Non-State Actress #24: Beyond the Bling- Critical Minerals From Outside Your Engagement Ring

Mineral Access = Freedom

Mar 06, 2025

Welcome to Non-State Actress written by me, Maggie Feldman-Piltch . Our last post, Dank Memes or Dank Prisons, can be seen here.

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Critical minerals are the foundation of our technological world – they're scarce, strategically important, and increasingly contested...much like a good liquid eyeliner strategy. These resources are essential for manufacturing everything from smartphones to electric vehicles to advanced defense systems, and that list is only getting longer. Control of these resources, naturally occurring or otherwise, is an increasingly visible priority of authoritarian regimes - and sovereignty of those resources seems to be an essential component for democracy.

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Rocks More Relevant than Your Engagement Ring

Okay, so not all critical minerals are rocks, but I just felt like saying this today. I’m sorry. Anyway. What do we mean when we say critical minerals, or critical materials? Because words mean things, let’s check.

The United States Departments of Energy and Interior established a Final List of Critical Materials in 2023:

Critical materials for energy (“the electric eighteen,” great branding!): aluminum, cobalt, copper, dysprosium, electrical steel, fluorine, gallium, iridium, lithium, magnesium, natural graphite, neodymium, nickel, platinum, praseodymium, silicon, silicon carbide and terbium.

Critical minerals: The Secretary of the Interior, acting through the director of the U.S. Geological Survey, published a 2022 final list of critical minerals that includes the following 50 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.”

The Department of Energy *also* provided these very pretty graphs!

If silicon is on here and it’s that kind of silicon, this is about to be a real priority for some people….

Key players you may have heard of on this basketball team include: cobalt, lithium, nickel, and graphite – not as glamorous as diamonds, but fundamentally more important to our daily lives (please don’t hurt me, Ghost Elizabeth Taylor).

I am now going to Do The Thing I Hate and make a list of facts. I strongly recommend putting these onto some flashcards ahead of your next Bumble date and working it into ‘every day conversation.’ Such a power play (sorry, I will stop with the energy puns. Maybe). If you scroll past this part, that’s totally okay.

Look, I get it. Critical minerals don't have the same ring to them as "coastal grandmother aesthetic" or whatever else is trending this week. But here's the reality check: whoever controls these minerals controls the future.

Critical Minerals and Their Applications

Lithium:

Powers EV batteries, like the Tesla Model S!
Makes smartphone and wireless earbud batteries last 24+ hours

Nickel and Cobalt:

Extends battery cycling life from hundreds to thousands of charges for laptops and phones, which Apple *swears* they are hyped about
Responsible for fast charging capabilities (0-50% in 30 minutes), which I absolutely need because I’m always at 22%

Copper:

All electricity, basically. Not really, but like copper wiring
Fiber optic cables for high-speed Netflix watching

Aluminum:

Yes, that aluminum. Need I say more?

Graphite:

Powers portable bluetooth speakers and solar chargers for outdoor activities 💅🏽
Found in workout equipment like tennis racquets (sure) and yoga mats (what??)

Barite:

Used as contrast agent for X-ray and CT scans in women's health screenings, which we need
Is the inside of your weighted blanket, so we must protect this at all costs. But also, Putin could probably use one of these.

Beryllium:

Improves reliability of medical devices like insulin pumps and pacemakers, which keeps people alive for sure
Used in missile guidance systems due to lightweight, high-rigidity properties (a flex)

Fluorspar:

Produces non-stick coatings for eco-friendly cookware…wondering if Meghan Markel Sussex (that’s her name, right?) is in on this.

Magnesium:

Component in mineral-based cosmetics (amazing) and natural deodorants (stop using this, it isn’t working!)

