As the world urgently accelerates its shift toward renewable energy, critical minerals like lithium, cobalt, nickel, and rare earth elements are becoming essential building blocks for a sustainable future. These materials power clean technologies, such as electric vehicles, wind turbines, and solar panels. The challenges in scaling and implementing clean energy solutions on a global scale are significant, but so are the numerous opportunities for venture building firms to contribute to the clean energy transition in an equitable manner that transforms industries worldwide.
One of the most exciting areas for growth is in the technological advancements that make mining and mineral processing more efficient and environmentally friendly. These innovations, alongside novel financing structures and public-private partnerships, have the potential to drive equitable development and resource sharing, offering a promising future for the industry.
How Will Critical Mineral Demand Change in the Coming Years?
The International Energy Agency expects demand for critical minerals to increase by three to four times by 2030 and 2040, respectively, for nations to meet their net-zero targets by 2050 . In the Stated Policies Scenario (STEPS), Lithium demand alone could rise 500% by 2040, driven by the increasing use of EV batteries, while copper, which is essential for electrical infrastructure, is projected to increase by 30% in consumption as electrification trends continue to increase worldwide. It’s projected that investments between USD 500 – $600 billion will be required to meet demand for critical minerals over the next few decades.
Global mining infrastructure will struggle to keep pace with this accelerating rate of demand, with new mines often taking over a decade to achieve commercially viable mineral output. Technological innovation will be crucial in helping the mining industry keep up with this expected growth in demand, allowing companies to unlock value in previously economically unfeasible ventures.
How Can Technology Make The Mining Industry Smarter, Cleaner, and More Responsible?
The mining industry is poised for a profound transformation as breakthrough technologies reshape how resources are extracted, processed, and managed.
On the ground, robotics, mobility, and hardware can redefining safety and productivity—autonomous vehicles, robotic drilling systems, and smart machinery reduce human exposure to hazardous environments while delivering round-the-clock efficiency. AI-powered haul trucks, excavators, and drilling rigs are projected to boost ore extraction efficiency by up to 30% in 2025.
This is amplified by data capture, analytics, and AI, which provide predictive insights into equipment maintenance, optimize ore recovery, and enhance decision-making with real-time precision. AI applications run the gamut from enhancing the efficiency of mining operations , marking machinery for repairs and maintenance before they break down, to streamlining the identification and sorting of end-of-life consumer electronics, facilitating the recycling of these products to recover critical minerals more efficiently and at a lower environmental cost.
Innovations in energy generation and storage, such as hybrid systems combining, solar, wind and battery energy storage systems (BESS) can enable mines to transition from diesel-heavy operations to renewable-powered microgrids, reducing emissions while cutting fuel costs. Lithium-ion batteries retain a 90% share for storage, but flow batteries are being adopted for durations beyond 10 hours. Solar microgrids now use single-axis tracking to boost energy yield by 25-30%.
Sustainability is increasingly central, with advances in carbon capture technologies helping mines reduce their environmental footprint and align with global net-zero goals. New recycling and recovery technologies beyond existing hydrometallurgical and pyrometallurgical processes that are highly energy-intensive and rely on fossil fuels can reduce the environmental footprint of mineral extraction, processing, and recycling, while enhancing resource efficiency.
What Are Some of the Challenges Facing Technological Adoption in Mining?
Despite the promise of these technologies, scaling and adopting them for widespread use will require addressing some challenges. Cost and scalability, social and environmental concerns, and market volatility that could deter investment must be carefully managed to ensure their viability.
For example, a study published in the chemistry journal Molecules demonstrated the economic feasibility of using biosurfactants in extracting high-value metals, such as copper, cobalt, zinc, and nickel. Despite initially promising laboratory results, real-world challenges remain. For mining companies to use these new techniques to enhance their extraction of critical minerals, further work needs to be done to examine how they can properly comply with varied jurisdictions’ legal frameworks. Examining the full life cycle of biosurfactant use will also be important in determining whether the impact of biosurfactant use is less harmful than that of current extraction techniques.
Similarly, emerging technologies such as AI-driven exploration and synthetic biology require substantial upfront investment in equipment and infrastructure, which may deter smaller players or resource-constrained regions from adopting them.
