The Elements of Innovation Discovered
The Elements of Innovation Discovered
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Silicon Valley-based EV manufacturer to buy anode material from G1's coming graphite plant in Ohio. Toward its goal of creating sustainable mobility with cars that make the best possible use of the world's resources, California-based Lucid Motors has entered into an agreement to buy domestically produced graphite for the batteries powering its electric vehicles from a processing and recycling plant to be built by Graphite One Inc. in Ohio. "We are committed to accelerating... Full story
USGS study brings to light seismic risks to mineral supplies, as powerful earthquake hits Chile's copper and lithium region. On the same day that the United States Geological Survey released a study warning of seismic risks to global mineral supplies, a magnitude 7.3 earthquake struck near Chile's Escondida mine, the world's largest copper mine. This confirms the vulnerability of these resources to earthquakes, emphasizing the potential for significant supply chain... Full story
Rare earth elements (REEs) are essential building blocks for the world's electronics and a host of developing energy transition technologies. Found in smartphones, computers, screens, and batteries, they are essential in everything from smartwatches to wind turbines. This suite of 15 elements, however, are notoriously challenging to separate. Conventional processes are often chemical-heavy and energy-intensive, requiring multiple extraction and purification steps, which are sl... Full story
Funding to support additional research in extracting rare earth elements from coal byproducts, enhancing sustainability and domestic supply. As part of ongoing efforts to bolster domestic supplies of critical minerals, the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management has announced an additional $10 million investment aimed at lowering costs and reducing the environmental impact of producing rare earth elements and other critical minerals from coal... Full story
Decades-long clash continues over Colorado's uranium mines with implications for economy and national security. Mining near the Grand Canyon has been an embattled topic for decades, with an outcome that has implications for American jobs, the future of green energy, the economy, and national security. Uranium fuels nuclear power, a sustainable, efficient, plentiful and practically carbon-free energy. Miners like Colorado-based Energy Fuels Resources Inc. and the current... Full story
Microsoft's Climate Innovation Fund invests in recycling REEs from hard drives. Signaling its commitment to a circular economy, Microsoft has made a notable endorsement by strategically investing in Cyclic Materials, a promising startup in advanced metals recycling. Announced July 16, this move by Microsoft's Climate Innovation Fund highlights the tech giant's interest in sustainable innovation, particularly in recycling rare earth elements (REEs) from computer hard drives.... Full story
US Department of Defense recognizes potential of critical energy metal; National Science Foundation offers First Tellurium grant opportunity. Tellurium is a rare element with some powerful properties that are being leveraged in American-made solar panels, solid-state batteries that could significantly extend the range of electric vehicles, and thermoelectric generators that convert temperature variations into clean electricity. Recognizing tellurium's criticality to clean ener... Full story
Canadian locals leery of U.S. military investment in Lomiko Metals graphite project in Quebec. Initially, when Lomiko Metals Inc., a mining company based in Surrey, British Columbia announced plans to build a graphite mine in Quebec's Laurentides region, there were fears regarding potential environmental harm, especially to nearby lakes, but objections increased after locals found out the Pentagon was also involved in the project. In May, Lomiko Metals received a grant of...
PyroDelta is developing a tellurium-based thermoelectric generator that could transform prop downwash into longer drone range. Can tellurium-based thermoelectric generators provide extra lift to drones? First Tellurium believes they can and a company it created to advance research and development of thermoelectric devices for clean energy generation is developing a prototype specifically for drone applications. Thermoelectric generators transform the differences in temperature...
Reports demonstrate how growing demand, international cooperation, and social change are shaping the mining sector for the better. The continuing surge in critical minerals demand, anticipated to easily double by 2040, has significantly impacted the global mining sector while several world powers struggle to slip out from under geopolitical pressures on the battery industry and develop domestic supply chains. Propelled by technological expansion, the rate of demand growth for...
High-grade REE concentrate previously destined for China is now on its way to Saskatchewan for further processing. As home to the first rare earths mine in Canada, Vital Metal Ltd.'s Nechalacho project in Northwest Territories grabbed national headlines as the initial link of a burgeoning rare earth supply chain that would be completely independent of China. With this being hailed as a major milestone for Canada and its allies, Vital's announcement late last year that it...
Steady demand and Cyclone Megan supply disruptions are giving the metal market its day. The recent uptick in manganese prices resulting from Tropical Cyclone Megan causing significant damage to South32's Groote Eylandt Mining Company (GEMCO) manganese mine in Australia has prompted Jupiter Mines to release an update on the manganese market landscape, preempting its usual quarterly update. "We are expecting manganese prices to be higher than the historical average for the... Full story
Energy Fuels begins commercial neodymium-praseodymium production at White Mesa Mill; has sights set on world-class expansions. On the path to toward establishing its White Mesa Mill as a world-class hub for at least six of the metals critical to the energy transition, Energy Fuels Inc. is now producing commercial quantities of neodymium-praseodymium (NdPr), a pair of rare earths widely used in electric vehicle motors at the uranium production facility in southeastern Utah....
