The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) currently designates 50 minerals as critical to the U.S. economy or its national security or both. That number includes the so-called rare-earth elements — the 15 lanthanide metals at the bottom of the periodic table plus scandium and yttrium — along with the battery metals lithium, cobalt, nickel, and manganese, as well as platinum, aluminum, and graphite, among others.
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