In June 2000, Magnequench uprooted the production facilities for GA Powders from Idaho Falls to a newly constructed plant in Tianjin, China.
Critical materials have been described in various ways, with perhaps the clearest being the following two definitions:
A critical or strategic material is a commodity whose lack of availability during a national emergency would seriously affect the economic, industrial, and defensive capability of a country.
The critical materials are natural resources that have a threatened supply availability and are a necessity for technology that is experiencing growing demand.
The French Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minières rates high tech metals as critical, or not, based on three criteria:
- Possibility (or not) of substitution
- Irreplaceable functionality
- Potential supply risks
What are the Critical Materials?
In its first Critical Materials Strategy Report, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) focused on materials used in four clean energy technologies:
- wind turbines - permanent magnets
- electric vehicles - permanent magnets & advanced batteries
- solar cells – thin film semi conductors
- energy efficient lighting - phosphors
The DOE says they selected these particular components for two reasons:
- Deployment of the clean energy technologies that use them is projected to increase, perhaps significantly, in the short, medium and long term
- Each uses significant quantities of rare earth metals or other key materials
The DOE defines “criticality” as a measure that combines importance to the clean energy economy and risk of supply disruption.
A Report by the APS Panel on Public Affairs and the Materials Research Society coined the term “energy-critical element” (ECE) to describe a class of chemical elements that currently appear critical to one or more new, energy related technologies.
This report was limited to elements that have the potential for major impact on energy systems and for which a significantly increased demand might strain supply, causing price increases or unavailability, thereby discouraging the use of some new technologies.
The focus of the report was on energy technologies with the potential for large-scale deployment so the elements they listed are energy critical
Critical Raw Materials for the EU listed 14 raw materials which are deemed critical to the European Union (EU).
“Raw materials are an essential part of both high tech products and every-day consumer products, such as mobile phones, thin layer photovoltaics, Lithium-ion batteries, fibre optic cable, synthetic fuels, among others. But their availability is increasingly under pressure.”
Taking all the metals, from all three lists, gives us:
Antimony
beryllium
Cerium
Cobalt
Dysprosium
Europium
fluorspar
Gadolinium
Gallium
Germanium
Graphite |
Helium
Indium
Lanthanum
Lithium
Magnesium
Neodymium
Niobium
Palladium
Platinum
Praseodymium |
Rhenium
Samarium
Selenium
Silver
Tantalum
Tellurium
Terbium
tungsten
Yttrium |
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