The Energy Transition Won’t Happen Without Secure Mineral Supply Chains

The Energy Transition Won’t Happen Without Secure Mineral Supply Chains

Share to Linkedin The very real issues related to the supply chains of an array of critical minerals needed to facilitate the "energy transition" that has become such an en vogue subject in 2021 receive very little attention from the energy-related news media. When I asked Lewis Black, CEO and President of Almonty, a major global producer of the mineral tungsten, why he thinks that's the case, he responded by saying that "If you're telling everyone you're going to have the greatest garden party ever, the last thing they would want is somebody saying 'yeah, but it could rain.'" Perhaps he's right - after all, no one likes being the skunk at the garden party. The media aren't the only part of the information supply chain avoiding the minerals supply chain topic. Robert Bryce, writing at RealClearEnergy of the myriad fallacies contained in the new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) titled "Net Zero by 2050," notes that the models used by the UN-affiliated IEA "... routinely ignore the myriad supply-chain problems that would come from attempting a massive increase in the use of solar panels, including the sourcing of polysilicon from China, and in particular, from Xinjiang province,