VINACHEM

The US has a list of 50 mineral commodities that it considers critical to its economy and national security. The list is determined using the most advanced scientific methods to evaluate the mineral’s so-called “criticality”, an extensive process that goes through multiple agencies.

The US critical minerals list contains 15 more commodities compared to the first list created in 2018. Much of the difference, as noted on the US Geological Survey’s website, is the result of splitting the rare earth elements and platinum group elements into individual entries rather than including them as “mineral groups.” In addition, the 2022 list of critical minerals adds nickel and zinc to the list while removing helium, potash, rhenium and strontium.

The new list was created based on directives from the Energy Act of 2020, which indicates that at least every three years, the Department of the Interior must review and update the list of critical minerals, update the methodology used to identify potential critical minerals, take interagency feedback and public comment through the Federal Register, and ultimately finalize the list of critical minerals.

As defined in the Energy Act, a “critical mineral” is a non-fuel mineral or mineral material essential to the economic or national security of the US. and which has a supply chain vulnerable to disruption. Critical minerals are also characterized as serving an essential function in the manufacturing of a product, the absence of which would have significant consequences for the economy or national security.

The 2022 list of critical minerals, while “final” at the time, is not intended as a permanent designation of mineral criticality but will be a dynamic list updated periodically to represent current data on supply, demand, concentration of production and current policy priorities, the USGS says.

“Mineral criticality is not static, but changes over time,” said Steven M. Fortier, USGS National Minerals Information Center director. “The 2022 list of critical minerals was created using the most recent available data for non-fuel mineral commodities. However, we’re always analyzing mineral markets and developing new methods to determine the various and evolving critical mineral supply chain risks.”

Prior to publishing the 2022 list of critical minerals, the USGS completed a thorough review of more than 1,000 comments received from the public, stakeholders, and local and state officials. These comments were received in response to the draft critical minerals list the USGS released for public comment in November 2021.

DOE critical minerals assessment

Meanwhile, the US Department of Energy is also continuously assessing the “criticality” of minerals to incorporate into its critical materials strategies. While similar to the USGS, the DOE assessments differ in that they are focused specifically on “the importance of materials to energy and decarbonization technologies” and are “performed with an eye to the future.”

In late May, the DOE released a preliminary report that compiles core analysis for its latest Critical Materials Assessment for public comment. The DOE is actively seeking input from the public on these areas of interest to ensure that the Critical Materials Assessment is comprehensive and accurate.

The Request for Information, which is being issued by the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)’s Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office (AMMTO), aims to enhance the DOE assessment before it is finalized.

Like previous reports, this analysis provides a range of possible demands for selected materials based on various deployment scenarios, levels of sub-technology market penetration, and material intensities.

To evaluate supply risk, projected demand is compared against current production capacity to estimate the supply gap while also considering social, political, and other market disruption factors.

The DOE says rather than predicting the future, the goal is to understand potential roadblocks to energy deployment in the short term (2020–2025) and medium term (2025–2035), which would help inform R&D investments and policy engagement.

DOE report specifics

This report leverages the findings of 11 “supply chain deep dive” reports the DOE released in 2022 as part of Executive Order 14017 on securing America’s supply chains. These reports were designed to evaluate the potential vulnerabilities to the supply chains that make up the country’s energy sector industrial base and that contribute toward decarbonizing the US economy.

A list of candidate materials was first derived from these DOE supply chain assessments. They cover technologies such as carbon capture, electric grid (including transformers and high-voltage direct current transmission), energy storage, fuel cells and electrolysers, hydropower including pumped storage hydropower, rare earth magnets, nuclear energy, platinum group metal catalysts, semiconductors, solar photovoltaics, and wind energy.

The candidate material list was further refined in consultation with experts from various DOE offices. The final candidate list has 37 materials along with their technologies, as shown in the table below:

The DOE notes that since the last CMS report in 2019, the global material supply chains have been significantly impacted by various events, namely the Covid-19 pandemic which has caused labour and material shortages, reduced capacity, and delayed capacity development for multiple energy products. Additionally, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has limited energy and material supply to the US and European countries, leading to increased pressure on obtaining supply from other Asian countries and higher prices.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) reported that increased fuel prices were responsible for 90% of increased average generation costs for electricity on a global basis.

According to this analysis, there are six critical materials in the short term, which include cobalt, dysprosium, gallium, natural graphite, iridium and neodymium. The uses for these critical materials are spread across rare earth magnets, batteries, LEDs, and hydrogen electrolyzers. Then, there are nine near-critical materials, which include electrical steel, fluorine, lithium, magnesium, nickel, platinum, praseodymium, silicon carbide (SiC) and uranium. Finally, there are seven non-critical materials including aluminum, copper, manganese, phosphorous, silicon, tellurium and titanium.

Between the short and medium term, the importance to energy and supply risk scores shifts for most materials. There are 12 critical, six near-critical, and four noncritical materials in the medium term. For example, the “importance to energy” scores for copper and silicon increase while their supply risks remain the same. In addition, supply risk scores for aluminum, iridium, manganese, neodymium, phosphorous, platinum and SiC increase, while their importance to energy stays constant.

Nickel increases in both importance to energy and supply risk. Dysprosium, on the other hand, falls in energy importance due to potential substitutions in the medium term but increases in supply risk, remaining a critical material. All other key materials remain in the same category from the short term to medium term.  – mining.com –