The United Kingdom and Europe are moving rapidly from critical minerals target-setting to implementation. The EU Critical Raw Materials Act and the UK's Vision 2035 create ambitious benchmarks for domestic extraction, processing, recycling, circularity, and supply-chain resilience, but many prospective regional resources remain complex, under-explored, historically worked, or economically marginal. This paper argues that implementation will depend not only on permitting reform and project designation, but also on pre-competitive measurement, modelling, and data infrastructure capable of determining which ores, brines, waste streams, and recycling feedstocks can be processed viably and with lower environmental impact. Digital Rock Physics (DRP) should therefore be understood as enabling infrastructure for resource policy rather than as a specialist laboratory method alone. By combining three-dimensional imaging, correlative chemistry, AI-enabled image analysis, and pore-scale modelling, DRP can connect mineral texture and reactive pathways to decisions about ore characterisation, liberation prediction, leaching, Direct Lithium Extraction, mine-waste valorisation, and battery recycling. The paper sets out a UK-European policy agenda built around translational demonstrators, cross-disciplinary training, a Digital Ore Passport standard, a federated Digital Ore Database, and integrated geo-reactive end stations. Treated as shared implementation infrastructure, DRP could help turn critical minerals strategies into practical routes for supply security, resource efficiency, circularity, and more environmentally responsible development.
In the face of an accelerating climate crisis and shifting geopolitical power balances, the world is pursuing a “green transition” in which electrification is central. Electrification demands critical raw materials, including rare earth elements, a large share of which lie beneath Indigenous lands. Although the UN affirms Indigenous peoples’ right to own, use, develop, and control their traditional lands, these rights are routinely overruled, including on “national security” grounds. The newly discovered Per Geijer deposit in Northern Sweden—Europe’s largest known rare earth elements find—sits at the centre of these tensions. Drawing upon a workshop, field visits, and a narrative review of academic, policy, and media sources, this article examines three competing narratives surrounding the proposed new mine: the “green transition,” “national security,” and “energy justice” narratives, which we read in relation to the “energy trilemma.” Focusing on cumulative threats to the Gabna reindeer-herding community from Kiruna’s century-old iron ore mine and the proposed Per Geijer project, we explore the power imbalances that determine which stories are heard in energy transition decision-making, and which are marginalised. We argue that recognition, restorative, and intergenerational justice principles need to be brought to the centre of transition planning. Recommendations from Indigenous participants include mapping the cumulative impacts of green-transition projects, combining Indigenous and Western scientific knowledge, and strengthening legal and policy mechanisms to protect Indigenous rights. Doing this is imperative to ensure that energy transitions are both environmentally and socially just, whilst also considering geopolitical implications.
This study evaluates alternative EV transition pathways in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) using a Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) framework and cost–benefit analysis (CBA). Three scenarios are assessed: Business-As-Usual (BAU), Partial Transition, and Accelerated Transition, examining trade-offs across economic, environmental, social, and technological dimensions. Key policy levers, including infrastructure rollout, green financing, ICE phase-out, and battery recycling, are ranked according to their effectiveness and feasibility. Accelerated Transition offers the greatest environmental gains but entails higher implementation challenges. These findings provide a data-driven framework to guide GCC policymakers in achieving sustainable EV adoption, supporting economic diversification, and advancing regional climate and energy goals.
Despite uncertainly around climate-focused policy, the policy outlook for clean-energy technologies remained resilient in 2025, owing to the cost-competitiveness of key technologies combined with emerging priorities relating to energy security, data centres, defence and economic opportunities.
An extensive literature review was conducted to investigate the pathways for the decarbonization and electrification of society and to cover different aspects to fulfill this objective. Despite the significant attraction and critical demand for achieving net-zero emissions, challenges must be addressed by adjusting policies and regulations and setting investments and budgets with the contribution of all nations and individuals. In this study, we explored the mission and vision of electrification, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, the mitigation of global warming, and net-zero targets. We considered alternative scenarios and the COP28 outputs from near-term (2025–2030) and long-term strategies. With this objective in mind, we focused on the clean energy transition as the primary step for electrification. In the following section, we thoroughly reviewed the supplies and capacities of renewables, as well as projected and planned investments, with particular emphasis on hydropower, hydrogen, and other sources. The material demand, which is the main challenge hindering the on-time deployment of clean energy, was investigated. With increasing reliance on renewables, energy storage balances generation and consumption, particularly during peak hours and high-demand situations. Batteries, fuel cells, supercapacitors, and coupled energy conversion and storage were extensively discussed as the main storage devices in electric and hybrid energy storage systems. Finally, we investigated the electrification potential in daily life, from transportation via light- or heavy-duty vehicles to electric aviation, electronic devices, buildings, industrial processes, and smart grids. This framework comprehensively assesses and reviews recently employed strategies for electrification to ensure sustainability and reliability over the coming years.
