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Cosmos » News » Rare earth minerals used in defence, energy and communications get government support
Ian Mannix
The Australian government has announced the latest round of funding to support its rare earth minerals strategy which is aimed at reducing sovereign risk, and enhancing local manufacturing supply and capability.
The Critical Minerals Strategy was launched in 2019, and is being updated, but funding has not been held back while that occurs.
Australia has some of the world’s largest recoverable resources of lithium, manganese, tungsten and vanadium, but the new announcement of $50 million in grant funding adds a stack of IUMS: neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, terbium, zirconium, niobium, and hafnium.
The sovereign risk focus is on China. The merger of three large Chinese corporations created the world’s second largest rare earths producer, accounting for 30% of China’s total rare earth metals production and 60-70% of its heavy rare earth metals production.
It has been reported that China accounts for 63% of the world’s rare earth mining, 85% of rare earth processing, and 92% of rare earth magnet production. Rare earth alloys and magnets that China controls are critical components in missiles, firearms, radars and stealth aircraft.
Minister for Resources Madeleine King says the Australian Critical Minerals Strategy will grow the sector, expand downstream processing and help meet future global demand.
“The successful projects will create jobs and opportunities across regional Australia and help Australia realise its ambitions to be a clean-energy superpower,” says King.
“The 13 projects to receive funding under the Critical Minerals Development Program include plans to produce key inputs to lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, and to support supply chains for advanced manufacturing for aerospace, medical, energy and defence applications,” King says.
The next iteration of the Critical Minerals Strategy, to be released shortly, is expected to explain how Australia can capture the significant opportunity of growing its critical minerals processing sector.
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The Department of Industry says while global demand for critical minerals is increasing, global supply is uncertain due to the market, technical and commercial risks of critical minerals projects.
The need for robust supply chains was also highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The successful projects are located in:
Western Australia
New South Wales
Queensland
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Originally published by Cosmos as Rare earth minerals used in defence, energy and communications get government support
Ian Mannix is the Digital News Editor at Cosmos.
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