I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. As vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for critical minerals, I am delighted to have secured this debate on the use of critical minerals in the UK’s renewables future. As was the case with my two hydrogen Adjournment debates, I am pleased to announce that this is the first debate in the UK Parliament dedicated to critical minerals.
Critical minerals have long been overlooked by successive Governments and by this House—the mantra of “out of sight, out of mind” is apt. Awareness of where our critical minerals come from and what they are used for is low, however. The Government are waking up to the fact that the race for critical minerals security is the new great game. Urgent action must be taken now to safeguard the future prosperity of the United Kingdom and the west in the spheres of the economy, defence and energy. With the upcoming COP26 in Glasgow and the G7 summit in Cornwall, there could not be a better time to do so.
It is vital that this House is made aware of the significant threat to our economy and our post-covid and post-Brexit recovery if we run out of the critical minerals needed to supply our low-carbon industries of the future. The UK’s 10-point economic plan makes an assumption that the international supply of these minerals is sufficient to service every country’s needs in our global race to avoid climate change. I would like to inform the House that that is clearly not the case.
What are critical minerals and what are they used for? In simple terms, these are the minerals that are vital for low-carbon industrial capabilities, but which face supply chain vulnerability. The Critical Minerals Association has split the definition of critical minerals into three subsections: critical minerals, which are important for industrial strategy and consist of minerals such as lithium, cobalt and rare earths; technology metals, which are bulk metals such as copper that are not susceptible to supply chain vulnerability, but are important nevertheless for the UK’s industrial objectives; and strategic minerals, which have potential defence importance. Those three groups of critical minerals are ubiquitous in their use, and that is part of the problem.
In fact, critical minerals are becoming more and more important by the day. Our renewables and telecommunications technology of the future requires an ever-increasing amount of critical minerals. Without them, our society just cannot function. With global demand at this scale, shortages present a real threat to our economy and to our society. In the past five years, we have seen the mass commercialisation of satellite and drone technology, led by British companies such as Blue Bear Systems, all of which rely on critical minerals. Likewise, advanced robotics for British manufacturing, which is crucial to my seat of Rother Valley in South Yorkshire and places across our country, require more than 40 different critical minerals.
It is incredibly important that British industry thrives in the post-Brexit and post-covid era. For that to happen, factories and plants in the Rother Valley region must stay at the cutting edge of their sector, with the best equipment and secure, efficient supply chains, thus staying competitive and retaining their reputation for the highest-quality products.
The most visible everyday examples of the importance of critical minerals are mobile phones and electric cars. Our ultra-modern smartphones, boasting touchscreens, cameras and 5G, use a huge number of critical minerals, including potassium, tin, copper, tungsten and advanced aluminium. Electric vehicles are often hailed as the future of renewable transport, but they are key users of critical minerals. Each car on average uses 100 kg of copper, rare earth for the magnets and lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese and graphite for the batteries. Many people are surprised to learn that a solar panel relies on 16 different minerals and metals.
An equally important part of the UK’s renewables future is the wind turbine, with the Prime Minister boldly envisioning that we shall become the
“Saudi Arabia of wind power”.
I share his enthusiasm for the role that wind can play in powering the UK and in reducing our carbon emissions, but to meet the Prime Minister’s objective of having every home in the UK powered by wind turbines by 2030, experts indicate that we will need to increase our output of energy from 10 GW to 40 GW by 2030. That will require building a new wind turbine every single day until 2030. To achieve that, we need more than 26,000 tonnes of rare earths and more than 4 tonnes of copper. The UK Government must acknowledge that the construction of renewable energy technology is inextricably linked to the supply of critical minerals. We must take action accordingly to protect our energy sector and the generation of power.
Importantly, seven points in the Government’s 10-point plan for the green recovery are dependent on a secure green supply of critical minerals. Herein lies the challenge for the United Kingdom. We are facing a two-pronged threat. The first threat is that as demand rockets for the use of critical minerals in the technology of the future, there is a global shortage, which would affect our economy and livelihoods, our energy supply, our environmental agenda, our security and defence, and basically the way we live our lives.
The second threat is that our current suppliers of critical minerals are not dependable or sustainable. I shall name two countries in our critical minerals supply chain in order to demonstrate that fact. The first is involved in the mining of critical minerals, and the second in the midstream processing. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is not a dependable source of minerals for the UK to rely on. It is politically unstable, and Chinese influence is concerningly strong in mining areas. It is not a sustainable source of minerals either, with the DRC home to low environmental standards and frequent human rights violations against local people and children. In fact, there is currently a class action lawsuit against the big technology companies, including Apple, Google, Dell, Microsoft, and Tesla, which stand accused of operating supply chains that use cobalt mined by children.
The second country in our critical minerals supply chain is the People’s Republic of China, and it is in the midstream, where the communist PRC dominates, that we face our greatest threat. Clearly, we are totally dependent on China’s good will, from processing and refining to beneficiation. For instance, China mines only 1% of the world’s cobalt, but refines 65% of it. It mines 12% of the world’s manganese but refines 97% of it, as well 89% of the world’s graphite. China’s absolute control of the critical mineral midstream is so strong that graphite from the UK is sent to China for beneficiation, and then bought back from China at the component section of the supply chain. That is absurd. Of the 172 gigafactories being built in the world at this moment, 130 are in China.
It is estimated that by 2030 the world’s demand for lithium will mean that global production is 1.4 million tonnes a year in deficit. Graphite will be 8 million tonnes in deficit, cobalt 800,000 tonnes in deficit, and nickel 400,000 tonnes in deficit. If China controls the midstream of those minerals, and is building over three times more gigafactories than the rest of the world put together, it is only logical that China will serve its industrial requirements before the rest of the world, and before the United Kingdom.