Critical minerals for electric vehicles: a telecoupling review

The rapid growth of electric vehicles (EVs) adoption, which plays a crucial role to reduce transportation carbon emissions, is leading to a surge in demand for critical minerals such as cobalt, nickel, lithium, and rare earths. Efforts to systematically address the emerging sustainability issues associated with critical minerals have been challenged by complex mineral supply chains, and the distal and geographically dispersed nature of social-ecological impacts from mineral extraction and processing and eventual use. In this review, we apply a bibliometric analysis of the literature in the 2010-2020 period to analyze the state of research on the issues of critical mineral extraction impacts and the global governance responses. We use the concept of telecoupling to structure our literature search and analysis across four themes: (1) critical minerals global trade and supply chain, (2) sustainability and resource policy and governance, (3) mining corporate social responsibility, and (4) information feedback and public discourse. We find a growing attention to the social-ecological implications of critical mineral extraction, but also fragmentation among thematic domains that could impede progress towards more coordinated system governance. Based on the analyses, the paper concludes with a definition of some research and engagement opportunities around the telecoupling themes.

Building Capacity for Action-Oriented Research in Arizona’s Helium Extraction Boom

Northeast Arizona’s Holbrook Basin is an epicenter in the rush to secure new helium deposits in the U.S. While the helium boom has revealed unease amongst residents, significant knowledge and procedural gaps have prevented the public from making sense of the industry and its potential impacts. These gaps are produced by the opacity of critical minerals extraction, long-term regulatory neglect, and lack of commitments to public participation in environmental governance. However, we suggest that engaged STS scholarship can meaningfully assist at-risk communities in navigating these complexities. This is illustrated in a series of workshops developed by STS researchers and residents for the purpose of building local capacity for independent research and knowledge production. We detail the mutual affordances of these workshops and offer a potentially replicable framework: The Capabilities Model for Social Learning in Engaged STS. We conclude by arguing that this model is a useful lens for examining how STS critical thinking can be leveraged in collaborative research to pursue long-term social change.

A Fundamental Economic Assessment of Recovering Rare Earth Elements and Critical Minerals from Acid Mine Drainage Using a Network Sourcing Strategy

In recent years, acid mine drainage (AMD) has emerged as a promising unconventional source of rare earth elements (REEs) and other critical minerals (CMs) such as cobalt and manganese. In this regard, AMD provides a natural heap leaching effect that extracts and concentrates REE/CM from the host strata creating a partially enriched feedstock suitable for downstream extraction, separation, and recovery. While several prior studies have described processes and approaches for the valorization of AMD, very few have described the supply chain and infrastructure requirements as well as the associated economic assessment. To that end, this paper provides a fundamental economic assessment of REE/CM recovery from AMD using a network sourcing strategy in addition to a robust, flexible feedstock separations and refining facility. The methodology of this paper follows that of a typical techno-economic analysis with capital and operating costs estimated using AACE Class IV (FEL-2) guidelines. To demonstrate the range of possible outcomes, four pricing scenarios were modeled including contemporary prices (September, 2021) as well as the minimum and maximum prices over the last decade. In addition, five production scenarios were considered reflecting variations in the product suite, ranging from full elemental separation to magnet REE and CM production only (i.e., Pr, Nd, Tb, Dy, Y, Sc, Co, and Mn). The results of this analysis show that, with the exception of the minimum price scenario, all operational configurations have positive economic indicators with rates of return varying from 25% to 32% for the contemporary price scenario. The optimal configuration was determined to be production of Co, Mn, and all REEs except for mischmetal, which is not recovered. Sensitivity analysis and Monte Carlo simulation show that capital cost and HCl consumption are the two major factors influencing rate of return, thus indicating opportunities for future technology development and cost optimization. Implications of the study and a cooperative profit-sharing model for sourcing are also described.

Minerals and critical raw materials: potential and opportunities for Argentina

“Critical” minerals and raw materials are usually defined as those that present great economic importance and high risk of supply disruption. Their integral use (mining, reuse and recycling) opens a window of opportunity for resource-rich countries such as Argentina. Based on a bibliographic review, this work presents an overview of the potential of critical materials and public policies to promote their use under sustainability principles. The results of historical explorations indicate that Argentina has geological-mining potential of critical minerals. However, new investments are required to value, standardize and digitize the available data. It is also necessary to rank these minerals in the public research agendas and encourage their exploration. The potentiality in secondary resources is difficult to estimate given the lack of data on the generation and recycling of industrial scrap, batteries and other discarded products. In an international context of growing socio-environmental demands and persistent conflict, achieving a sustainable management of critical (and non-critical) minerals implies overcoming the “extractivist” model. For this, it is essential to transform the nature of the linkages between the mining sector, the scientific-technological system, the local productive network and the communities, as well as the ways of making strategic decisions about their use.

