The UK should follow US lead on minerals innovation

One of the biggest challenges facing western economies, including Britain, is obtaining critical minerals for the key technologies of the fourth industrial revolution, from batteries and advanced manufacturing to AI. Currently the business of mining, processing and supplying these minerals is dominated by China, which fully understands the significant economic leverage this gives it.

In Washington DC last week, the Council on Foreign Relations hosted a high-powered discussion of its new report, Leapfrogging China’s Critical Minerals Dominance – How Innovation Can Secure US Supply Chains. Audrey Robertson, an unusually impressive member of the Trump administration, made clear that this is a top priority for the US government, with strong bipartisan support. Robertson leads a new Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation created to join up innovation efforts across government into a single joined-up approach.

One focus is finding ways to cheaply extract and recycle minerals from waste. This “urban mining” could sharply reduce the need for imports. A second is developing ways to give new life to what are considered exhausted reserves of minerals – much as fracking technology vastly increased the oil and gas that could be extracted economically from reserves, helping turn the US from big importer into the leading exporter.

Britain should follow the US lead with similar urgency. The government has set a target of meeting 10% of annual demand for critical minerals domestically yet has put relatively little money behind catalysing innovation. London, a global centre of mining finance, should be incentivised to deploy more capital to funding UK critical minerals innovation domestically, on recycling and mining technologies. There are already some promising examples – such as Cornish Lithium’s Direct Lithium Extraction process – but there could be many more.

Photograph by Christinne Muschi/Bloomberg via Getty Images