# Criticality and geopolitics: Transition minerals, their costs, and food security

Source page: https://www.materialinsights.org/learn/commodities/criticality-and-geopolitics/p5/

[Understanding Commodities](https://www.materialinsights.org/learn/commodities/) / [Module 8: Criticality and geopolitics](https://www.materialinsights.org/learn/commodities/criticality-and-geopolitics/) Part 5 of 5

## Transition minerals, their costs, and food security

The energy transition replaces fuel bought every year with metal bought once, in large amounts and from concentrated sources, and its environmental and social costs land where that metal is mined and refined. Food raises the same questions under another name: export bans, dependence on a few exporters, fertiliser, and grain stocks held mostly by one country.

### 5.1 Electrification swaps fuel for metal, and the supply chain runs through China

Scheyder asked an Argonne National Laboratory engineer to estimate the metal in a standard Tesla Model 3 with a 55.4 kWh battery. At about 0.11 kg of lithium per kWh, the cells held roughly 6 kg of lithium, plus about 42 kg of nickel, nearly 8 kg of cobalt, nearly 55 kg of graphite and about 17 kg of copper. A nickel-based battery uses 40 to 60 kg of nickel, against 1 to 2 kg in a petrol car. The IEA estimated that 50 new lithium mines, 60 nickel mines and at least 17 cobalt mines were needed between 2022 and 2030.

The binding constraint is the chain more than geology. In 2021 China had built or was building 148 of the world's 200 battery gigafactories; Europe had 21 and North America 11. Conway notes that the US depends on China for most cathode materials and anode graphite, and even for refined copper and aluminium foils. Scale has rewarded buyers: battery prices fell 89% in real terms between 2010 and 2020.

Chemistry is the main substitution lever. Cobalt helps keep cells stable, but cobalt-free cathodes based on iron and phosphorus held a large share of China's market by 2025, and the USGS reports falling cobalt content per battery. Conway concludes that decent batteries can be made without cobalt but not without lithium.

Recycling will help later rather than now. Conway gives end-of-life recycling rates of 68% for cobalt, 43 to 53% for copper and under 1% for lithium; Pitron puts indium, germanium, tantalum, gallium and some rare earths at 0 to 3%.
 Common misreading

#### Two different recycling rates

Conway's 68% for cobalt and the EU's 22% recycling input rate can both be right, because they measure different things. The end-of-life recycling rate is the share of metal in discarded products that is recovered. The input rate is the share of supply that comes from old scrap. When demand grows and products last for years, scrap from goods made long ago covers only part of today's needs, so the input rate stays low even when collection is good. Pitron notes that near-total recycling of lead has not ended lead mining.

- Scheyder (2024), The War Below · pdf pp. 15, 18-21
- Conway (2023), Material World · pdf pp. 311-314, 317, 320
- USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026, Cobalt [web ↗](https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/mcs2026) · pdf p. 75
- Pitron (2020), The Rare Metals War · pdf p. 46
- European Commission (2023), Study on the Critical Raw Materials for the EU 2023 [web ↗](https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/sectors/raw-materials/areas-specific-interest/critical-raw-materials_en) · pdf pp. 48, 51

### 5.2 The environmental and social costs fall where metals are mined and refined

Pitron's reporting from China gives the bill for cheap rare earths. Purifying a tonne needs at least 200 cubic metres of water, which comes out laden with acids and heavy metals and is rarely treated. Near Baotou, the largest production centre, a reservoir of about 10 square kilometres receives refinery effluent. In nearby Dalahai, thorium in the soil was in places 36 times the level in Baotou, and villagers spoke of a cancer village.

Congo is cobalt's equivalent. Its geology is unique, with cobalt grades of 10 to 15% in some ores against well under 1% in most copper ores. Scheyder reports that nearly a third of Congo's cobalt comes from artisanal miners, sometimes children, digging by hand in tunnels that collapse; Amnesty International found children hauling 20 to 40 kg loads for US$1 to 2 a day. Ownership shifted too. In 2016 a debt-laden Freeport-McMoRan sold its Tenke copper-cobalt mine to China Molybdenum for US$2.65 billion, and by 2020 Chinese companies financed or owned 15 of Congo's 19 cobalt mines.

Mining anywhere has costs, and in rich countries those costs carry vetoes. In Chile, the largest copper producer, mining uses 65% of the country's water. The Brumadinho tailings dam collapse in Brazil in 2019 killed nearly 300 people. In Nevada a rare buckwheat growing on a lithium deposit stalled the Rhyolite Ridge project. Scheyder shows US mines blocked or delayed on environmental, cultural and religious grounds while imports filled the gap.

That is the uncomfortable trade inside criticality policy. Diversifying supply means mines and refineries where rules are stricter, which costs more and takes longer. Part of today's concentration reflects where the world chose to put the pollution.

