Minerals and critical raw materials : potential and opportunities for Argentina

Abstract

“Critical” minerals and raw materials are usually defined as those that present great raw materials are usually defined as those that present great economic importance and high risk of supply disruption. supply disruption. TheirTheir integral use (mining, reuse and integral use (mining, reuse and recycling) opens a window of opportunity for resource--rich corich countries such as Argentina. untries such as Argentina. Based on a bibliographic review, this work presents an overview of the potential of critical materials and public policies to promote their use under sustainabilitylic policies to promote their use under sustainability principies. The results of historical explorations indicate that Argentina has geologicalArgentina has geological--mining mining potential of critical minerals. Hntial of critical minerals. However, new investments are required to owever, new investments are required to valuevalue, standardize , standardize and digitize the available data. It is also necessary to rank these minerals in the public the available data. It is also necessary to rank these minerals in the public research agendas and encourage their exploration. The potentiality in secondary resources loration. The potentiality in secondary resources is difficult to estimate given the lack of data on the generation and recycling of industrial strial scrap, batteries and other discarded products. In an international context of growing socio--environmental demandenvironmental demands and persistent s and persistent conflict, achieving a a sustainable management of criticalsustainable management of critical (and non(and non--criticalcritical)) minerals implies minerals implies overcoming the ““extractivextractivisist”t” model. For this, it is essential to transform the nature of the model. For this, it is essential to transform the nature of the linkageskages between the mining sectorbetween the mining sector, the scientific, the scientific--ttechnologicalechnological systemsystem,, the local productive the local productive network and the communities, as well as the and the communities, as well as the ways of making strategic decisions about ways of making strategic decisions about their their use.