Michelle Michot Foss, “Testimony to the US House Committee on Energy and Commerce” (Houston: Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, June 21, 2024).
This testimony was delivered at the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Hearing on “Securing America’s Critical Materials Supply Chains and Economic Leadership” on June 13, 2024.
Energy transitions are complex and will vary hugely across regions and countries. Supply chains matter. Energy transitions require materials transitions. Sustainability is multi-faceted. Innovation and growth will shape the future of energy (and economies). The main questions for minerals and materials supply chains are these.
The minerals and mining industries face challenges that are definitive with respect to supply chains. It is our belief that these challenges need better understanding in order to craft and implement appropriate responses, much less to be strategic. The grand challenges are: Minerals occurrences, commercialization, maturing assets, project cycle times, China’s dominance, competitiveness (a U.S. dilemma), sustainability, markets, and old and new insecurities. There will be success cases for mining, minerals, and materials and potential breakthroughs. The path will be much longer and more arduous than typically presented to public audiences. Much of the political debate around materials challenges is embedded in conventional wisdom that use of fossil fuels must end. “Ending fossil fuels” affects deliverability of materials from hydrocarbons value chains, along with much else, not least national and economic security and resilience.
Many ideas exist for how to innovate in minerals and metals extraction. “In situ” mining has long been held out as a possibility for fuels (uranium and oil shale) and even essential metals. Capturing remaining products embedded in mined waste is a high and increasing priority but bears many technical and environmental considerations. Mining and processing are targets for digitization and automation. Technology does not alter underlying geology, but it can stretch the boundaries for commercial recoverability. For the ultimate geology game changer, frontiers — the oceans, space? — attract plenty of imagination. Recycling is held up as a key solution for minerals and metals and most views are that we cannot pursue metals-dependent energy futures without it. Recycling is an industrial activity that entails its own requirements and bears its own sustainability tradeoffs.
Could we leapfrog challenges in metals with advanced materials? Carbon-based materials predominate across sectors, segments, and end use applications. We have swapped plastics for metals for decades to reduce weight and cost and improve performance. Carbon nanotube fiber, CNTF, could unlock new options for applications that require electrical and thermal conductivity and tensile strength, for all of which CNTF excels. In all, governments should place materials first for policy making before attempting to pick technology “winners.”
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