Critical Minerals Analysis Tools
Welcome to the Payne Institute/Colorado School of Mines Economics Department Critical Minerals Analysis Tools page. This site accesses interactive tools, built based on Mines’ proprietary data sets, to deepen understanding of the global supply/availability and demand outlook for individual critical minerals.
Minerals Reserves and Production Costs
Critical Minerals Demand from Power Model (Under Construction)
Other Critical Minerals Research
THE STATE OF CRITICAL MINERALS REPORT 2024
The Payne Institute for Public Policy and the Colorado School of Mines has released its second annual State of Critical Minerals Report. Building on last year’s report, which provided a comprehensive overview of the supply, demand, technical and political landscape for critical minerals globally, this year’s edition targets the U.S. federal response, while also examining dynamics that will impact the mining industry’s ability to meet the needs for critical minerals that are presented by the global energy transition. Highlights include the vast potential from mining tailings, the steep cost curve for Nickel, new legislation focused on increasing the domestic mining of critical minerals and the U.S. government’s recent $4.9 billion of investments in mining and processing. October 10, 2024.
Chile’s lithium exceptionalism: Strategic legacies and the contested future of the Salar de Maricunga 11/6/2025
Chile’s lithium exceptionalism: Strategic legacies and the contested future of the Salar de Maricunga
Vlado Vivoda, Natalie Ralph, Asmaa Khadim, Nigel Wight, and Payne Institute Director Morgan D. Bazilian write about how Chile’s approach, governed under an exceptional legal regime, created during the Cold War to safeguard potential nuclear applications, represents a case of lithium exceptionalism: a uniquely Chilean configuration shaped by historical legal restrictions, renewed state ambition, and intensifying global competition. November 6, 2025.
Rare Earths Are Hot. Not All of the Government’s New Buys Will Thrive. 11/5/2025
Rare Earths Are Hot. Not All of the Government’s New Buys Will Thrive.
Payne Institute Energy Finance Lab Director Brad Handler, Student Researcher Andrew Bauman, Faculty Fellow Ian Lange, and Morgan Bazilian write about how the Trump administration struck more deals this week with domestic rare earths companies with a $1.4 billion stake in Vulcan Elements and its supply partner, ReElement Technologies. November 5, 2024.
One of the country’s few rare earth processing plants opens in Exeter 10/30/2025
One of the country’s few rare earth processing plants opens in Exeter
Payne Institute Faculty Fellow Ian Lange contributed to this article about how the Phoenix Tailings facility in New Hampshire puts the state on a growing map. Across the country, processing operations are popping up with the same goal: to provide an onshore alternative to rare earth metal refining now almost exclusively provided by China. October 30, 2025.
China’s rare earth export delay offers US a chance to weaken Beijing’s grip on the market 10/30/2025
China’s rare earth export delay offers US a chance to weaken Beijing’s grip on the market
Payne Institute Faculty Fellow Ian Lange contributed to this article about how China’s promise to delay its newest restrictions on the export of the rare earths that are crucial to many high-tech products for one year as part of a trade agreement President Donald Trump secured creates an opportunity for the U.S. and its allies to bolster their own production and processing capabilities. October 30, 2025.
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