New Zealand is attending international talks in the US this week about a strategic alliance on critical minerals.
Earlier in the week, the US announced a stockpile of rare earth elements, and plans for a critical minerals trading bloc.
The NZ government released a new critical minerals list and strategy last year, which included a goal to double mineral exports by 2035.
The SMC has gathered comments from two local experts.
Professor JR Rowland, University of Auckland, Regional Vice-President Society of Economic Geologists, comments:
Conflict of interest statement: “No conflicts of interest.”
Professor Nicola Gaston, Director of the MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, comments:
“The critical minerals conversation, and all the attention given to it internationally, is definitely important. All technologies are dependent in the end on natural resources, and this was true already before the energy transition, although battery technologies in particular have made our dependence on certain elements clearer than ever.
“Export controls on the rare earth elements (also known as the lanthanides), as well as on technologically important elements such as cobalt, nickel, and lithium, have stimulated thinking about how to respond in a way that provides certainty to industry. The Trump administration’s ‘Project Vault’ is the latest version of this.
“Does it mean that New Zealand should be revisiting our mineral deposits, and considering further exploitation? That is a much trickier question. Of course, it could be seen to be hypocritical to take advantage of environmentally damaging mining for technologically critical elements done in countries with less protection for the environment. But on the other hand, only we are responsible for the damage done here in Aotearoa New Zealand — and we have extensive areas of conservation land for very good reasons. We should be very wary of the broader costs of mining — but I would not suggest that new mines could not be appropriate, outside of the conservation estate and where the full costs of environmental protection and remediation are entirely built in.
“Unfortunately, much of Minister Shane Jones’ commentary — the infamous “Bye, Freddie” — around the Fast Track legislation suggests that that is not the plan.
“A more specific concern for me as a materials scientist is that these critical minerals are not what is critical at all. It is the materials, and more specifically, the quantum mechanical energies of the electrons within them, that are required for renewable energy or computational hardware purposes. And these electronic states can and are engineered — materials scientists have been engineering alternatives to expensive, rare, and toxic elements such as platinum, or iridium, or mercury and cadmium for many decades already.
“Even in New Zealand, we have start ups such as TasmanIon which is developing aluminium-based batteries to reduce our reliance on lithium. Or Zincovery and Mint Innovation are fantastic examples of companies taking technological and industrial waste, and recovering the valuable elements needed from those sources. All elements are present in finite amounts on our planet, so this is always going to have to be the long-term plan for most of what we use.
“When it comes to new materials, the advent of AI and quantum computing will revolutionise our ability to engineer new materials and thereby lessen our dependence on specific minerals. Indeed, I would say that this is already under way.”
Conflict of interest statement: “Nicola Gaston receives funding from the Tertiary Education Commission as the Director of the MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology. She also receives funding from the Marsden Fund. All research funding goes to the University of Auckland to pay the costs of the research she is employed to do.”