FAQ

The European Commission has currently labelled 34 metals and minerals as critical raw materials. The full list is available here. These raw materials are critical because they can only be sourced from faraway foreign countries. What’s more, the Earth’s supplies are finite and supply routes can be fragile. At the same time, these materials are of great strategic importance, as they’re found in virtually all electronics out there, from smartphones to solar panels and from power cables to skyscrapers and surgical equipment. Examples of critical raw materials include copper, aluminium, lithium, nickel and titanium.

Critical raw materials are often exported by countries that are fairly low on the democracy index. As a result, geopolitical developments may jeopardise the continued availability of these materials, thus hindering the EU’s pursuit of economic and technological independence, warns researcher David Peck in this article.

"The price people are now willing to pay for products is feasible only with low-cost mines. And low-cost mines are decidedly low-tech with little respect for waste and people," Benjamin Sprecher explains in this interview in the LDE Whitepaper.

There are few, if any, critical raw materials in Dutch soil. There are several potential mining sites for critical raw materials in Europe, but actual mining is still very rare. Scandinavia and Ireland, for example, have stores of Lithium, while Finland, Sweden and Greenland have cobalt. There are also raw materials in the deep sea floor, but we cannot mine them until we have thoroughly investigated the potential risks to humans and the environment first. Here’s a simplified explanation from the Dutch government.

"Lithium and rare earth metals will soon be more important than oil and gas. Our demand for rare earth materials alone will increase fivefold by 2030. We must avoid becoming dependent again, as we did with oil and gas," warned Eurocommissioner Thierry Breton in 2022.

Building European mines and doubling down on the circular economy: there are better ways to use the metals Europe already has in abundant supply. Last but not least: we need to buy fewer products and use less energy, as David Peck mentions in this story of science.

All TU Delft faculties are investigating critical raw materials. After all, they’re found in just about every electrical and electronic product and invention out there. Some researchers are looking into ways to improve how we recycle or reuse these materials, while others dedicate their time to designing products that use less critical raw materials or to finding alternatives. Other researchers still create decision-making tools for designers or models that can predict the price of critical raw materials, while our mining experts are researching responsible mining and mining in the future: how can we build European mines that are not overly harmful to people and the planet? Is that even possible? And what metals or minerals could we extract from mining waste or mining water?