administration itself launched has begun to disrupt the global supply of critical minerals. China is one of the largest producers of critical minerals, particularly rare earth metals like dysprosium and terbium, but it has imposed limits<\/a> on some of its critical mineral exports in response to President Donald Trump\u2019s tariffs, sending prices skyward. <\/p>\n

The dawning awareness that the critical minerals everyone needs may not be readily available has led countries to redouble their efforts to find more of these materials wherever they can \u2014 in the ocean, across deserts, and even in space. In the near term, that means the world will need more mines to expand supplies of critical minerals. <\/p>\n

And with the market for clean energy poised to expand even further, scientists are trying to find new alternative materials that can power our world without making it hotter. But it will take more time and investment before the plentiful can replace the precious.<\/p>\n

Why we\u2019re hooked on critical minerals<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Since the list of critical minerals is long and diverse, it\u2019s helpful to narrow it down. And one mineral stands out: lithium<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The IEA estimates that half of the mineral demand growth<\/a> for clean energy will come from electric vehicles and batteries, mainly from their needs for this soft, light metal. Depending on how aggressively the world works to decarbonize, lithium use is projected to increase by as much as 51 times its current levels by 2040, more than 10 million metric tons per year. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s because lithium is still the best material to store and release energy in batteries across a variety of applications, from the tiny cells in wireless earbuds to arrays of thousands of cells packed into giant batteries on the power grid. As more cars trade gasoline engines for electric motors, and as more intermittent wind and solar power connect to the grid, we need more ways to store energy<\/a>.  <\/p>\n

While lithium is not particularly rare, getting it out of the earth isn\u2019t easy. There are only a handful of places in the world that currently have the infrastructure to extract it at scale and at a low enough price to make doing so worthwhile, even with ever rising demand. <\/p>\n

The US produces less than 2 percent of the world\u2019s lithium, with almost all of it coming from just one mine<\/a> in Nevada. The US has about 20 major sites where lithium could be extracted, according to the US Geological Survey<\/a>, but building new mines can take more than a decade<\/a>, and the timelines have only been getting longer. Because of their costs and the long-lasting environmental damage they can cause, mining projects have to undergo reviews before they can be approved. They often generate local opposition as well, stretching out project timelines with litigation. <\/p>\n

But the US is motivated to build this out and there are already new lithium projects underway in places like the Salton Sea in California<\/a> and the Smackover formation<\/a> across the southern US. These sites would extract lithium from brine. <\/p>\n

Could the US replace lithium and other critical minerals with cheaper, more abundant substances? <\/p>\n

Not easily. \u201cSubstitution is not impossible, but depends on which material,\u201d Sophia Kalantzakos<\/a>, who studies environmental science and public policy at NYU Abu Dhabi, said in an email. Some materials are truly one of a kind, while others have alternatives that need a lot more research and development before they can step in. For example, there are companies investing in lithium alternatives in batteries, but they also have to build up a whole supply chain to get enough of the replacement material, which can take years. <\/p>\n

And it\u2019s not enough to mine critical minerals; they need to be refined and processed<\/a> into usable forms. Here again, China leads<\/a>, operating 80 percent of the world\u2019s refining capacity.<\/a> The bottom line is that there\u2019s no immediate, easy answer to the critical mineral supply crunch right now. But there might be solutions that emerge in the years to come. <\/p>\n

How can we get around critical mineral constraints?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

These challenges have spurred a wave of research and development. Engineers are already finding ways to do more with less. Automakers like Ford, Tesla, and the Chinese company BYD<\/a> are increasingly turning toward lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries<\/a> as an alternative to conventional lithium-ion cells. Not only does the LFP chemistry use less lithium for a given energy storage capacity, it also uses less of other critical minerals like nickel and cobalt, lowering its cost<\/a>. The batteries also tend to be more durable and stable, making them less prone to catastrophic failure. <\/p>\n

The US Department of Energy has invested in ways to make lithium-based batteries more efficient and easier to manufacture by redesigning the structure<\/a> of battery components<\/a> to store more energy. <\/p>\n

Researchers are also investigating battery designs that avoid lithium altogether<\/a>. Chemistries like aluminum ion<\/a> and sodium ion<\/a>, as their names suggest, use different and far more abundant elements to carry charges inside the battery. But they still have to catch up to lithium in terms of durability, safety, performance, and production scale. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think this lithium-ion technology will still drive much of the energy transition,\u201d said Rachid Amui, a resource economist who coauthored a United Nations Trade & Development report<\/a> on critical minerals for batteries. It will likely be decades before alternatives can dethrone lithium. Eventually, as components wear out, recycling could help meet some critical mineral needs. But demand for technologies like batteries is poised to see a huge jump, which means the world will have no choice but to grow its fresh lithium supplies.  <\/p>\n

There is some good news, though. Mining is getting more efficient and safer. \u201cThere’s so much autonomous technology now being developed in the mining industry that is making mining safer than we could have ever imagined 15, 20 years ago,\u201d said Adam Simon<\/a>, a professor of earth and environmental science at the University of Michigan. That\u2019s helping drive down costs and increase the efficiency of mineral extraction. The number of known sources of lithium is also rising<\/a>. KoBold Metals<\/a>, a mining firm backed by Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, is using AI to locate more critical mineral deposits all over the world. <\/p>\n

The Energy Department is also throwing its weight behind domestic innovation. The department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, which invests in long-shot energy ideas, is funding 18 projects to increase domestic production of critical minerals<\/a>. The program, dubbed MINER, is aiming to develop minerals that can capture carbon dioxide.<\/p>\n

\u201cThrough programs like MINER and targeted investments in domestic innovation, we\u2019re working to reduce reliance on foreign sources and lay the groundwork for an American energy future that is reliable, cost-effective, and secure,\u201d said Doug Wicks, a program director for ARPA-E, in a statement to Vox. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s also a global race to secure more mineral supplies from far-flung places, all the way down to the bottom of the ocean. On parts of the seafloor<\/a>, there are vast fields of nodules made of nickel, cobalt, lithium, and manganese. For mining companies, the argument is that mining the seafloor could be less damaging to the environment<\/a> than drilling or brine extraction on land. <\/p>\n

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