- Pitron (2020), The Rare Metals War · pdf pp. 25-30
- Conway (2023), Material World · pdf p. 317
- Scheyder (2024), The War Below · pdf pp. 21-27, 229-232
- Humphreys (2015), The Remaking of the Mining Industry · pdf p. 212

### 5.3 Food security is the agricultural analogue, and the usual threat is an exporter's ban

Rich importers have rarely worried about staple food. Radetzki and Wårell note that the US enjoys a strong comparative advantage while Europe and Japan protect their farmers, so neither depends heavily on imports. In food the risk usually runs the other way: exporters restrict sales after a poor harvest to hold down domestic prices, amplifying the world price spike, with the worst effects on low-income food importers. The OECD finds maize, palm oil, rice, wheat and soybeans most exposed, because exports come from few countries.

Production can be dispersed while trade is concentrated. World wheat output has an HHI of only 777. But in 2024 India supplied a third of rice export value, Indonesia and Malaysia 82% of palm oil exports, and Brazil and the US 85% of soybean exports, while China bought 65% of soybean imports.

The cases echo the mineral ones. In June 1973, with soybean prices up threefold in a year, the US banned soybean exports until September. Morgan records the damage: Japan suffered a soybean shock, the US looked unreliable, and Japan is thought to have invested in Brazilian soybeans as a result. After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, President Carter halted 17 million tonnes of grain bound for the Soviet Union. The 2007-08 rice spike was largely made by policy: India and Vietnam restricted sales in late 2007, Egypt and Cambodia announced bans in March 2008, and Thai rice passed US$1,000 a tonne in late April 2008, triple its level a year earlier. The USDA judged the restrictions the most important cause. More broadly, food prices rising since 2006 met bad weather; soybeans more than doubled from US$5.40 a bushel in mid-2006, and China's premier toured wheat fields insisting state stocks were sufficient. In August 2010, after a drought, Russia banned grain exports. Wheat rose 15% in two days and more than doubled between June 2010 and February 2011. Egypt, which bought half its wheat from Russia, and its neighbours bought in panic, and food inflation became one spark of the Arab Spring. The pattern returned in 2022: Indonesia, the largest palm oil exporter, banned exports from 28 April to 23 May to cut cooking oil prices, and India banned wheat exports on 14 May after a heatwave hurt its crop.
 Case

#### Glencore and the 2010 Russian ban

On 3 August 2010 the head of Glencore's Russian grain business publicly urged a complete export ban; two days later Moscow imposed one. Glencore, then the largest exporter of Russian wheat, had already bought corn and wheat futures in Chicago on reports from its farms that the drought was severe. Its agricultural unit earned US$659 million in 2010, its best year. Blas and Farchy's account shows that information about physical supply is itself a source of power.

- Radetzki & Wårell (2021), A Handbook of Primary Commodities · pdf pp. 70-71, 199, 214
- FAOSTAT (2026), crop production by country [web ↗](https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/QCL) · wheat production HHI, 2024, on the wheat tile
- UN Comtrade, export and import shares by value [web ↗](https://comtradeplus.un.org/) · 2024, HS 1006, 1511 and 1201 on the rice, palm oil and soybean tiles
- Morgan (1979), Merchants of Grain · pdf pp. 231-232, 311
- Pitron (2020), The Rare Metals War · pdf p. 74
- Blas & Farchy (2021), The World for Sale · pdf pp. 230-231, 236-238
- [USDA Economic Research Service (2008), What's behind the surge in global rice prices?, Amber Waves](https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2008/september/what-s-behind-the-surge-in-global-rice-prices/) · web
- [Bloomberg (2022), Indonesia lifts palm oil export ban in relief to global market, 19 May 2022](https://www.ajot.com/news/indonesia-lifts-palm-oil-export-ban-in-relief-to-global-market) · web
- [Reuters (2022), Indonesia to lift palm oil export ban from Monday, 19 May 2022](https://english.kontan.co.id/news/indonesia-to-lift-palm-oil-export-ban-from-monday-president) · web
- [Reuters (2022), India prohibits wheat exports with immediate effect, 14 May 2022](https://www.malaymail.com/news/money/2022/05/14/india-prohibits-wheat-exports-with-immediate-effect/2058818) · web

### 5.4 Fertiliser dependence and China's grain stocks complete the picture

Fertiliser links food to minerals. Nitrogen fertiliser is made from natural gas, used as both fuel and hydrogen source; Conway notes that only a little over 2% of world gas goes to fertiliser, yet without it the world could not feed nearly half its population. Potash and phosphate are mined. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, gas prices soared, some European greenhouse growers shut, and fertiliser ran short. Russia and Belarus supplied roughly a quarter of world potash by Conway's reckoning, and about 35% of 2024 mine output in World Mining Data. Morocco holds nearly three-quarters of phosphate rock reserves, much of it in Western Sahara.

