The US Department of Energy (DOE) has reached out to the people for their inputs on how to develop and implement the $675 million Critical Materials Research, Development, Demonstration, and Commercialization Program.

This program, funded by President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, aims to tackle the vulnerabilities that exist in the domestic critical materials supply chain. The critical materials include rare-earth elements like lithium, nickel, cobalt that are essential while manufacturing clean energy technologies like batteries, electric vehicles, solar panels, etc. The program will also focus on strengthening domestic sourcing and production within the US.

Touching upon this, US Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm said, “We can follow through on President Biden’s clean energy commitments and make our nation more secure by increasing our ability to source, process, and manufacture critical materials right here at home.”

It is anticipated that the global demand for critical materials will rise by 400-600% over the next several decades. Demand for some materials like lithium will be as high as 4,000%. In such a scenario, DOE’s emphasis on increasing the production of raw materials in-house, and also strengthening the country’s manufacturing capacity, will go on to ensure that US’ dependence on others for critical materials is reduced. It will also enable the country to have a stronger supply chain, leading to more jobs in the area of clean energy.

DOE is looking for feedback from industry, academia, research laboratories, government agencies, state and local coalitions, labor unions, tribes, community-based organizations, and others, on the structure of the Critical Materials Research Program‘s, timing and distribution of funds, and selection criteria.

People can send their comments till September 9th, 2022 to: [email protected]. To check the document for feedback, click here.