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The deal doesn’t necessarily mean Australia will become a high-end manufacturer Rare earths oxide in Australia would still need to be transported to global partners for metallisation, followed by magnet-making, given Australia does not currently have the manufacturing processes. Tim Buckley, director of thinktank Climate Energy Finance, says it is urgent to position Australia as “more than a quarry digging and shipping our raw commodities”. Government-commissioned modelling has shown building refining and processing capability for critical minerals means a greater share of trade and job creation. Read more

“We hold one of the world’s most abundant reserves of critical minerals, and need to leverage our natural advantages to move up the global value chain by expanding onshore processing and refining capacity, capturing the resulting geostrategic advantages, supply certainty and economic returns. These are key to our future prosperity, and our energy and national security in a decarbonising world characterised by shifting and contested geopolitical dynamics. “We now need to see Australia undertake similar arrangements with our key trade partners in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, India and Europe to build even more robust diversification and develop skilled Australian workforce and supply chain capacities in this key global sector that underpins the energy system transformation.” Read more

China controls 80-90% of the global supply, holding vast reserves and dominates processing after investing early and strategically. But Australia has major skin in this game too. We have the world’s largest supply of lithium and abundant reserves of cobalt, nickel, manganese, graphite and rare earths. Currently, our biggest customer is our #1 trade partner, with 90% of our lithium going to China. Now, Australia is being courted by the US as a potential key strategic partner in diversifying and securing its supply against the escalating backdrop of China-US tensions and retaliatory trade restrictions. Diversification of critical mineral supply chains will be high on the agenda in talks between Prime Minister Albanese and President Trump this week. Read more

The recent bilateral announcement between Australia and the United States on critical minerals draws significant attention to the opportunities for Australia. Tim Buckley from Climate Energy Finance views this agreement as a turning point, offering substance beyond political rhetoric. Buckley highlights that specific projects such as the Arafura (ASX: ARU) Nolans project in the Northern Territory and the Galleon Recovery Project in Western Australia are set to benefit, providing concrete examples of Australia’s capacity to move beyond a “dig and ship” mentality towards genuine value-adding and reindustrialisation. Read more

“Today’s new US$8.5bn United States–Australia Framework for Securing of Supply in the Mining and Processing of Critical Minerals and Rare Earths could well deliver a US/Australia secured supply chain for critical minerals and rare earths, building demand and providing strategic financial support for value-added new projects in core materials indispensable to national capabilities in clean energy tech, computing and defence. Substance and follow through over words will be key to the credibility and real-world impacts of this new announcement. Assuming the framework materialises into action, it should provide a strong additional impetus and foundation to diversify and improve the resilience of global supply chains. Read more

Australia’s next multibillion-dollar export industry could be based on an unexpected mishmash of sugar cane, wood chips, algae, used cooking oil, animal by-products and construction and demolition debris. The latter is being used by a Queensland company to establish a biofuels production facility — one of three being built in the race to cut emissions from challenging industries. Read more

President Trump in January declared a national energy emergency, in part to keep the U.S. from falling behind China in the AI race. He has issued a series of related executive orders including one that aims to fast-track data-center construction and needed power infrastructure. The U.S. appears to have a lot of catching up to do. China will invest twice as much as the U.S. this year in power plants, storage and the grid, according to the International Energy Agency. It added about 429 gigawatts of new power generation last year, according to the think tank Climate Energy Finance, while the U.S. built about 50 gigawatts. Read more

Debate has reignited in Australia over how to leverage its rare earth resources to tackle China’s stranglehold over the industry, following Beijing’s tightening of export controls and Australian miners providing feedstock for a landmark magnet factory in Europe. The world’s fourth biggest rare earth reserves are in Australia, making it a key player in the race to build a supply chain outside China, which has the most reserves and controls more than 85 per cent of downstream processing. Australia is developing some of the world’s biggest rare earth processing and refining capacities outside China, but industry experts are urging a faster build-out to help secure western supply chains and create a commercially viable industry domestically. Read more

The director of Climate Energy Finance, Tim Buckley, said the Australia Institute modelling was as “accurate as possible” for an external third party to conduct and that it should prompt the Queensland and federal governments to investigate. Buckley is a former investment banker who has previously provided expert evidence in a court case involving Adani. Read more

Australian offshore wind is financially challenged by the high and rising cost of massive infrastructure projects and the key point that offshore wind is challenged by high quality onshore resources that are faster, cheaper and easier to build, with lower engineering, regulatory and financial risk. Buckley believes that while offshore wind might be able to drive the last 10 per cent of electricity decarbonisation in Australia, where reliability and system resilience is a priority over cost, that’s a question for five to 10 years away. Read more

Energy storage has emerged as a “key part” of China’s green transition, says Caroline Wang, a China expert with Climate Energy Finance, a Sydney-based think-tank. “They’ve added massive amounts of solar and wind in the last decade and now there are some issues with intermittency and grid stabilisation — energy storage is seen as a critical solution.” China’s battery makers, benefiting from sustained policy support and amid fierce market competition, are investing in options which can store more energy, such as solid-state batteries. This could make installations more efficient if brought to mass scale, Wang adds. Read more

Tim Buckley, director of Climate Energy Finance, a Sydney-based research group focused on China, says the country’s long-term cleantech ambition is “profound” and stands in stark contrast to Beijing’s rival superpower, the US, where President Donald Trump has embraced fossil fuel industries and gutted his predecessor’s support for renewable energy. “I think China is using it in a very, very geopolitically savvy way, taking advantage of America’s stupidity and regression back into a petrostate,” he says, adding: “China just wins. America has abrogated the playing field.” Read more