Climate change and critical materials

Critical materials are not a problem related to climate change. In contrast, the bulk materials – particularly steel and cement – are major drivers of global warming, because we use them in such large volumes.


 


"Short term mismatches between supply and demand lead to rapid price changes, and may lead to an increase in relatively energy-intensive recycling and separation processes"

In the foreseeable future, we are not going to run out of any materials. Mining companies know of significant resources of all the elements in the periodic table. Their decisions about whether and how much to extract depend on expected prices. On top of this, except in nuclear reactions, atoms are not destroyed by human use, they’re simply re-combined in different forms. All of these combinations could be reversed with sufficient energy.

Instead, the concern about ‘criticality’ arises when there is a short term mismatch between supply and demand. Supply might reduce for political reasons, when a country that currently dominates global supply of some element wishes to influence global prices. Demand might increase due to the rapid take up of some new product. Over a period of ten years or so, the mining industry will correct this mismatch by opening new mines or adding new processes to existing mines to extract minority elements from the tailings of bulk commodities.

Short term mismatches between supply and demand lead to rapid price changes, and may lead to an increase in relatively energy-intensive recycling and separation processes. However, because the volumes of the ‘critical’ materials are small, even the most energy intensive processes have only a small effect on global energy demand. Critical materials are therefore not a problem related to climate change. In contrast, the bulk materials – particularly steel and cement – are major drivers of global warming, because we use them in such large volumes.

Figure 1 summarises the main risks and readiness along the supply chains of critical materials.