AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Gallium, germanium, antimony - those are the minerals China says it's banning from export to the U.S. Those, along with what are called superhard materials - and China says it's going to subject graphite exports to stricter review. Abigail Hunter heads the Center for Critical Mineral Strategy at SAFE, an organization that advocates for energy security. Welcome to the program.
ABIGAIL HUNTER: Thank you so much for having me, Ayesha.
RASCOE: What do we use these minerals for - gallium, germanium, antimony - and how do you think American consumers will feel the effect of China's decision?
HUNTER: So germanium and gallium are predominantly used in electronics, semiconductors, infrared, solar cells and weapons systems. And then antimony is used in a lot of ammunition, infrared missiles, nuclear weapons, night-vision goggles - so more of those military applications.
RASCOE: OK.
HUNTER: And then graphite's used predominantly in steel-making, and then high amounts of demand are expected for graphite with the EV deployment rates for lithium-ion batteries.
RASCOE: OK. And when you say electronics, are you talking about, like, cell phones or smartwatches or whatever we got on that we're carrying around?
HUNTER: Like, fiber optics.
RASCOE: Fiber optics.
HUNTER: Yeah. I mean...
RASCOE: Oh. So, like, streaming.
HUNTER: Yeah. These are very tiny, tiny amounts of minerals that are used in a - in a multitude of different applications and hard to kind of narrow down specifically, especially for these smaller ones. But the thing that I think is most important - the advanced semiconductors that we're using increasingly, germanium and gallium are really, really important.
RASCOE: OK. So Beijing made this move the day after President Biden clamped down on Chinese access to advanced American technology. Was this a tit-for-tat, or is China's eye more on the incoming administration and the threats that Donald Trump has made about trade with China?
HUNTER: I would say it was definitely the tat for the tit that the Biden administration put on with increased controls in coordination with the Netherlands and Japan on semiconductor export controls. However, I think that Beijing is preparing for increased tariff action and that dynamic to kind of - the tensions to increase with the incoming administration returning to office. So a little bit of both, but definitely, I would say, first and foremost, in response to our actions.
RASCOE: So you and your organization want the U.S. to source these minerals here. But do we have these minerals available domestically and a way to extract them that, you know, could happen without really destroying the environment?
HUNTER: The U.S. does have an abundance of minerals. However, we can't be self-sufficient necessarily in all of this. It's going to be really, really important to work with friends, allies, like-minded countries to secure mineral supply chains broadly. And on top of that, geology's quite stubborn. Yes, we can have some of this stuff in our subsoil, but that doesn't mean it's easy for us to get it out with challenges with permitting regimes in this country, community opposition to extraction processes, and then also not necessarily having the processing of what it takes to turn these minerals into something that's actually valuable and used in these advanced technologies. We don't really have a lot of that here, either.
Really important to emphasize that with those three main minerals - they're byproducts for zinc, aluminum and gold. And so you'll have germanium and gallium sitting in our waste streams, but that doesn't mean that it's economic for us to extract them. And so, again, they're available here. Whether or not we can actually beneficiate them, which is the mining jargon to turn it in...
RASCOE: Well, to, well, make them beneficial to us - so, I guess, ultimately, with this export limit that China is putting in place, is the U.S. looking at shortages of these minerals? Like, is this something that consumers would actually feel the effect of?
HUNTER: Yeah, I think that there's definitely some concern coming out of our Department of Defense, especially with two ongoing conflicts and the application of antimony in particular. However, we do have programs in place that are starting to try to support mine projects help with that diversification. Since the original export control came in place in August of 2023 - so this is actually the second kind of escalation - we've seen very low amounts of germanium and gallium imports into the United States from China. And ultimately, the fact that we haven't seen massive amounts of imports - like, virtually none since then - means that we're not as exposed as we once were. Industry is starting to adjust. However...
RASCOE: They're finding other sources.
HUNTER: Exactly.
RASCOE: OK.
HUNTER: Starting to diversify, which should be the ultimate goal - doesn't matter what industry you're in, right? You don't want to be relying on one single buyer, one single point of failure. So we're starting to see that emerge in this space. But as demand increases for these minerals and China's stronghold continues, we could see further challenges.
RASCOE: That's Abigail Hunter of SAFE, an energy security advocacy group. Thank you so much for speaking with us.
HUNTER: Thank you so much for having me.
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