IEA head calls for critical minerals supply diversification

The concentration of critical minerals production in a few geographic regions poses a threat to the world’s energy security, especially as the clean energy transition continues to move forward, warns the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA).Speaking at the Future of Energy Security summit held in London this week, IEA executive director Fatih Birol highlighted the strong expansion of clean energy technologies in recent years — while remarkable — also creates a new problem: the urgent need for raw materials.“To manufacture this new clean energy technologies, you need critical minerals,” Birol said during the two-day event co-hosted by the British government. “We look at where the critical minerals are produced, where they are refined and where they are manufactured, that is a huge concentration, and this is something that we think is risky.”According to the IEA, the world’s supply of critical minerals — such as copper, cobalt, lithium and rare earth elements — are currently dominated by China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Australia, Chile, Indonesia and, to a lesser extent, the US.This concentration of raw materials, said Birol, represents a “new emerging energy security challenge”, and the reason why the Agency launched its critical minerals program.“Currently, we are A) not able to keep up with the demand, and B) the ability of manufacturing these critical minerals is concentrated in one single country or two,” Birol said in a speech last year when announcing the program.In response to this challenge, the IEA urged nations to focus on policies that promote the diversification of mineral sources and move away from “critical mineral monopolies.”“Most of these critical minerals are currently controlled by just one or two countries and it is important to ensure diversity in clean energy,” Birol told reporters from Turkish state-owned news agency Anadolu on Friday.“This is not about whether a country is good or bad. If there is a technical problem or a geopolitical development in that country, entire energy supply chains could be jeopardized,” he said.On the sidelines of the summit, Birol noted China’s dominance in the critical minerals sector and its contribution to low-cost clean energy technologies. The Asian nation is the main producer for 30 out of 50 minerals deemed critical by the US, and is the world’s top miner and processor of rare earths.Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Mining.com Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Mining.com