Manganese:

Essential nutrient in women's health multivitamins and supplements, so that’s kind of a plus

Titanium:

Creates biocompatible medical implants and artificial joints
Provides UV protection in mineral sunscreens (non-nano titanium dioxide)
Creates hypoallergenic jewelry and durable eyeglass frames

Vanadium:

Makes the components for standing desks and ergonomic office furniture
Used in high-strength tools for home renovation and DIY projects

Zirconium:

Creates nuclear fuel rod cladding that maintains integrity above 1000°C, which is something we should *all* care about
Forms cubic zirconia for sustainable, ethical jewelry alternatives (again, sorry Ghost Elizabeth Taylor!)

Rare Earth Minerals: The Spice Girls of the Element World

Rare earth minerals are basically a subset of critical minerals with their own group chat. Despite their name, they're not actually that rare in the Earth's crust – they're just rarely found in concentrated deposits that make economic sense to mine. Kind of like how finding a decent match on dating apps isn't impossible, just statistically ‘challenging’.

The rare earth squad includes elements with names you probably haven't heard since chemistry class. These minerals are the secret sauce behind:

The actually pretty solid camera on your smartphone, especially when compared to your pink Motorola RAZR (well done, lanthanum).
The colors in your screen (shout out to europium and terbium!)
The reason your ride can go from 0 to 60 faster than you can say "I'm running late" while holding that iced coffee you absolutely did not stop for (thanks, neodymium and dysprosium!) create powerful magnets for wind turbines and EV motors

That is Too Much, Do Less

Okay, if you’re rejoining us after an absolute brick (titanium?) wall of information…welcome! Really the important thing is to know is that this stuff in everything but is NOT everywhere. Let me spell it out in a cooler way… Every time you:

Order a new phone
Consider an electric car
Use renewable energy
Doomscroll on social media about climate change

You're indirectly participating in a global competition for these resources.

The clean energy transition? Requires massive amounts of lithium, cobalt, and rare earths. National security? Can't function without secure supplies of these minerals. Your tech-dependent lifestyle? Built on a foundation of critical minerals.

So next time you're admiring that rock on your finger, maybe spare a thought for the less glamorous minerals making your digital life possible. They might not make it to your Instagram, but they're the real MVPs of the modern world.

That’s what you need to know.

We Can Do Bad All By Ourselves, If We Want

The United States is home to some natural critical mineral deposits, particularly in California, Wyoming, and Texas, but it’s generally pretty difficult to get to those resources. I mean this literally and also politically.

The overwhelming majority of naturally occurring critical minerals are underground, or in other forms that require mining/similar activities to access the resource. And mining isn’t really a thing in the US these days…It’s expensive in terms of both the labor and the materials, both those costs are nothing compared to the environmental impacts. Contaminated groundwater is just the beginning of those problems, which explains the very real red tape involved.

So, the US gets most of its naturally occurring critical minerals from *literally anywhere that is not here*. Aside from the very real moral, environmental, and strategic challenges this creates there is also kind of a supply problem? Or maybe more of an access problem…

Non-State Actress #16: The Chinese Communist Party, Regina George, and the 3rd Velociraptor in Jurassic Park

Maggie Feldman-Piltch

June 5, 2024

Read full story

As of 2025, The Chinese Communist Party controls about 85% of the global processing capacity for rare earth resources. While this is a subset of critical minerals, it’s a staggering number with serious monopoly energy (pun intended). I think it’s worth pointing out that while there are *very* real problems with the continuous use of naturally occurring critical minerals, China’s unabashed desire to control the resource regardless is, well, scary. Not merely because controlling the resources means they control the power - literally and figuratively - but because of what the CCP is willing to do to people, animals, and the planet in the name of that power.

Let’s spend a minute on the human cost of this from a geopolitical, security perspective, shall we?

The One That Got Away

I’ve written about Afghanistan and the US’ withdrawal of its support of the government of Afghanistan before.

I’ve talked about how building and training an Afghan air force without ensuring that force had the tools and resources necessary to maintain the aircraft without constant American and Allied support created a doomsday scenario in which the air power which enabled Afghans to triumph over the Taliban had a *very* public expiration date. So public that all the Taliban had to do was wait it out.

