Extra-terrestrial resources: A potential solution for securing the supply of rare metals for the coming decades?

Abstract

The forthcoming energy transition driven by the need to reduce CO₂ emissions requires large amounts of critical elements to construct renewable energy devices such as car batteries, wind turbines and solar panels. For many elements such as Li, Co, REEs and Ti, the production sources are located in countries with poor social and environmental standards, prone to political destabilization such as military conflicts, or vulnerable to strained relationships with consumer countries. Lately, the volatile geopolitical context has further demonstrated the high dependency of Europe and other developed countries in terms of raw material supply. In addition, there is a debate about the Earth's potential to sustain the transition toward a green society by using conventional resources from mining of terrestrial rocks. As nature conservation and climate mitigation are now priorities for the majority of governments, and since conventional mining on Earth suffers from a growing social resistance, humankind may need to look toward new frontier resources for supplying the mineral needs of the coming decades. Here, we explore the use of extra-terrestrial resources as a potential source to feed the future supply of critical metals. Extra-terrestrial mining may be an opportunity for wealth creation and an option for critical metal resource supply when mining on Earth becomes increasingly untenable. We conclude that the potential impacts of extraction and exploitation of space resources, both good and bad, could be societally profound.