Adds silicon metal, high-purity iron ore, and phosphorous to 31 materials already on the list. Toward the goal of positioning itself as the "global supplier of choice" for the minerals and metals essential to modern technologies, especially the enormous quantities of raw materials being demanded by a world transitioning to clean energy, Canada has assembled an updated and expanded list of minerals critical to the northern nation. "By updating Canada's Critical Minerals List, w...
Partnership with Pyxera successfully tested a "circular logistics" model to upcycle critical minerals from electronic waste. Following a successful pilot program at the end of last year in Tennessee, FedEx, Pyxera Global, and several other companies have launched the Circular Supply Chain Coalition (CSCC) to boost the domestic supply of critical minerals for new tech hardware in the United States by "mining" discarded consumer electronics. CSCC's vision is to strengthen and ex...
Increasing responsible sourcing demand puts a spotlight on mining sector. Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) is a term that describes the subsistence mining sector, where locals work independently using low-tech methods of manual extraction, physical labor, and basic tools. Many rural communities are historically reliant on artisanal mining for their livelihoods. However, that same history also involves poor working conditions, human rights violations, predatory land...
BASF withdraws investment plans for Chile amid global slowdown of EV sales. A worldwide slowdown in electric vehicle sales has left lithium prices languishing at pre-2020 levels, quashing investments in bringing new supplies of the battery metal to market. The oversupply of lithium, in particular, is stifling new investment in the Lithium Triangle, a region of the Andes spanning parts of Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile. The triangle's lithium is concentrated in arid salt pans... Full story
New titanium alloys combine strength and ductility, offering potential advancements for aerospace and biomedical industries. In a breakthrough that could transform multiple industries, Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers, in collaboration with ATI Specialty Materials, have developed new titanium alloys that break the conventional tradeoff between strength and ductility, potentially revolutionizing applications from aerospace to biomedical equipment. Titanium... Full story
A few investors have been buying up cobalt amid battery metal slump. While sustainable domestic mines like Jervois Idaho Cobalt Operations in the U.S. fight to stick to opening targets and investors struggle with problematic environmental and social costs of battery metals from overseas, a glut of overproduced cobalt has driven prices down, and savvy investors are buying up physical material for when demand surges or geopolitical issues come to a head. Anchorage Capital... Full story
Countries combine interests in security, defense, and the growing need for raw materials and processing for the oncoming energy transition. Australia is expanding its cooperation with India on critical minerals, batteries, and electric vehicles, batteries. Critical minerals such as copper, cobalt, lithium, nickel, and rare earth elements are essential components in today's rapidly growing clean energy technologies, from adapting power grids to powering EVs. Both countries have... Full story
Oak Ridge National Laboratory experiments demonstrate that critical metal can withstand prolonged reactor heat and radiation. Conventional nuclear reactors and next-generation modular and microreactors rely on thousands of sensors delivering data to sophisticated electronic monitoring devices for safe and efficient operations. Traditional silicon-based electronics, however, do not hold up to the heat and radiation emitted from the core and must be installed at a distance. New... Full story
Auto manufacturers take sides on the question facing the industry – are deep sea resources necessary to compete in the global EV race? A proposal to limit the use of minerals pulled from the seabed has been making its rounds in boardrooms from Tesla to GM, asking big names in the electric vehicle game to commit to a moratorium on minerals sourced from the deep sea. It lost in a landslide, with 78% of Tesla shareholders voting against the proposal and 6% in favor. While c... Full story
Georgia Tech researchers forge copper-infused, nanotextured stainless-steel material to stem rising tide of deadly infections. Researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology have created a stainless-steel alloy infused with copper to prevent bacterial infections caused by surface contamination. The new metal has potential to be used to create an effective, scalable, and sustainable solution to the growing threat of deadly antibiotic-resistant microbes adhering to surfaces in... Full story
Solution-focused NGO agrees to help manufacture and sell tellurium-based thermoelectric generator with green potential. Amongst the rarest of stable elements on the periodic table, tellurium has quietly emerged as a secret ingredient of the clean energy future. This includes serving as a semiconductor in thermoelectric generators – solid-state devices that transform waste heat from vehicle engines and industrial processes into clean electricity. This promising green energy t... Full story
Returns to a Yukon property with the same advantageous nickel mineral as is found at its Baptiste project in B.C. FPX Nickel Corp.'s search for a unique mineral that offers a cleaner source of the nickel that is in high demand due to its use in lithium-ion batteries has led the company back to Canada's Yukon. FPX is best known for its work at Baptiste, an advance-staged exploration project in central British Columbia that shows the potential of being a significant future... Full story
