O nexo minerais críticos não-energéticos e segurança energética : a transição da segurança energética e o caso dos Estados Unidos

Abstract

We seek in this work to study critical minerals from the energy security theory standpoint, defining the United States as the reference actor. We have established the rare-earths as this research's parameter on non-fuel critical minerals and have sought to identify the existing relationship between energy security and the need for those minerals. The method applied in the work is a document analysis followed by a case study. Through investigative research, we undertook a bibliographic review about traditional security studies and their unfolding into the field of energy security. We have analyzed administrative documents from the U.S. Federal Executive aimed at the minerals sector in the twenty-year time frame, covering the period between 2001 and 2020. Through primary data from specialized agencies in the energy sector such as IRENA, GEI, and EIA, we seek to identify trends in energy generation for the United States. We raise the hypothesis that a shift of dependence on oil, despite the reduction of dependence on oil imports, would possibly cause a transfer of this dependence to other countries, a phenomenon which we call “energy security transition”. We established that, unlike what is usually addressed by mainstream literature, a product's life cycle approach should be carried out holistically. In the results, we identified that an energy transition to clean matrices has as a limiting factor the availability of non-energetic minerals at an affordable price level. In this way, we propose the existence of a link between energy security and non-energy minerals. Furthermore, it identifies that a state's energy transition can result in the dependence of new external actors as external suppliers of minerals, causing an energy security transition