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The recent controversy over Donald Trump’s ambitions for the US to acquire Greenland as part of its territory has partly focused on the potential value of the critical minerals the island is believed to possess under its vast ice sheets.
Attention on this issue has highlighted the importance of access to such materials and also the imbalance in which China dominates in both the mining and processing of such minerals.
For the UK, the ability to access such minerals depends to a large extent on favourable overseas deals and the government’s critical minerals strategy includes developing “Resilient UK and global supply networks”.
However, the strategy is also focused on domestic production where possible, which raises the question of just how much of these minerals the UK has.
Potassium titanate is among the minerals that can be acquired here. Of course, potassium itself is everywhere, not least in our own bodies and our food, as a vital chemical for nerve and muscle function.
However, potassium appears in other forms and it can be found in substances like potash, which is most prominently mined at Boulby in Yorkshire.
Other minerals commonly mined in the UK include:
However, the most notable development in recent years has been the work taken to locate and prepare for the UK to extract its own lithium.
Over the next few years, the UK will start to produce this from two areas: Cornwall, where Cornish Lithium is poised to start production that could provide 50,000 tonnes a year, and County Durham, where Weardale Lithium gained planning permission for a plant last year.
Weardale will extract lithium from brines, while Cornish Lithium will do this as well as mine the substance from hard rock.
Although these domestic sources do not meet all of Britain’s critical mineral needs, they do go some way towards doing so and reducing dependence on potentially unreliable sources overseas at a time of great global political uncertainty.