What lies behind the rush for Indonesian nickel
On 18 February 2026, a landslide occurred inside the Morowali Industrial Park (IMIP) in Indonesia, one of the world’s major nickel mining hubs. One employee was killed by the collapse in a tai...
Strait of Hormuz: from helium to aluminium, the non-oil raw materials crisis
Rotterdam - “If the port is doing well, our economy is also doing well,” said Ursula von der Leyen in September 2022, discussing the port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands. At the time, Eu...
Critical Raw Materials, the complex European challenge
Strategic critical raw materials are the Achilles heel of European industrial recovery. Commonly known by the acronym CRM, they are essential for the EU's competitiveness, as well as for clean energ...
RESourceEU, 3 billions for Made in Europe critical minerals
Three billion euros towards diversifying the supply of critical materials such as rare earths, cobalt and lithium: this is what the European Commission will be putting on the table over the next 12 ...
The Africa of critical minerals seeks a fair energy transition
They are called sacrifice zones: territories where the well-being of people and the environment is put on the back burner in the name of the common good. This often happens in Africa, where many of ...
A Map of the Material World: Interview with Ed Conway
This article is also available in Italian / Questo articolo è disponibile anche in italiano The digital revolution, the dematerialisation of work, the web, and social networks may give us th...
Why Trump wants Ukraine’s rare earths
This article is also available in Italian / Questo articolo è disponibile anche in italiano "We cannot keep spending hundreds of billions to defend Ukraine without getting something in retur...
Critical minerals, are volcanoes the mines of the future?
Soufrière Hills is a 1,467-metre volcano that dominates the Caribbean Island of Montserrat in the Lesser Antilles archipelago. Following a series of devastating eruptions between 1995 and 199...