Volatile markets and fluctuating mineral prices can also deter private capital participation in financing these novel extraction technologies. For private capital to confidently engage in financing, the risk profile of these projects would need to be significantly reduced, allowing investors to see stable and reliable returns.
To overcome these challenges, innovative financing solutions are essential in bridging the gap between the lab and the mines.
What Are The Types of Financing Solutions Needed For The Mining Industry?
Both nations and corporations are beginning to recognise the value of public-private partnerships (PPPs) in addressing the multifaceted challenges of mining. These challenges are often multidimensional in nature, spanning the legal, financial, and environmental fields. PPPs leverage the different advantages of public and private financing to create solutions that can contribute to both economic growth and ensure responsible and equitable development. The weight of these decisions cannot be understated:
Advantages of Public Capital
- Public capital often comes from government budgets or sovereign funds, which are more resilient to short-term market fluctuations and can support long-term infrastructure projects.
- Public entities often prioritise public interest and social outcomes, which ensures that publicly-financed projects align with broader societal goals like environmental sustainability.
- Public capital can absorb risks that private investors may find too burdensome, which in turn can encourage private participation.
Advantages of Private Capital
- The private sector brings higher levels of technical expertise and operational efficiency to projects, ensuring timely delivery of objectives.
- Private partners, with a profit motive not present in public initiatives, will further incentivise performance-based outcomes.
- Private companies are often at the forefront of adopting new technologies, which can enhance project design, implementation, and sustainability.
Advantages of Public-Private Partnerships
These partnerships help resource-rich nations develop sustainable mining practices and enhance their resource processing capabilities, while resource-scarce nations access secure and diversified supply chains. PPPs can also address pressing environmental and social challenges in the extraction industry by helping to distribute the economic opportunities present in extraction to communities affected by the impacts of mining. They can ensure fair labour practices and minimise ecological degradation.
By combining the expertise, capital, and long-term vision of both public and private stakeholders, PPPs can transform fragmented or underdeveloped mineral sectors into resilient and responsible contributors to the global energy transition. International organisations like the World Economic Forum can help to facilitate innovation, foster collaboration, and scale sustainable solutions in the mining industry.
For example, OreSand, a top innovator of the Sustainable Mining Challenge, in collaboration with Uplink – World Economic Forum and Prospect Innovation, turns mine waste into high-grade construction sand. OreSand uses new technology to repurpose tailings, which are materials left over after separating the valuable fraction of an ore from the uneconomic fraction. This technology could help address global critical minerals shortages by extracting further value from supposed waste products leftover from existing mining processes.
Moreover, multilateral development banks (MDBs) play a crucial role in catalysing PPPs by providing a host of financing and regulatory assistance, from concessional financing and technical assistance to policy guidance for potential investors in innovative mining technologies. The World Bank has been instrumental in supporting blended finance models that attract private investment into sustainable mining projects in developing countries. They can empower artisanal and small-scale miners (ASMs) to incorporate ESG frameworks into their processes. ASMs account for a significant portion of global mineral production, but they often operate under exploitative conditions.
This could deter commercial partners from working with them for fear of breaching ESG standards. PPPs can help finance the integration of ASMs into more formal systems with strong regulatory frameworks, making these ventures more viable for investors to engage with.
PPPs, by prioritising transparency, consultation, and benefit-sharing mechanisms to address grievances and build trust, can help to support skill development and infrastructure creation in partner nations. For example, Japan’s proposal for a rare earth partnership with the United States includes provisions for offshore processing and third-country refining. Similarly, South Africa’s draft Mineral Resources Development Bill aims to strike a balance between empowerment requirements and investor confidence, although some commentators argue that it requires further refinement before foreign participation can occur.
The transition to a sustainable energy future will depend on the responsible management of critical minerals. Cutting-edge technologies such as AI-driven exploration, synthetic biology, and advanced recycling methods are being developed to create a fair and equitable energy transition.
With the help of novel financing structures like PPPs, the mining industry can significantly reduce its environmental footprint and enhance resource efficiency. Through targeted investments, collaborative partnerships, and scalable innovations, the mining sector can play a pivotal role in achieving a greener, more equitable world. The opportunities are vast—but they demand bold leadership, strategic foresight, and collective action to ensure that the benefits of the energy transition are shared by all.
