The United States has substantial rare earth resources and could sharply expand domestic production through new mining, separation, and recycling projects. However, limited refining and metal-production capacity remains a major bottleneck to building a fully integrated rare earth supply chain.
The global race for critical minerals is reshaping energy, technology, trade, and geopolitical relationships as major powers compete for increasingly strategic resources. The analysis warns that concentrated processing, technological uncertainty, environmental damage, and weak governance could undermine the development benefits available to mineral-rich economies.
Researchers review how AI combines mineral chemistry, geophysical surveys, satellite imagery, geological maps, and text to support the search for mineral deposits, including critical mineral resources. The preprint identifies mineral prospectivity mapping as the most mature application, while fully integrated models spanning all exploration data remain a future goal.
Researchers analyzed four fine coal-waste samples from Spain, Poland, and Slovenia and found total rare-earth element concentrations of approximately 160-222 ppm. Detailed testing of the Spanish La Matona sample showed that conventional physical separation and exploratory leaching produced little enrichment or extraction, limiting immediate recovery under the tested conditions.
A working paper finds that rare earth element prices follow a distinctive spike-and-revert pattern, with sharp increases followed by prolonged declines toward long-term levels. The authors link this behavior to China’s dominant, state-controlled production system, limited supply responsiveness, low recycling rates, and few viable substitutes.
A national-scale mineral potential assessment mapped areas across Australia that are prospective for unconformity-related rare-earth-element systems. The framework reduced the exploration search area by up to 95% while highlighting underexplored Precambrian basin margins as potential heavy rare earth targets.
The study found that projected U.S. light-duty EV adoption could cut life cycle GHG emissions by 61%, primary energy use by 20%, and total material extraction by 34% compared with an ICEV-only counterfactual. However, EVs increase demand for metals and critical minerals, making battery durability, recycling, and responsible mining central to maximizing climate gains.
A CITP working paper argues that deep-sea mining exposes a legal fault line between UNCLOS environmental duties and investment-law protections for mining investors. The paper warns that this mismatch could limit sponsoring states’ ability to strengthen safeguards as scientific evidence of seabed harm evolves.
A century-long legal and historical analysis shows that critical minerals are defined not only by scarcity but by shifting claims about security, trade, industrial power, and geopolitical control. The paper argues that today’s critical minerals rush is less a simple climate-transition story than a contest over US hegemony, extractive markets, supply chains, and the future of international cooperation.
This paper argues that the net-zero transition will require major new investment in energy transition minerals, but supply will remain constrained by financing gaps, geopolitical concentration, demand uncertainty, and ESG risks. It calls for responsible mining, sustainable finance, green premiums, and circular economy strategies to secure mineral supplies while reducing environmental and social harm.
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