Briefing: Minerals security of supply: a geological perspective

For more than 200 years many authors have expressed concern about the adequacy of natural resources to support economic growth and the spread of prosperity. Most of these predictions, however, are unnecessarily alarmist and are based on over-simplistic analysis of mineral reserve and consumption data. In fact, despite rapidly increasing demand, continued scientific and technological innovations have ensured that economic development has never been constrained by lack of mineral resources. However, ‘critical metals’, so-called because of their growing importance in new and green technologies and the high risk of supply shortage, present a particular problem because our knowledge of them is limited and many are by-products of major industrial metals. There is now an urgent need for research on all aspects of the lifecycles of these metals to ensure their future availability.