Grand challenges in anticipating and responding to critical materials supply risks
Anthony Y. Ku, Elisa Alonso, Roderick G. Eggert, T. E. Graedel, Komal Habib, Alessandra Hool, T ocirc ru Muta, Dieuwertje Schrijvers, Luis Tercero, Tatiana Vakhitova, Constanze Veeh
Abstract
Critical materials are resources that are vulnerable to supply disruptions, where those disruptions can have significant adverse impacts on society. In the coming years, materials supply risks associated with the energy transition and geopolitics are likely to intensify and new risks are expected to emerge. This perspective identifies three "Grand Challenges" that represent frontier areas for critical materials research and highlights some promising new directions for each area: (1) extending visibility downstream to value-added materials beyond elemental forms; (2) quantifying the risks associated with market dynamics; and (3) developing tools to inform policy interventions. Emerging digital capabilities have the potential to play a significant role addressing long-standing limitations in data quality and access to unlock progress on these challenges. Progress in these areas can equip decision-makers across industry, government, and finance with tools to understand the complexity and uncertainty introduced by these real-world challenges.