Critical Mineral Flows

Why energy models need to account for trade wars and geopolitics

Jones, E.C., Jr. (2025). Climate and trade policy for risk management: The need for geopolitical analytical frameworks for supply chain and energy system modeling. Current Sustainable/Renewable Energy Reports, 12, 9. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40518-025-00256-x

Climate and trade policy now go together; this review finds energy and supply-chain models have no framework to capture it and calls for one.

• China now produces about 29% of the world's manufacturing value added, nearly twice the US share (16%), after its output grew about 680% since 2000.
• China also makes more than 40% of the world's intermediate goods, so even products assembled at home depend on imports from geopolitical competitors.
• Since 2000, energy use and emissions per person and carbon intensity have fallen in every G7 country, while China's, India's and Indonesia's emissions have risen roughly fivefold since 1990.
• Each lever trades one risk for another: a carbon border charge can raise costs for limited global emissions benefit, and tariffs raise clean-technology prices and slow adoption.

• PaperRead the paper (Springer; subscription access)

Who mines the battery metals, and where the ore goes

Akhter, R., Palli, S.R., Walanjuwani, M., & Jones, E.C., Jr. (2026). Mapping the supply chain of lithium-ion battery metals from mine to primary processing by country and corporation. Commodities, 5(1), 2. https://doi.org/10.3390/commodities5010002

Which countries and companies control six battery metals? Copper and aluminum are widely spread; cobalt and manganese are the most concentrated.

• Copper (HHI 457) and aluminum (HHI 312) production is spread across many companies, making them the least concentrated of the six metals.
• Cobalt and manganese are the most concentrated of the six, both in the moderate band once cobalt's index is corrected (see the note): one company, CMOC, produces about 39% of the world's cobalt, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo supplies 220 of 290 thousand tonnes, most of it shipped to China for refining.
• Manganese is moderately concentrated (HHI 2,096), with the French company Eramet alone producing about 31% of world output.
• Lithium (1,241) and nickel (1,150) score below the moderate threshold worldwide, yet Tsingshan alone produces about 30% of the world's nickel, and lithium ore from Australia and South America goes overwhelmingly to China for refining.

Correction note. The paper's Table 13 gives cobalt a global HHI of 3,214 (highly concentrated). Its own Table 7 company shares, on its stated world total of 290 kt, give 2,031 (moderately concentrated); the 3,214 comes from an older world total of about 230.5 kt. With the correction, no metal falls in the highly concentrated band; cobalt and manganese are the two most concentrated, both moderately. The paper's text also calls nickel (1,150) moderately concentrated, but by the paper's own thresholds it is unconcentrated.

• PaperRead the paper (open access)

A policy brief: secure the middle of the battery supply chain

Jones, E.C., Jr. (2026). The missing link to secure battery minerals: Intermediate processing. UMD–GMU Boot Camp Policy Brief.

Drawing on five lab studies, the brief argues U.S. policy should target intermediate processing, where China's dominance is greatest, rather than mining or final assembly.

• China controls 53–72% of critical-mineral refining and precursor production, a midstream bottleneck that threatens supply security more than mineral scarcity.
• Recommends incentives for 'dual-feedstock' plants that can refine both imported ore and domestically recycled material into battery-ready precursors.
• Treats recycling as a domestic source of battery materials: in the lab's lithium model, a cost-only plan builds no recycling, while a lower-emissions plan builds 243 recycling facilities by 2050.
• Calls for regional black-mass preprocessing hubs and a 'circular resource' classification for end-of-life batteries shipped for domestic recovery.

Correction note. The brief describes cobalt's concentration index as well above the 'highly concentrated' threshold, repeating the 3,214 printed in the 2026 Commodities paper. Corrected from that paper's own company shares, it is 2,031, which is moderately concentrated (see the correction above).