Critical Minerals | 31 May 2024

What are Critical Minerals?

• About:
  • Critical minerals are those minerals which are essential for economic development and national security of a country.
  • The lack of availability of these minerals or even concentration of existence, extraction or processing of these minerals in few geographical locations may lead to supply chain vulnerability and disruption.

Why Critical Minerals are Important for India?

• Foundation of Modern Technology:
  • Critical minerals are the foundation on which modern technology is built.
  • They are used in a wide range of essential products, from mobile phones to solar panels to electric vehicle batteries to medical applications.
• Energy Transition:
  • They are vital to renewable energy technologies that will be required to meet the “Net Zero” commitments of many countries around the world.
  • The world needs critical minerals to build products like solar panels, semiconductors, wind turbines and advanced batteries for storage and transportation.
• Futuristic Economy:
  • The future global economy will be powered by technologies that depend on minerals such as lithium, graphite, cobalt, titanium and rare earth elements.
  • Critical minerals are the building blocks for the green and digital economy.
• Self Reliance:
  • Identification of critical minerals will help India to plan for the acquisition and preservation of such mineral assets taking into account the long term need of the country.
  • This will also in turn reduce the import dependency as India is 100% import dependent for certain elements.

What Factors Impact the Criticality of Minerals?

• For most of the countries the criticality is judged by two main parameters i.e., economic importance and supply risk.
  • In the Indian context also, the same two parameters were taken into consideration.
  • Two Main Parameters:
    • Economic Importance: It examines how raw materials are distributed to different industrial uses and evaluates the effects on that industry when certain minerals are unavailable in the supply chain.
    • Supply Risk: It examines how global production of raw materials is concentrated in certain countries, the governance and environmental practices of these supplier countries, reliance on imports and trade restrictions in other countries.

What are the Five Pillars of the Critical Minerals Value Chain?

• The entire value chain for critical minerals implies building capacity at each stage of the value chain namely geoscience and exploration, mineral extraction, intermediate processing, advanced manufacturing and recycling.
• Geoscience and Exploration:
  • Geological Mapping by the Geological Survey of India (GSI) has led to the identification of Obvious Geological Potential (OGP) areas which are the geologically favorable areas for various mineral commodities such as Gold, Base Metals, Platinum Group of Elements, Rare Earth Elements, Tin, Tungsten, Nickel, Cobalt etc.
  • The Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2021 has allowed the participation of the private sector as exploration agencies.
    • This has provided the required opening for private explorers to participate in mineral exploration with the support of National Mineral Exploration Trust (NMET).
• Mineral Extraction:
  • The two main modes of mining are surface and underground mining.
  • While specific operations may differ, they generally involve the use of heavy machinery for drilling, blasting, excavating, loading, and hauling the minerals away for processing.
• Intermediate Processing:
  • India’s industrial expertise needs to be leveraged in environmental, social and governance (ESG) frameworks so as to develop technology for refining critical minerals with minimal environmental footprint.
  • Metal refining technologies like vapor metallurgy are the future.
  • It has to be ensured that the lack of metal refining infrastructure does not become a stumbling block in building up the critical minerals ecosystem in India.
• Advanced Manufacturing:
  • Once processed, the metals make their way into numerous products.
  • Separated rare earth oxides that were converted into metals can be combined to create permanent magnets that are important components of Electric Vehicles (EVs) motors and wind turbines.
  • Sectors that use critical minerals for the manufacture of several vital components are:
    • Large scale electronics manufacturing
    • Telecom & Networking products
    • White goods (ACs & LED)
    • High efficiency solar PV modules
    • Advance Chemistry Cell (ACC) battery
• Recycling:
  • The International Energy Agency forecasts that recycled mineral volumes will become much more significant by 2040.
  • The global transition to a greener future is expected to increase the volume of end-of-life clean and digital technologies.
  • Therefore, a robust recycling policy is the need of the hour to increase access to the minerals and metals contained in post-consumer goods through robust recycling infrastructure and secondary markets and encourage their recovery from mining and industrial waste streams.

What are the Initiatives Taken for Critical Minerals in India?

• Planning Commission:
  • A Planning Commission report (now NITI Aayog) in 2011 highlighted the need for the assured availability of mineral resources for the country’s industrial growth.
    • 12 minerals and metals were identified as strategic minerals which included Tin, Cobalt, Lithium, Germanium, Gallium, Indium, Niobium, Beryllium, Tantalum, Tungsten, Bismuth and Selenium.
• Ministry of Mines:
  • The Ministry of Mines constituted a steering committee in 2011 to review the status of the availability of rare-earth elements (REE) and energy-critical elements.
  • The study titled “Rare Earths and Energy Critical Minerals: A Roadmap and Strategy for India” reviewed India’s production, consumption and reserves.
• Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW):
  • A study conducted by CEEW highlighted the paucity of research in India related to ensuring mineral resource security for the manufacturing sector.
  • The study identified 13 minerals that would become most critical by 2030.
    • 13 minerals included Rhenium, Beryllium, Rare Earths (Heavy), Germanium, Graphite, Tantalum, Zirconium, Chromium, Limestone, Niobium, Rare Earths (light), Silicon and Strontium.
• Geological Survey of India (GSI):
  • A strategic plan for enhancing REE exploration in India was jointly submitted by the Geological Survey of India (GSI) and Atomic Mineral Division (AMD).
  • It emphasized on securing rare earth elements for India.
• Centre for Socio and Economic Progress (CSEP):
  • In 2023, CSEP released a working paper titled “Assessing the Criticality of Minerals in India”.
  • It evaluated the criticality of 43 non-fuel minerals in India based on two dimensions i.e., economic importance for the Indian economy and supply risks.

What is the Mandate of the New Committee on Critical Minerals?

• The Ministry of Mines constituted a committee for the identification of critical and strategic minerals.
• The committee was chaired by Dr. Veena Kumari Dermal, Joint Secretary, M/o Mines.
• It concluded that categorization of critical minerals depends upon a number of factors such as availability, monopoly on resources, use for frontier technologies/ clean energy, substitutability, supply risk, recycling etc.
• Criteria used for identifying the critical minerals:
  • The committee carried out a three-stage assessment for identifying the minerals critical to India.
    • In the first stage, the critical mineral strategies of various countries such as Australia, USA, Canada, UK, Japan and South Korea were studied.
    • In the second stage, an inter ministerial consultation was carried out with different ministries to identify minerals critical to their sectors e.g., Ministry of Power, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Department of Atomic Energy etc.
    • In the third stage, a detailed statistical exercise was carried out for precise computation of various factors such as substitutability index, minerals cross-cutting index, import reliance etc.
• Based on the three-stage assessments process, a total of 30 minerals are found to be most critical for India out of which two minerals are critical as fertilizer minerals.

What are the Applications and Availability of Critical Minerals in India?

What are Additional Recommendations of the Committee?

• There is a need for establishing a National Institute on Critical Minerals on the lines of Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).
  • CSIRO is an Australian government corporate entity and one of the world’s multidisciplinary science and research organizations.
• A wing in the Ministry of Mines can be established as a Centre of Excellence for Critical Minerals (CECM).
  • It will focus on identifying more efficient ways for discovering next generation critical mineral deposits.
  • It will periodically update the list of critical minerals for India, preferably every three years, and notify the critical mineral strategy from time to time.

Conclusion:

India's focus on clean energy and reducing emissions has increased the importance of critical minerals, essential for electric vehicles and renewable energy systems. These minerals are vital for India's transition to a greener and more sustainable future. Understanding and utilizing these resources will fuel India's growth, competitiveness, and sustainable development.