And I think I’ve talked about the lithium. Right? Well, if not, now is a great time to talk about the lithium.

Northern Afghanistan is home to significant- enormous even - natural lithium deposits. The same lithium in batteries and other increasingly necessary components of the modern world.

In fact, Afghanistan represents one of the world's largest untapped mineral reservoirs, with resources valued at approximately $1 trillion. This includes the lithium I just mentioned and rare earths, copper, and gold.

During the 2021 withdrawal deliberations, these resources supposedly factored into strategic calculations. Military and policy experts recognized that abandoning Afghanistan meant potentially ceding access to these critical resources to geopolitical competitors. This was the outcome anyway.

And this was the outcome those adversaries were hoping for. China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, and other authoritarian regimes knew as long as the US and its Allies supported a free Afghanistan, they would not have unfettered access to these resource reserves.

Get rid of a free Afghanistan, get more critical minerals. More critical minerals, more power. And this is exactly what has happened.

Ukraine: The Unexpected Critical Mineral Hotspot

Ukraine has emerged as another critical battlefield in the mineral resource competition. Before the illegal full-scale Russian invasion 3 years ago, Ukraine was developing significant deposits of lithium, titanium, graphite, and uranium – all essential for both civilian and military technologies.

Ukraine holds Europe's largest proven reserves of uranium, critical for nuclear energy, and lithium-bearing minerals needed for the battery revolution. The Dobra and Donetsk regions contain substantial titanium ore deposits, used in aerospace applications and military equipment. If these names ring a bell, it’s probably because you’ve heard how fiercely Ukraine continues to defend the sovereignty of both.

Russia's invasion wasn't just about territory or political influence – it was also about securing access to these strategic resources. Control of Ukraine's mineral wealth would strengthen Russia's position in global supply chains while denying these crucial materials to European manufacturers. Securing Russia’s position means securing China’s, North Korea’s, and Iran’s because these authoritarians stick together in a way that makes high school cliques look like high art.

Western companies had been investing in Ukrainian mineral development before the conflict, recognizing the potential for a European-based supply chain that could reduce dependence on both Russia and China. Now, these resources remain largely inaccessible amid the ongoing war, further straining global supplies. This is just one more reason in the long, long, long list which reminds us how crucial Ukraine’s continued freedom is.

Yes this is about sovereignty, yes this is about democracy, and yes this is also VERY much about Putin doing everything he can to rebuild the Soviet Union - something he needs resources, including critical minerals, to do.

Wrap-Up

Let's get real for a second. This isn't just about fancy tech or green energy bragging rights. When we talk about critical minerals, we're actually talking about sovereignty and freedom in the 21st century.

Look at Ukraine and Afghanistan – two different stories with the same mineral subplot. In Ukraine, those titanium and lithium deposits aren't just economic assets; they represent the country's right to choose its own future. When Putin invaded, he weren't just after territory – he was after the literal building blocks of modern power.

In Afghanistan, that trillion-dollar mineral treasure chest could have been the foundation for economic independence. Instead, it's become another arena where external authoritarian powers compete for influence with an internal authoritarian terrorist organization and the Afghan people - especially Afghan women - suffer.

The pattern is clear: whoever controls critical minerals controls the options available to everyone else. You can talk about democracy and freedom all day, but if your green transition, defense systems, and digital economy depend entirely on minerals controlled by authoritarian regimes, how free are you really?

This isn't abstract geopolitics – it's about whether countries can make their own choices about their energy futures, defend themselves, and build independent economies. It's about whether we build a world where mineral wealth creates shared prosperity or deepens existing power imbalances.

So next time someone dismisses critical minerals as just another resource issue, remind them: these unassuming rocks and metals are the unseen foundation of modern sovereignty. No critical mineral independence = no true political independence. And that's a resource reality check we all need.