Minerals, Critical Minerals, and the U.S. Economy (2008) / Chapter Skim
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1 Critical Minerals
1 Critical Minerals
Pages 19-38
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From page 19... ...
CHAPTER 1 Critical Minerals INTRODUCTION Archaeologists and historians describe early civilizations and periods of human history using terms such as the Stone Age, the Copper Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age. Such descriptions reflect the fundamental importance of nonfuel minerals, metals, and materials technology and applications.
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of the National Research Council (NRC) on the topic of nonfuel minerals, their availability and use in domestic applications, and their continued national importance in a global mineral market.
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This first chapter reviews some of the important issues the study committee has extracted from previous NRC reports on the topic of nonfuel minerals and the mineral life cycle, the committee's interpretation of the term "critical mineral," and the framework in which the committee found it most useful to determine a mineral's criticality. PREVIOUS AND ONGOING WORK A number of NRC reports published during the last two decades have analyzed or evaluated a variety of national nonfuel mineral issues.
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Other essential components of the cellular telephone include ceramic magnetic switches that contain rare earth elements (REs) and indium, and the base stations for the cell phone networks that also use the element indium, as well as tantalum.
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However, supply restrictions for specific minerals, should they occur, will slow the development of better systems that use restricted minerals. At the same time, higher mineral costs could also motivate the development of new technologies that incorporate mineral substitutes yielding the same performance as the restricted mineral.
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5. Describe and evaluate the current mineral and mineral product databases and other sources of mineral information available for decision making on mineral policy issues. 6. Identify types of information and possible research initiatives that will enhance understanding of critical minerals and mineral products in a global context.
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The broad study task asks the committee to determine which minerals could be considered critical to the nation and what, if any, additional information and research might be appropriate for the federal government to collect and conduct to mitigate disruptive fluctuations in the supply of critical minerals to key U.S. economic sectors.
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report Materials Count: The Case for Material Flow Analysis. The importance of considering the entire materials cycle in the analysis of nonfuel minerals and mineral criticality can be appreciated by examining the copper cycle shown in Figure 1.1.
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plus recycled material (green arrows) and the imported material in semifinished or finished products (blue arrow)
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WHAT IS A CRITICAL MINERAL? Recognizing that a nonfuel mineral or mineral product can be obtained as either primary or secondary material, what does it mean to say that one of these minerals or mineral products is a critical mineral?
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A review of some of these definitions is useful before describing the definition of critical mineral adopted by the committee for this report. DeYoung et al.
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In accordance with these definitions, a critical material may or may not be strategic, while a strategic mineral will always be critical. This study addresses critical minerals, as opposed to those that may more narrowly be considered strategic, and may differ slightly, for example, from the definition of strategic used by the Industrial College of the Armed Forces (ICAF, 2006)
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In turn, the probability of a restriction in the supply of a critical mineral is more likely to be assessed as high if the aggregate demand for key applications represents a relatively large proportion of the overall supply of the mineral that meets the required specifications. Examples presented later in this report also emphasize the distinction between minerals that are essential to the economy in certain applications and yet are not critical, at least at present, because the risk of supply restriction is low.
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This concept of importance at a product level significantly includes the net benefits customers receive from using a product -- the benefits to human health of nutritional supplements or pollution control equipment, the convenience of cell phones, the durability of an automobile, and so on. A nonfuel mineral can be important at a scale larger than a product as well as at the product level.
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For a given adjustment period (short term to long term) , the critical minerals are those that are relatively difficult to substitute and are subject to supply risks.
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In this example, mineral A is more critical than mineral B More specific descriptions of the parameters used to evaluate mineral supply restrictions and their impacts are presented in Chapters 2-4.
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The meeting gathered a spectrum of panelists representing mineral product "users" from the private sector, and individuals who could speak about the sources for minerals and mineral products, the various potential constraints on mineral supply, and the data, research, and information on mineral availability and prices that can be provided to the public. One of the main questions the committee posed to the panelists was with regard to definitions of the term critical mineral as might apply to specific manufacturing sectors or consumers and u sers of mineral-containing products.
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While the report focuses on nonfuel minerals, the committee does, in a very limited manner, consider uranium production and use because uranium often occurs in association with other metallic minerals and demonstrates the importance of a range of minerals and mineral-based products without which it would not be possible to maintain or increase nuclear power generation. Informed planning to maintain and enhance domestic economic growth requires knowledge of potential resource disruptions.
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This report is designed to give federal agencies, policy makers, industry, academia, and the general public a framework in which to evaluate critical minerals and to indicate which types of data and research are appropriate to help ensure continuing mineral supplies and to develop suitable substitutes. REFERENCES Chandler, A.J., T.T.
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Geological Survey's Mineral Resources Program. Washington D.C.: The National Academies Press, 153 pp.
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