Can the Arctic be a significant contributor of critical minerals for the global energy transition?

The demand for critical minerals is rising in support of the low-carbon energy transition, as well as global economic growth. Despite its hostile environment, the Arctic is a region with historic and existing mineral production. This paper assesses the potential of the Arctic to make a significant contribution to the future supply of critical minerals. It is one of the first, possibly the first, attempt to do so at a pan-Arctic scale and with a focus on critical minerals for the energy transition. Even though the mineral geology of the Arctic is not special, various physical and human geographic factors mean that the costs and timelines for mineral extraction from the Arctic are significantly greater than that for many other parts of the world. Given the scale of the Arctic’s current mining operations and the need to boost mineral production and exports, it is possible that the major growth of production between now and 2034 will be in Russia. The period beyond the mid-2030s is when the Arctic regions could possibly start to provide a greater share of global supplies of critical minerals. The speed at which this takes place will depend on factors such as the rate of growth of demand for different critical minerals, the economic competitiveness of critical mineral supplies from Arctic regions compared with those from the rest of the world, and the scale of government and societal support. The exact locations of the mines will vary between minerals, but Russia and Canada are likely to feature strongly for several minerals on account of their geographic size. Other countries may become regionally important suppliers for specific minerals, for example Greenland and Sweden for rare earths. Sub-sea exploitation is likely to have started as well.