“a rare earth is neither rare nor an earth”
Andrew Bloodworth, British Geological Survey

Our relationship with technology weaves materials into our lives in complex ways. The humble mobile phone can contain 40 chemical elements and this number can increase to about 60 for more complex electronics. This is interesting considering the human body also contains approximately 60 elements.

Many of these chemical elements and materials improve our lives and underpin our society and economies. A problem for me is that we often have a poor understanding where these materials come from and of the impact that have on the environment and on the people involved in their production. There are also concerns around the availability and access to these materials especially in the context of global population growth and the burgeoning consumption among the new “middle classes” in the BRIC countries.

This week I attended a workshop co-hosted by the French Embassy and UK Technology Strategy Board that brought together experts from different sectors to discuss and share knowledge on a variety of issues related to critical metals. There is no consistent agreement of what we mean by ‘critical’ but generally it relates to the lact of long-term secure and consistent supply of these metals. The factors impacting on the supply include the social, environmental, economic limits and geo-strategic and political issue that constrict our ability to extract and transform these materials.