Competition for Strategic Materials

July 16, 2012

As clean energy technologies begin to account for a growing share of the international energy supply, it is inevitable that additional infrastructure and capital will be needed. Although clean energy technologies require, in general, little or no extracted natural resources for energy generation, the infrastructure and industrial processes that are required to build the physical technologies are often materials intensive. This commentary will explore rising concerns over the potential danger of transferring dependence on fossil fuels to dependence on input materials for machinery.