A hardener of the steels that have been helping to make Fords tough for more than a century and an element with unique properties that make it the key ingredient in enormous batteries to store... — Updated 5/15/2022 Full story

Canada is positioning itself as the "global supplier of choice" for the critical minerals and metals essential to tomorrow's technologies, especially the almost unfathomable quantities of raw materi... — Updated 10/7/2021 Full story

Typically thought of as a precious metal used to make coins, jewelry, tableware, and other glimmery objects, silver's true value lies in more industrious properties that make it invaluable to... — Updated 10/7/2021 Full story

While the history of human innovation is a series of discoveries, each building on the last, there are certain "eureka moments" that mark a shift in the trajectory of mankind – taming fire, stone t... — Updated 10/7/2021 Full story

The global transition to electric vehicles plugged into renewable energy sources is powering enormous demand for graphite, the single largest ingredient in lithium-ion batteries. "Graphite demand... — Updated 10/7/2021 Full story

From the advancements of technology during the Bronze Age to the computers and telecommunication systems of today's Big Data Era, tin has been critical to human progress for at least 5,500 years.... — Updated 9/30/2021 Full story

Considering the almost unfathomable quantities that will be needed to power the global shift to low-carbon energy and electric mobility, copper is the most critical of the minerals and metals that... — Updated 9/17/2021 Full story

The envisioned green future where every North American is driving a battery-powered electric vehicle charged with renewable energy could be undermined by cobalt, a somewhat scarce and controversial... — Updated 9/16/2021 Full story

Though it is tough to distinguish the nearly identical properties of niobium and tantalum in nature, at the workplace, one of these critical twin metals typically dons a hardhat and boots to work in... — Updated 9/16/2021 Full story

Scandium is an adopted brother to the family of 15 lanthanides that make up the suite of elements known as rare earths. While it may not have quite as strong a chemical bond to its adopted... — Updated 9/16/2021 Full story

From the transistors in quantum computers that are millions of times faster than their classical counterparts to fiber optic cables that send data at the speed of light, germanium is a little-known... — Updated 9/16/2021 Full story

Lightweight, strong, and resistant to corrosion, titanium is best known for the properties it lends to rockets, aircraft, and high-performance sports equipment. Only about 3% of the more than 8... — Updated 9/16/2021 Full story

Overshadowed by headline-grabbing rare earth elements, gallium is an underappreciated critical metal that is a vital ingredient in next-generation smartphones and communication networks,... — Updated 9/16/2021 Full story

Amongst the rarest of the stable elements on the periodic table and an important ingredient in the emerging thin-film solar panel sector, tellurium embodies what it means to be a critical metalloid... — Updated 9/16/2021 Full story

The ability to type, tap, swipe, and scroll your way through articles such as this one from a smartphone, tablet, computer, and now even refrigerators is made possible by indium-tin oxide, which is... — Updated 9/16/2021 Full story

"Please mine more nickel," these four words from Tesla CEO Elon Musk reverberated across the global mining sector and raised awareness of how fundamental nickel is to the lithium-ion batteries... — Updated 9/16/2021 Full story

Global governments and industries are setting increasingly ambitious targets for the phasing out of fossil fuel-burning automobiles in favor of electric vehicles charged with green energy.... — Updated 9/16/2021 Full story

Extremely hard and with the highest melting point of all the metals, tungsten's toughness is legendary. Like many of the other metals that have found their way onto critical mineral lists in... — Updated 9/16/2021 Full story

From jewelry at a black-tie soiree to scrubbing harmful emissions from the exhaust system of a farm truck, the six platinum group metals – platinum, palladium, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium, and o... — Updated 9/16/2021 Full story

Roughly 38,000 metric tons of rare earth concentrates were produced from American soil during 2020, yet the United States remains 100% reliant on foreign countries for its supply of these 17... — Updated 9/16/2021 Full story

An unsung war hero that saved countless American troops during World War II, an overlooked battery material that has played a pivotal role in storing electricity for more than 100 years, and a... — Updated 9/16/2021 Full story

The lightest of all the metals in the universe, lithium has emerged as the namesake for the batteries powering electric vehicles down global highways and storing renewable energy for those EVs to... — Updated 9/16/2021 Full story

Reminiscent of America's gilded age, the world is priming itself for a new era of technology and energy centered on the electricity that sparked the imaginations of visionaries such as Nikola Tesla... — Updated 9/16/2021 Full story

From electric vehicles plugged into renewable energy to smartphones connected to 5G networks, new technologies take advantage of the special properties of a suite of critical minerals and metals... — Updated 9/16/2021 Full story

A heavy reliance on imports for a long list of minerals and metals critical to American supply chains could be a stumbling block for the Biden administration's ambitious "Build Back Better" agenda.... — Updated 9/16/2021 Full story