Launching a visionary Critical Minerals Working Group at UW–Madison

PI: Julie Klinger, associate professor at the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies

Co-PI:

Luca Mastropasqua, assistant professor of Mechanical Engineering

Co-Investigators:

Xia Zhu-Barker, associate professor of Soil Science

Matt Grinder-Vogel, professor of Environmental Chemistry and Technology

Sue Swanson, State Geologist and director of the Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey, affiliate UW Extension

Andrea Hicks, associate professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Leah Horowitz, associate professor of American Indian & Indigenous Studies, affiliate Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies

Annemarie Schneider, associate professor of Geography, affiliate Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies

Rahul Sujanani, assistant professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering

Shawn Kaeppler, professor of Plant and Agroecosystem Sciences, affiliate WI Crop Innovation Center

Tricia Gorby, director of the Natural Resources Institute Extension

Description: This project will launch the UW-Madison Critical Minerals Working Group (CMWG), a growing cross-campus coalition advancing a novel evidence-based vision: critical mineral (CM) abundance without new mining. As global demand accelerates, the environmental, geopolitical, economic, and social costs of new mining are increasingly untenable, particularly as remaining reserves are concentrated on lands stewarded by Indigenous and land-connected communities in climate-critical and agrobiodiverse ecosystems.

At the same time, vast quantities of CM already exist above ground, in the form of waste and pollution contaminating the world’s major breadbaskets and urban-industrial landscapes, posing multigenerational health burdens. The CMWG will redefine CM science and policy by transforming environmental remediation into a progenitor of non-mine critical minerals. By aligning clean-up with CM recovery, the CMWG will advance a new model of supply security based on restorative and integrated circular systems, reducing the need for new mining while addressing urgent environmental challenges.