WASHINGTON – The silent war of critical materials
May 25, 2025
The materials that are essential in electric vehicles, batteries, solar panels, computing, and other high-tech industries are in the hotseat. Lithium, cobalt, nickel, manganese, gallium, aluminum, the list goes on. Without these materials the energy transition and sustainability goals risk failure. Despite the importance, the news has focused more on AI and energy development, but misses these important supply challenges. Two executive orders were published over the past three months, but no significant actions from agencies have materialized (no pun intended):
- Unleashing America’s Offshore Critical Minerals and Resources – The White House
- Immediate Measures to Increase American Mineral Production – The White House
Here’s what you need to know:
- China produces and processes the vast majority of critical minerals, watch out trade war
- Processing is dirty, energy intensive, and specialized (below)
- To meet clean energy goals, focus on recycling
Mining and reclamation is hard, specialized, and dirty.
There are a multitude of tradeoffs with mining activities including biodiversity loss, water contamination, soil erosion, and air quality, which is why the process for permits and licenses are difficult to obtain. Mining practices and their reclamation processes vary by country and corruption can have a big impact on the consequences of mining.
In the US, all minerals are owned by the government, so all mining must go through regulatory requirements, which vary by state and property ownership. At the federal level the Department of Interior (Office of Surface Mining and Reclamation, Bureau of Land Management), United States Department of Agriculture (US Forest Service) & Environmental Protection Agency carry out most regulatory matters. Each state and some localities also have their own rules.
Mining operations are long-term, energy intensive, and use various types of processing methods (although more sustainable ones are becoming more advanced). Sustainability in this sector is also complex since processing requires specialized tools, water, and supporting infrastructure. To account for this most mining projects require financial bonds (reclamation bonds) to be put up to fund rehabilitation after mining activities end. This is done through negotiations with regulators and operating companies. This requires a tremendous amount of resources from data collection to active management to ensure reclamation plans are delivered. This is a substantial risk in sustainability as operations most likely span multiple generations and it is common for rehabilitation funds to be short to fully complete restoration, which can damage both human and ecosystem damage. In addition mining operators often face debt challenges.
Questions to ponder:
- How will tariffs affect processing and production?
- What types of ecosystems are most vulnerable to mining operations?
- How long will it take to restore disturbed land? Years? Generations?
- How might the national security landscape change due to critical minerals?
- Can more sophisticated mining and refining techniques limit environmental risk?
Other News of Note:
Virginia’s virtual power plant initiative – The Community Energy Act signed by Governor Younkin, mandates Dominion Energy to launch a virtual power plant (vpp) to control costs. VPPs are software based utilities that aggregate distributed energy resources and can control smart devices. This allows for supply to be controlled using multiple generation sources and curtailing demand in other locations using smart technology, this can reduce costs, especially at peak times. I’ll do a deeper dive on virtual power plants in my next Origin Insights, as this is a really cool topic and will be essential for a net-zero future.
To building a future where humans and nature thrive,
Lets keep this conversation going! Reply to founder@pikeorigin.com or schedule a call!