6.4 Critical Minerals – Strategically Important for Clean Energy

Critical minerals are minerals that one or more nations consider to be important for key industrial and national security applications that are also rare or associated with potential supply-chain problems. The US Geological Survey provides this extended definition.

The Energy Act of 2020 defined critical minerals as those that are essential to the economic or national security of the United States; have a supply chain that is vulnerable to disruption; and serve an essential function in the manufacturing of a product, the absence of which would have significant consequences for the economic or national security of the U.S. The act further specified that critical minerals do not include fuel minerals; water, ice, or snow; or common varieties of sand, gravel, stone, pumice, cinders, and clay.

Mineral criticality is not static, but changes over time as supply and demand dynamics evolve, import reliance changes, and new technologies are developed.

Several critical minerals are involved in clean-energy technology. This video (click here to watch) explores critical minerals and issues related to supply and demand that can speed or hamper progress in the transition to clean energy. 

Known deposits and mines of critical minerals, like energy resources, are unevenly distributed around the planet (Fig 1). A map of known deposits and mines is not the same as a map of all deposits. Countries often do not share complete information related to high-value resources, and surveys vary in methods and level of investments from country to country. An additional facet of mineral supply is where critical minerals are processed. Currently many minerals that the US considers to be critical are processed exclusively in China which creates a supply vulnerability, as the video points out. Still, research suggests that active US metal mines currently generate, as unrecovered byproducts, a large proportion of needed critical minerals. In some cases, transitioning a mine to focus on these byproducts might generate more revenue that the current target of mining, but will require additional research and technology development.^[1]

Figure 1. Global distribution of selected mines, deposits, and districts of critical minerals. US Geological Survey. Public domain.

Knowledge Check

Take a moment to complete the short quiz below to assess your understanding of this section. Read each question carefully and refer to the section content as needed. This quiz is not graded – it’s simply an opportunity for you to reflect on what you’ve learned and reinforce key concepts.