Payne Institute student researcher Tinzar Htun writes about how today China is the biggest global supplier of rare earth elements (REEs), accounting for around 70 percent of global mine production (1.2 million tons) in 2022. More importantly, China holds the dominant role in the downstream process of REE, separating and processing. The partial shutdown of the Lynas facility in Malaysia will grant China near-exclusive control over the production and distribution of REEs in the global market.

Payne Institute Research Associate Caitlin McKennie writes about how building out a robust talent pipeline for the mining sector through providing quality jobs to workers and advancement opportunities (i.e., training, upskilling, and next skilling efforts) will be a central factor for ramping up domestic critical mineral production and strengthening U.S. energy security. Yet, the labor force associated with nonfuel mineral mining in the U.S. has remained roughly stagnate over the last five years, and aligns with new statistics coming from employers.

This resource provides a new way for people to investigate greenhouse gas emissions data from a wide variety of countries and from a global perspective. The creators of the database are aiming to inform corporate investors and policy makers, but it will be found by high school students and college students needing data for their papers concerning global warming. When researchers come across a new resource that provides global information on fossil fuel production and storage, the user should be cognizant of a bias to the presentation of the data. This resource is not immune to that issue. Overall, this resource is recommended, but the user should look carefully at the publishing source, the Carbon Tracker Initiative, to understand its motivations for creating this resource.

Payne Institute student researcher Mama Nissi Abanga Abugnaba writes about how as a continent with abundant natural resources, such as large reserves of vital minerals, Africa could play a critical role in facilitating the energy transition. This will be possible through a just energy transition that supports the retention of jobs, social aid for affected workers, upskilling of current employees, environmental restoration, and the development of local businesses. April 10, 2023.

Permafrost, or perennially frozen ground, is defined as soil or rock having temperatures below 0oC over at least two consecutive winters and the intervening summer. Much of the permafrost has been frozen since the Pleistocene time. Permafrost occurs in the Arctic, Antarctic and high alpine regions. About one-fifth of the total land area of the world is underlain by permafrost (Burdick et al. 1978). The top layer of the ground in which the temperature fluctuates above or below 0oC during the year is defined as the active layer (Andersland and Ladanyi 1994). Other terms such as seasonally frozen ground, seasonal frost and annually thawed layer are synonyms for the active layer. The thickness of this layer varies spatially and temporally. The upper boundary of permafrost is defined as the permafrost table. In the discontinuous permafrost zone, taliks form between the active layer and the permafrost table. Taliks, or unfrozen ground, are layers of ground that remain unfrozen throughout the year (Andersland and Ladanyi 1994). In the continuous permafrost zone, taliks often occur underneath shallow thermokarst lakes or rivers, where the water below a certain depth may not freeze in winter and, thus, the soil underneath will not freeze either. Other terms, such as thaw lake or cave-in lake, have also been used for a thermokarst lake. Open talik is an area of unfrozen ground that is open to the ground surface but otherwise enclosed in permafrost. Through talik is unfrozen ground that is exposed to the ground surface and to a larger mass of unfrozen ground beneath. Unfrozen ground encased in permafrost is known as a closed talik.

Natural resources embrace a broad array of categories, including agricultural, conservational, forestry, oceanic, water, energy, and mineral resources. This chapter only focuses on the latter three. Traditional methods for natural resource management include, but are not limited to, geophysical exploration, field geological mapping, geochemical analysis, and aero-photo interpretations. Natural resource related research is by nature a spatial problem. Integration of field survey data and other pertinent information can be a time-consuming task by traditional ways. With the help of GIS, most of the tasks can be conducted in ways that are nearly impossible in traditional methods. Three case studies of GIS application in natural resource analyses will be presented in this book chapter to demonstrate the GIS applications in compiling, integrating, analyzing and visualizing natural resource data.

The 45Q tax credit is anticipated to play an important role in accelerating the expansion of the CO₂ pipeline network in the United States by providing a financial incentive for businesses to invest in carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS) technologies and supporting infrastructure. The Inflation Reduction Act's amplification of this credit has already increased the number of CCUS projects. This activity, in addition to continuing demand for CO₂ for oil and gas operations, will require an expansion of the US CO₂ pipeline network. This expansion has raised questions and concerns among landowners, project stakeholders and the public regarding the safety of these pipelines and to what extent regulations should be consistent with or more stringent than those for the more abundant natural gas pipelines.

The Coalition on Materials Emissions Transparency (COMET) began as a collaboration between the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI), the Colorado School of Mines (CSM), RMI (formerly known as the Rocky Mountain Institute), and the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UN Climate Change). Its objective is to advance accurate and transparent greenhouse gas accounting through a harmonized set of principles, standards, and reporting requirements.

On February 6, 2023, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck at a depth of about 11 miles (17.9 km) in Gaziantep province in Turkey (https://www.worldvision.org/disaster-relief-news-stories/2023-turkey-and-syria-earthquake-faqs). At least 120 aftershocks have been felt around the region, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS). At least 41,000 people have lost their lives till date (February 15th, 2023) and the number continues to rise. The natural disaster has aggravated the preexisting humanitarian need in the region as many Syrian refugees are concentrated in the 10 affected provinces of southern Turkey, and Syria, and have been already suffering from over a decade of civil war.

Sub-Saharan Africa faces immense challenges in its bid to attract capital to develop its energy resources and grow its economy. Relative to the pace of market penetration of cell phone services in the recent past, the growth in the share of the population with access to electricity has been rather dismal. The comparisons between both sectors are not new and have been made repeatedly over the years. This commentary recognizes that there are substantial differences between both sectors that make direct comparisons and a transfer of policy lessons difficult. It then identifies some key enablers of cellular telephony growth in Africa that can be applied to the electric power sector and refashions them into broad policy guidelines for boosting the pace of the energy transition on the subcontinent.