Towards Zero Solid Waste in the Sedimentary Phosphate Industry: Challenges and Opportunities

The phosphate industry produces huge volumes of waste (hundred million tons per year). These wastes are generally surface landfilled, leading to significant environmental impacts and a large footprint. The current practices of phosphate waste management, the typology of the waste streams and their characteristics, and finally their potential applications are reviewed. All the waste streams generated during the life cycle of phosphoric acid production going from the extraction of phosphate rock to its enrichment and transformation are considered. Great circularity opportunities have been identified and they aim (i) to recover the residual phosphorus and other critical minerals and metals, and (ii) to consider phosphate wastes as alternative resources in the civil engineering and building sectors. The purpose is to shift from linear thinking to circular thinking where synergy between different mining and other industries is highly encouraged. By doing so, opportunities to safeguard natural resources and to minimize the environmental and societal impacts are limitless. However, many challenges are still limiting this shift: economic and technical constraints, societal and policy-makers’ awareness, regulation harmonization and finally knowledge gaps. More efforts and investment in research and development are still required to reach the zero-waste target.

The Legal Governance of Oil and Gas in Europe: An Indicator Analysis of the Implementation of the Hydrocarbons Directive

Hydrocarbons are traditional subjects to European Union (EU) law (“acquis communitaire”). A short historical review reveals that quasi all aspects of upstream and downstream segments are covered by the legislation. The results of applied information extraction and elaborated quantitative analysis indicate that the intensity of legislation making correlates with global drivers such as oil price booms, and technology developments such as extraction of unconventional hydrocarbons by hydraulic fracturing. A quarter of a century after the Hydrocarbons Directive was published and transposed by Member States (MS), data allow us to make a semi-quantitative assessment on the implementation, the major drivers of governments’ publication activity, and the impact on the oil and gas production. Another specific relevance of this study is on non-energy minerals management of the EU, whether the introduction of similar competitive bidding rules would induce a greater interest of investors, and the enhanced competition could bring more benefits to the states by the rejuvenation of the critical minerals extractive sector. The preliminary findings show that in some MS there is a positive correlation between the concession call publication activity and hydrocarbons production. To confirm these conclusions the analysis of an extended dataset including exploration data, investments, and social impacts is needed in order to screen the effect of global market trends, the exhaustion of domestic geological reserves, and the different policy environments.

Uranium and Vanadium Resources of Utah: An Update in the Era of Critical Minerals and Carbon Neutrality

Utah is the second largest vanadium producing state and the third largest uranium producing state in the United States. Carnotite, a primary ore mineral for both vanadium and uranium, was first discovered and used by Native Americans as a source of pigment in the Colorado Plateau hysiographic province of eastern Utah. Radioactive deposits have been ommercially mined in Utah since about 1900, starting with radium, followed by vanadium, and thenuranium. In 1952, the discovery of the Mi Vida mine in Utah’s Lisbon Valley mining district in San Juan County kicked off a uranium exploration rush across the Colorado Plateau. As a result, the United States dominated the global uranium market from the early 1950s to late 1970s. In the modern mining era, Utah is an important contributor to the domestic uranium and vanadium markets with the only operating conventional uranium-vanadium mill in the country, multiple uranium-vanadium mines on standby, and active uranium-vanadium exploration. Overall, Utah has produced an estimated 122 million lbs U3O8 and 136 million lbs V2O5 since 1904. Most of this production has been from the sandstone-hosted deposits of the Paradox Basin, with minor production from volcanogenic deposits and as byproducts from other operations across the state

The role of Rare Earth Elements in the deployment of wind energy in Colombia

The deployment of renewable energy technologies will play a crucial role in the global transition to a low-carbon economy and ultimately in the fight against global warming. However, this transition could face important problems because most of those technologies rely on the steady supply of critical minerals. Colombia, thanks to its hydrological resources, has relied on the hydro­power for electricity generation. However, the government has implemented measures to back-up the energy system in draught periods and, consequently, fossil fuels-based plants have increased the market share and with these, CO2 emissions. This study assesses the mineral demand in Colombia in the period 2020-2050 for the rare earth elements embedded in the deployment of wind power technologies in four different climate policy scenarios in order to establish whether they could face geological bott­lenecks that could ultimately hamper the transition to a low-carbon economy. The Gigawatts (GW) of future capacity additions in the energy system are converted into tons of metal using published metal intensities of use and assumptions of Colombia’s technological pathway. Then, the cumulated mineral demand is compared against current mining production rates and geological reserves to establish geological bottlenecks. The results show that the reserves will not pose any threat to its transition. However, when compared to current mining rates, the mineral demand in 2050 could pose a problem for the supply of minerals. Finally, this study gives some policy recommendations that could be used to mitigate these issues, such as substitution, improved circular economy and sound technological choices.