The transition to low-carbon energy sources will require enormous amounts of metals that have been collectively dubbed “critical minerals” in order to manufacture green technologies like electric vehicles, wind turbines and expanded power grids. As a result, many observers are predicting a supply crunch as demand for these critical minerals—including copper, cobalt, lithium, graphite and others—outpaces production. And in the U.S. and Europe, policymakers are growing increasingly concerned about the implications of a looming shortage of these minerals on the West’s strategic competition with China.
The fears have prompted efforts like the Minerals Security Partnership, a collaborative initiative launched in 2022 that includes the United States, the European Union, Japan, India and a number of other Western countries to drive investment into new mines and create secure supply chains for critical minerals. The growing demand is also driving substantial investment to expand and modernize infrastructure in mining regions, particularly in Africa. The U.S. and the EU are upgrading a railway from mines in Central Africa’s Copperbelt region to Lobito Bay, a port in Angola on the Atlantic Ocean. Meanwhile, China is itself upgrading a railway from the same mines to the Dar es Salaam port in Tanzania on the Indian Ocean.
Discussions of the rush to secure supply chains for mining critical minerals leave out one important detail, though: All of the extracted minerals need to be smelted and refined before they can be used to build solar panels, wind turbines, batteries or virtually any of the technologies that are powering the green transition.