Construction workers install equipment at a construction site for a lithium battery project on April 6, 2023 in Renshou County, Meishan City, China’s Sichuan Province.
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US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said on Wednesday that the country is “very concerned” about China’s grip on the global supply chain of critical minerals.
His comments come as demand is skyrocketing for minerals and raw materials vital to the energy transition. The end uses of metals such as nickel, copper, lithium and cobalt are varied and include electric vehicles, wind turbines and solar panels.
China is the undisputed leader in the critical minerals supply chain, accounting for approximately 60% of the world’s production of rare earth minerals and materials. US officials have previously warned that this poses a strategic challenge amid a shift towards low-carbon energy sources.
“It’s one of the elements of the supply chain that we’re very concerned about in the United States. We don’t want to be overly dependent on countries whose values we may not share,” Granholm told CNBC’s Silvia Amaro on Wednesday when asked about The Domain of China as a critical supplier of minerals.
Speaking on the sidelines of the International Energy Agency’s 2024 ministerial meeting in Paris, France, Granholm said the United States is updating its regulations, including a 150-year-old mining law to ensure “sustainable” mining and efficient” of critical minerals. minerals.
“But it also means that we will be collaborating with friends, like Australia, like Canada, and that’s one of the issues we’re raising here at the International Energy Agency,” Granholm said.
“We know that all countries want to ensure that we have critical supplies of critical minerals and that we are allowed to diversify supplies of those supplies. Both internationally and domestically, that is our goal.”
Jennifer Granholm, U.S. Secretary of Energy, during the EEI 2023 event in Austin, Texas, U.S., Monday, June 12, 2023.
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As part of a rapid increase in demand for critical minerals, the IEA has warned that today’s supply falls short of what is needed to transform the energy sector. This is because there is a relatively high geographic concentration of the production of many elements of the energy transition.
Most rare earth reserves are located in China, for example, while Vietnam, Brazil and Russia are also the top countries for rare earths based on the volume of reserves.
Asked how quickly the United States can ramp up cooperation and production to ensure it doesn’t lose out in the race for critical minerals, Granholm responded: “Cooperation can be addressed quickly. Manufacturing in the US will take a little longer.”
“However, we firmly believe that both the extraction and processing of these critical minerals must be addressed, both by the United States and our allies. And that is why we are working closely to ensure that we have identified which raw materials [or] critical minerals we need to make our transition to a clean energy economy.”