How We Can Eliminate the Need for Mined Minerals by 2050

The briefing outlines a path for the United States to achieve mineral self-sufficiency for electric vehicle (EV) batteries by 2050. It proposes six strategies to reduce mineral demand—including shifting battery chemistries, increasing energy density, and changing mobility patterns—stating that these could limit cumulative mining to 125 million tons. The author argues that while battery recycling currently faces low financial returns due to market volatility and high capital costs, it offers a higher return on investment when social and environmental externalities are priced in. To realize these benefits, the document calls for policy interventions to value recycled materials and investment in domestic midstream manufacturing (refining and processing) to avoid exporting recycled materials and to create between 84,000 and 125,000 US jobs by 2032.

• The United States can eliminate the need for new minerals by 2050 by implementing six strategies: shifting to battery chemistries with fewer critical minerals, increasing energy density, employing battery recycling, reusing batteries to extend their lifetime, increasing vehicle efficiency, and changing mobility patterns to reduce motorized transportation demand.
• Achieving mineral self-sufficiency through the proposed circular strategies would require a cumulative 125 million tons of mined battery minerals, a volume 17 times smaller and approximately 20 times cheaper than the annual oil extraction and processing for road transport at current prices.
• Battery recycling has a higher return on investment (ROI) than mining when evaluated via a triple-bottom-line approach that assigns monetary value to carbon emissions, water use, land use, wages earned, and GDP growth, though these externalities are currently not priced into the market.
• The United States lacks sufficient midstream supply chain capacity for refining and processing raw materials into cathode and anode active materials, which risks the necessity of exporting recycled materials to other countries.
• Investing in the full domestic EV battery supply chain, including recycling and cell component production, could create between 84,000 and 125,000 jobs in the United States by 2032, with recycling specifically generating 17 direct jobs per gigawatt-hour.

APA

RMI (2025). How We Can Eliminate the Need for Mined Minerals by 2050. https://rmi.org/resources/how-we-can-eliminate-the-need-for-mined-minerals-by-2050/

Chicago

RMI. How We Can Eliminate the Need for Mined Minerals by 2050. 2025. https://rmi.org/resources/how-we-can-eliminate-the-need-for-mined-minerals-by-2050/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=RMI |title=How We Can Eliminate the Need for Mined Minerals by 2050 |date=16 April 2025 |url=https://rmi.org/resources/how-we-can-eliminate-the-need-for-mined-minerals-by-2050/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{rmi2025how, author = {{RMI}}, title = {{How We Can Eliminate the Need for Mined Minerals by 2050}}, institution = {RMI}, year = {2025}, month = apr, url = {https://rmi.org/resources/how-we-can-eliminate-the-need-for-mined-minerals-by-2050/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }