Ellen Macarthur Foundation. Rethink the future

British Geological Survey releases new "risk list"

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• 19 Sep 2011
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Official Press release

To coincide with the British Science Festival, the British Geological Survey (BGS) has released a new ‘Risk List’ which ranks the risk to global supply of chemical elements of economic value. The list highlights vulnerable elements where global production is concentrated in a small number of countries, including metals which are critical to development of a low-carbon digital economy. The risk list helps to focus future research on diversifying supply from new resources, using greener production technologies and cost effective recycling.

(…) The risk list highlights a group of elements where global production is concentrated in a very few countries. The restricted supply base and the relatively low political stability ratings for some major producing countries combine to significantly increase risk to supply. Restriction on the availability of rare earth elements has received a good deal of attention recently and this group features close to the top of the list. However, the list highlights other economically important metals with similar high levels of risk to supply disruption including platinum group metals (active component in auto- catalysts), niobium (used in MRI scanners and touch screens) and tungsten (key hard metal used in almost all cutting tools). The list also shows the current importance of China in production of many metals and minerals. China is now the leading global producer of 27 of the 52 elements and element groups on the list.

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