The lists have caught up. An Australian study of 2013 counted only potash and phosphorus as critical, the 2025 US list added potash and phosphate rock, and India listed both nutrients in 2023; the EU lists phosphate rock and phosphorus but not potash. In 2010 Canada blocked BHP Billiton's bid for PotashCorp.

Stocks are the food system's buffer, and one country holds most of them. The USDA's October 2026 projections for 2026/27 put world wheat ending stocks at 276 million tonnes, of which China holds 119 million, or 43%. China also holds 59% of world maize stocks and 54% of rice stocks. Its wheat stocks equal about 80% of a year's domestic use, while the rest of the world's 157 million tonnes cover only 23% of a year's use. Stocks a government holds for its own people do not come to market in a shortage, so headline world stocks overstate importers' cushion. China's caution has history: in 2008 Beijing publicised full state larders to calm the public, while privately worrying about soybeans, of which it bought over half of world trade.
 In the data

#### Read the World Less China line

The WASDE tables print a line for the world excluding China because China's stocks distort the totals. For maize in 2026/27, world ending stocks are projected at 280 million tonnes. Without China they are 115 million tonnes against use of 996 million, about six weeks' worth. When judging how tight a grain market is for importers, use that line, and compare stocks with use rather than with last year's stocks.

- Conway (2023), Material World · pdf pp. 139-140, 265-266
- World Mining Data 2026, country shares of mine production [web ↗](https://www.world-mining-data.info/) · potash, 2024
- Hayes & McCullough (2018), Critical minerals: a review, Resources Policy [web ↗](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resourpol.2018.06.015) · pdf p. 6
- USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026, U.S. Critical Minerals Update [web ↗](https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/mcs2026) · pdf p. 28
- European Commission (2023), Study on the Critical Raw Materials for the EU 2023 [web ↗](https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/sectors/raw-materials/areas-specific-interest/critical-raw-materials_en) · pdf p. 7
- Humphreys (2015), The Remaking of the Mining Industry · pdf p. 184
- USDA (2026), World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates, WASDE-676, October 2026 [web ↗](https://www.usda.gov/oce/commodity/wasde) · pp. 18-25 (world wheat, corn and rice tables)
- Blas & Farchy (2021), The World for Sale · pdf pp. 230-231

### See it in the table
[H₂O Water](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/water/)[Gas Natural gas](https://www.materialinsights.org/energy/natural_gas/)[K Potash](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/potash/)[P Phosphate rock](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/phosphate/)[Cu Copper](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/copper/)[Al Aluminium](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/aluminum/)[Ni Nickel](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/nickel/)[Mo Molybdenum](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/molybdenum/)[Li Lithium](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/lithium/)[Co Cobalt](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/cobalt/)[Gr Graphite](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/graphite/)[REE Rare earths](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/rare_earths/)[Ta Tantalum](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/tantalum/)[Ga Gallium](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/gallium/)

### Check your understanding

Cobalt's end-of-life recycling rate is about 68%, yet its EU recycling input rate is 22%. Why?
 The recycling rate measures recovery from discarded products; the input rate measures scrap's share of supply. Growth and long lifetimes keep the second low.

World wheat production has an HHI of only 777. Why can wheat still face supply-security problems?
 Concentration in trade, not production, matters for importers. Russia's 2010 ban, for example, sent prices up 15% in two days.

Why do headline world grain stocks overstate the buffer available to importing countries?
 China holds 43% of projected world wheat stocks and 59% of maize stocks for 2026/27. Outside China, wheat stocks cover only 23% of a year's use.

[← Part 4: Weaponised supply and the policy response](https://www.materialinsights.org/learn/commodities/criticality-and-geopolitics/p4/)[Mark read · Wrap-up →](https://www.materialinsights.org/learn/commodities/criticality-and-geopolitics/review/)

## Other sections

- [Module overview](https://www.materialinsights.org/learn/commodities/criticality-and-geopolitics/index.md)
- [What criticality means, and why it is not scarcity](https://www.materialinsights.org/learn/commodities/criticality-and-geopolitics/p1/index.md)
- [How the lists are built: EU, US, India and Graedel](https://www.materialinsights.org/learn/commodities/criticality-and-geopolitics/p2/index.md)
- [Concentration and companionality: the anatomy of supply risk](https://www.materialinsights.org/learn/commodities/criticality-and-geopolitics/p3/index.md)
- [Weaponised supply and the policy response](https://www.materialinsights.org/learn/commodities/criticality-and-geopolitics/p4/index.md)
- [Key terms, quiz and sources](https://www.materialinsights.org/learn/commodities/criticality-and-geopolitics/review/index.md)