Monthly Archives: February 2022

#TheWhiteHouse: FACT SHEET- Securing a Made in America Supply Chain for Critical Minerals

Biden-Harris Administration, Companies Announce Major Investments to Expand Domestic Critical Minerals Supply Chain, Breaking Dependence on China and Boosting Sustainable Practices.

Critical minerals provide the building blocks for many modern technologies and are essential to our national security and economic prosperity. These minerals—such as rare earth elements, lithium, and cobalt—can be found in products from computers to household appliances. They are also key inputs in clean energy technologies like batteries, electric vehicles, wind turbines, and solar panels. As the world transitions to a clean energy economy, global demand for these critical minerals is set to skyrocket by 400-600 percent over the next several decades, and, for minerals such as lithium and graphite used in electric vehicle (EV) batteries, demand will increase by even more—as much as 4,000 percent. The U.S. is increasingly dependent on foreign sources for many of the processed versions of these minerals. Globally, China controls most of the market for processing and refining for cobalt, lithium, rare earths and other critical minerals.

Today, President Biden will meet with Administration and state partners, industry executives, community representatives, labor leaders, and California Governor Gavin Newsom to announce major investments in domestic production of key critical minerals and materials, ensuring these resources benefit the community, and creating good-paying, union jobs in sustainable production.

Read more at: FACT SHEET: Securing a Made in America Supply Chain for Critical Minerals | The White House

Climate change: A giant donut-shaped machine just proved a near-limitless clean power source is possible

There’s no silver bullet to the climate crisis, but nuclear fusion may be the closest thing to it. In the quest for a near-limitless, zero-carbon source of reliable power, scientists have generated fusion energy before, but they have struggled for decades to sustain it for very long.

JET’s goal was to prove that nuclear fusion could be generated and sustained, ITER’s aim is to produce a tenfold return on energy, or 500 MW of fusion power from 50 MW of fuel put in.

The core of the JET tokamak machine in Culham, England.© Christopher Roux (CEA-IRFM)/EUROfusion The core of the JET tokamak machine in Culham, England.

Read more at: Climate change: A giant donut-shaped machine just proved a near-limitless clean power source is possible (msn.com)

#Blockchain #RareEarth scheme to certify sustainable output for EVs

LONDON, Feb 8 (Reuters) – An EU-funded certification scheme using blockchain is being developed for rare earths as automakers demand proof that materials used to make magnets for electric vehicles (EVs) are not linked to toxic pollution.

The system will set global standards and give confidence to consumers demanding sustainable products, two of the organisers told Reuters ahead of an official announcement on Tuesday.

The Circular System for Assessing Rare Earth Sustainability or CSyARES is due to be ready in about three years, the Rare Earth Industry Association (REIA) and Dutch supply chain traceability firm Circularise said.

Read more at: Blockchain rare earth scheme to certify sustainable output for EVs | Reuters