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minerals and ores

Coal, The Fuel We Ignore But Cannot Replace

by Dr L. Schernikau,  April 7, 2026 in WUWT

Dr. Lars Schernikau: Energy Economist, Commodity Trader, Author (recent book “The Unpopular Truth… about Electricity and the Future of Energy”)

Details including the full Blog on coal “Coal keeps the lights on… are we experiencing a “new” renaissance of  coal?” are available at www.unpopular-truth.com

For years now, coal has been treated like a relic… a dirty word,  something we were told would quietly disappear during the “energy transition”.

But yet, here we are… global coal consumption has definitely not declined, quite the contrary, it has only grown from roughly 6 billion tons in 2008 (when I wrote my first book on coal “The Renaissance of Steam Coal”) to around 9 billion tons today. Not to mention the seaborne trade which almost doubled! So the question is not whether coal is disappearing as we were told, it’s whether we misunderstood this useful black rock in the first place.

Our material world runs on something we are avoiding…

We like to think we live in a “clean” digital world with all our devices, apps, AI and cloud storage, but our physical world has not gone anywhere and should also be considered in this equation.

Steel, cement, metals, fertilizers….so many elements needed to actually build our modern lives which still heavily depends, directly or indirectly, on coal.

Did you know that roughly one-third of all coal is used not for electricity, but for industry? In fact, when you include electricity used for industrial purposes, more than half of all coal globally is consumed by industries keeping our daily amenities running :

  • steel production,
  • cement manufacturing,
  • chemicals and fertilizers,
  • high-temperature industrial heat (also used to make silicone for those very popular solar panels ), and on and it goes.
  • …
minerals and ores

How China Dominates the World’s Critical Minerals Production

by K. McCollum, April 7, 2026 in WUWT

Critical minerals are mined all over the world but the majority of the supply ends up passing through China. For a broad range of key metals and minerals, China is either the largest miner, the dominant refiner, or both. This is true for rare earths, lithium, cobalt, graphite, nickel, and many other metals and minerals that are essential to defense, energy and high-tech applications. It is less about where ores are dug out of the ground and more about where they are turned into usable components. In other words, Chinese processing plants are essentially the gatekeepers of global supply.

Australia and South America host much of the world’s lithium, while Congo supplies the lion’s share of cobalt and copper. But the rocks themselves can’t become a battery or magnet without intensive downstream processing and refining. China built those downstream industries at scale over decades through state support and investment. The result is clear — China has effectively monopolized refining for most critical minerals while the rest of the world depends on it for much-needed supply. China is listed as the dominant refiner for 19 of 20 minerals analyzed by the IEA in their Global Critical Minerals Outlook for 2025, making up roughly 70% of the global processing capacity overall.

How dominant is dominant? The numbers illustrate the scale and variety of China’s concentration. Data from 2024 shows China as the leading producer or processor for roughly 99% of gallium, 95% of magnesium, 83% of tungsten, 79% of graphite and over 69% of all rare earths. For battery materials, Chinese firms account for an overwhelming share of manufacturing capacity, giving China control over the upper and middle parts of the battery supply chain, even though much of the raw materials are sourced elsewhere.

Put simply: control of smelters and refineries is the chokepoint. Analysis from the United States Geological Survey shows how China’s share rises dramatically from mining to processing. Many minerals that are mined in other countries are still processed into a refined product within China. That clear advantage lets Chinese policy shifts ripple quickly through global supply and pricing — a growing threat for the West.

In fact, China has already weaponized its stronghold on the industry in ways that have triggered both concern and action from the United States government. Over the past couple of years, Beijing has imposed a series of export restrictions on critical minerals that have sounded alarms in Washington. These controls immediately tightened global supply for various essential materials, including gallium, germanium, silver, graphite, and certain rare-earth processing technologies. This caused semiconductor and defense firms to scramble for alternatives while exposing how dangerously dependent manufacturers are on Chinese supply.

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