Strategic minerals - why are they so important?

Strategic minerals - why are they so important?

From Geography Matters by Chris Hamnett

March 11, 2026 · 37 min · Season 2 · Episode 11

About this episode

The episode discusses the importance of strategic minerals and their changing significance over time in relation to energy, technology, and geography.

Strategic minerals are minerals which countries deem to be particularly important for various reasons - it could be for energy needs, for exports or for defense or high tech industry. What makes a mineral strategic can change over time. Arguably, coal was an important strategic mineral during the industrial revolution and during the steamship era. Before it was replaced by oil, navies had to have coal bunkering facilities to fuel their warships. Today, however, although coal is still very important in countries like India and China where it fuels large numbers of coal fired power stations, it is far less important in most European countries because of the shift towards oil and gas and nuclear energy. But in the modern world, with the threat of climate change, and the shift towards an increasingly electrified and digital economy, the minerals which are increasingly important are copper, lithium, cobalt and various rare earths, used for mobile phones, power cables, electric car batteries and the like. And the important issue is that, like oil and gas, they are not equally geographically distributed. Korea and Japan for example have very little in the way of oil and gas. Copper…

People in this episode

Host: Chris Hamnett

Topics covered

  • strategic minerals
  • energy needs
  • exports
  • defense
  • high tech industry
  • geographical distribution
  • climate change

Keywords

  • strategic minerals
  • copper
  • lithium
  • cobalt
  • rare earths
  • coal
  • oil
  • gas
  • electric car batteries
  • climate change

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Rio Tinto Zinc

Places: India, China, Europe, central African copper belt, Zambia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Chile, Mongo

More episodes of Geography Matters

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Geography Matters podcast page.