The Center conducts analyses of and develops information on minerals-related issues, including minerals conservation, sustainability, availability, materials flow, and the economic health of the U.S. minerals industry.
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Rare earth element sources, end-use demand trends, and hydrometallurgical separations
Rare earth elements are increasing in demand due to the movement towards electrification. In particular, there is a growing need for high performance rare earth permanent magnets for motors and generators used to convert electrical energy to mechanical energy, and vice versa. Current trends in rare earth demand are reviewed and discussed as the specific rare earth metal demand can influence the ch
Authors
James Vaughan, Vitor L. Gontijo, Rick Valenta, Elisa Alonso
China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and artisanal cobalt mining from 2000 through 2020
From 2000 through 2020, demand for cobalt to manufacture batteries grew 26-fold. Eighty-two percent of this growth occurred in China and China’s cobalt refinery production increased 78-fold. Diminished industrial cobalt mine production in the early-to-mid 2000s led many Chinese companies to purchase ores from artisanal cobalt miners in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), many of whom have
Authors
Andrew L. Gulley
Rock-to-metal ratios of the rare earth elements
The relative quantities of ore mined and waste rock (i.e., overburden) removed to produce the rare earth elements—their rock-to-metal ratios—were calculated for 21 individual operations or regions covering nearly all mine production in 2018. The results indicate that the rock-to-metal ratios for the total rare earth elements ranged from a low of 1.6 × 101 to a high of 3.6 × 103, with operations in
Authors
Nedal T. Nassar, Graham W. Lederer, Abraham De Jesus Padilla, Joseph Gambogi, Daniel James Cordier, Jaime L. Brainard, Joseph D. Lessard, Ryan Charab
Mineral commodity summaries 2023
Each mineral commodity chapter of the 2023 edition of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Mineral Commodity Summaries (MCS) includes information on events, trends, and issues for each mineral commodity as well as discussions and tabular presentations on domestic industry structure, Government programs, tariffs, 5-year salient statistics, and world production, reserves, and resources. The MCS is the
Mapping first to final uses for rare earth elements, globally and in the United States
Estimating the material flows of rare earth elements (REEs) is essential to understanding which industries are most vulnerable to potential REE supply disruptions which, in turn, may inform policy recommendations aimed at reducing the supply risk. However, the REEs are a group of mineral commodities characterized by highly uncertain estimates of supply and demand due to the REE market's complexity
Authors
Elisa Alonso, David G. Pineault, Joseph Gambogi, Nedal T. Nassar
Dynamic material flow analysis of tantalum in the United States from 2002 to 2020
Tantalum has received considerable attention due to risks associated with its supply chain. In 2020 ∼70% of global tantalum supply originated in Africa, with 40% produced in the Democratic Republic of Congo alone. The United States has relied entirely on imports since the 1950s. However, quantifying total domestic consumption is problematic because refined tantalum compounds do not have unique tar
Authors
Abraham De Jesus Padilla, Nedal T. Nassar
Materials flow in the United States—A global context, 1900–2020
IntroductionDuring the last 12 decades (1900–2020), the amounts of raw materials used in the United States have increased significantly due to economic development, technological innovations, and population growth. Data on materials are presented here to provide an overview of the annual quantities (measured in physical terms) required for the standard of living in the United States and to provide
Authors
Grecia R. Matos
Embedded critical material flow: The case of niobium, the United States, and China
Niobium, often classified as critical, is typically embedded within steels essential for infrastructure and transportation. Most niobium-consuming countries are import-dependent on primary stage niobium, meaning traditional material flow analysis, which often excludes critical commodities embedded within products of large-scale industries, would miss important flows in the fabrication and manufact
Authors
Dalton Miles Mccaffrey, Nedal T. Nassar, Simon M. Jowitt, Abraham De Jesus Padilla, Laurence R. Bird
Streamlined approach for assessing embedded consumption of lithium and cobalt in the United States
In today's complex global supply chains, time and data intensive analyses are required to understand global flows of mineral commodities from mine to consumer, particularly for mineral commodities in products (electronics, automobiles, etc.) that contain multiple parts with many mineral commodities. National and regional analyses require additional time and data to incorporate international trade
Authors
Elisa Alonso, David G. Pineault, Nedal T. Nassar
One hundred years of cobalt production in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Cobalt is an indispensable element for the manufacture of strategic technologies including advanced batteries, jet engines, rare-earth permanent magnets, petroleum catalysts, and tool parts that enable construction, manufacturing, and mining. Cobalt routinely scores high in mineral supply risk assessments due to the concentration of cobalt mine production in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (D
Authors
Andrew L. Gulley
A model to assess industry vulnerability to disruptions in mineral commodity supplies
Mineral commodity supply disruptions have the potential to ripple through and impact the economy in many ways. Industrial vulnerability is a crucial component of mineral commodity criticality tools as it provides guidance on the economic importance of these commodities to regional criticality indices. Using an economic model that links mineral commodity end-use data to input-output tables and a li
Authors
Ross Manley, Elisa Alonso, Nedal T. Nassar
Examining industry vulnerability: A focus on mineral commodities used in the automotive and electronics industries
Automotive manufacturing is material-intensive and dependent on a broad range of mineral commodities. Moreover, the automotive manufacturing industries are reliant on complex and sometimes opaque multi-tiered global supply chains. Among the many industries on which automotive supply chains depend are the electronics and semiconductor industries, which are themselves material-intensive and reliant
Authors
Ross Manley, Elisa Alonso, Nedal T. Nassar