Critical Minerals and Supply Chains

NLR works with U.S. government agencies and other domestic and international partners to build secure, diversified critical mineral supply chains that strengthen energy security and create opportunities for U.S. industry.

Critical minerals are essential to advanced energy technologies, including lithium-ion batteries and electronics. Yet supply chains remain highly concentrated in a few countries, while export restrictions, price volatility, and limited ability to scale supply add further risk. NLR partners with U.S. government agencies, international technical institutes, and private-sector firms to address these challenges across the full value chain.

Market Intelligence and Supply Chain Analysis

NLR analyzes global material flows from mining through refining to manufacturing to identify supply chain gaps, risks, and investment opportunities. This includes demand forecasting across a range of energy and technology scenarios, trade flow and traceability analysis, and techno-economic assessments of new production methods.

NLR tools such as the Lithium-ion Battery Resources Assessment and the Benchmarking Life Cycle Environmental, Economic, and Social Metrics for Critical and Advanced Materials (BLEECAM) tool support this work. BLEECAM also models how royalty pricing decisions affect the full supply chain.

Separation and Recovery Technologies

NLR works with industry to develop, pilot, and validate technologies that lower the cost of separating and recovering critical minerals. This includes bioleaching, electrochemical, and membrane separation as well as recovery from new sources such as mining tailings, geothermal brines, electronic waste, and spent batteries.

Infrastructure Planning and Reliability

NLR uses techno-economic, geospatial, and power-flow modeling to help partners plan, reduce risk for, and deploy the infrastructure needed to bring new supply online, from extraction through processing and logistics. This work also helps ensure that mining and processing operations have reliable access to power and other critical infrastructure.

Digital Twins for Mineral Operations

NLR applies digital twins, or virtual models of physical systems, to improve critical mineral operations. Digital twins can accelerate exploration through 3D resource mapping, optimize milling and processing to improve recovery rates, predict equipment maintenance needs to reduce downtime, and improve energy and water efficiency across sites and supply chains.

Support for U.S. Industry

NLR offers project analysis and technical advisory services to help U.S. companies engage in global mineral supply chains, including support for infrastructure, logistics, and supply chain planning in the United States and abroad.

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Learn more about NLR's capabilities in critical mineral supply chains.