The US, EU and China should recognise their critical mineral status

Earlier this year, the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the science agency for the United States (US) government’s Department of the Interior, released an updated list of 50 mineral commodities deemed critical to the US economy and national security.
In the US, critical minerals are defined by the Energy Act of 2020 as those non-fuel minerals which have a supply chain that is vulnerable to disruption and which serve as 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 US.
This year’s list – which will be updated again in three years’ time – features the platinum group metals (PGMs) platinum, palladium, iridium, rhodium and ruthenium as individual elements for the first time, reflecting the increasing importance of PGMs as raw materials in technologies that support the clean energy transition.