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12 SMT007 MAGAZINE I JANUARY 2024 sive, and speedy. ey must call for a further holistic and amalgamated approach to ensure economic prosperity and national security, as well as global competitiveness. Critical Materials and Minerals Going Forward e criticality of materials and minerals goes to the most crucial ingredients for indispens- able products and those that the U.S. has lit- tle control over due to the lack of our domes- tic natural resources and sources, or those that originate from high-risk areas. Mission-critical end uses also need to be considered. e Energy Act of 2020, defines 1 : • A "critical material" as any non-fuel min- eral, element, substance, or material that the Secretary of Energy determines: (i) has a high risk of supply chain disruption; and (ii) serves an essential function in one or more energy technologies, including technologies that produce, transmit, store, and conserve energy; or • A "critical mineral" as any mineral, ele- ment, substance, or material designated as critical by the Secretary of the Interior, acting through the Director of the U.S. Geological Survey. e 2023 Final Critical Materials List deter- mined by DOE includes the following: • Critical materials for energy: aluminum, cobalt, copper, dysprosium, electrical steel, fluorine, gallium, iridium, lithium, magnesium, natural graphite, neodymium, nickel, platinum, praseodymium, silicon, silicon carbide and terbium. • Critical minerals that include the follow- ing 50 minerals (per the Secretary of the Interior, acting through the director of the U.S. Geological Survey, published a 2022 final list of critical minerals): Aluminum, antimony, arsenic, barite, beryllium, bismuth, cerium, cesium, chromium, cobalt, dysprosium, erbium, europium, fluorspar, gadolinium, gallium, germanium, graphite, hafnium, holmium, indium, iridium, lanthanum, lithium, lutetium, magnesium, manganese, neodymium, nickel, niobium, palladium, platinum, praseodymium, rhodium, rubidium, ruthenium, samarium, scandium, tantalum, tellurium, terbium, thulium, tin, titanium, tungsten, vanadium, ytterbium, yttrium, zinc, and zirconium. Examples of Critical End-Uses Nickel, lithium, and some rare earth ele- ments are the most critical materials for energy yet bear the biggest supply risk. e price of nickel (Ni), for example, has been uncharacteristically volatile during the past couple of years. It soared into an uncon- trolled spike on March 8, 2022, reaching a record $100,000 a metric ton on the London Metals Exchange (LME). However, the price later pulled back, and because of this dramatic pricing volatility, the LME paused trading on Figure 1: Levels of supply risk to the importance of energy in time horizon, 2025–35 1 .