Illustrative: atoms and bonds of a lattice with a phonon travelling through it and one dopant site

Risk Academy, led by the Nexus Consortium · Course catalogue · Infrastructure, Energy and Industry

Energy and Resources

Critical minerals, mining and extractives

Critical minerals, mining and extractives, taught twice over: as the working methods of the field and as its frontier since 2024, with labs on the Academy's tools, open data and the Nexus Standards.

Core course Frontier course

The discipline

01Core course · L2 Intermediate

Critical minerals, mining and extractives: foundations and practice

This area covers mining and extractive industries, critical minerals for the energy and digital transitions, tailings and structural safety, commodity price risk, and the social and environmental risks of extraction and closure.

Level
L2 Intermediate
Study time
about 24 hours (planning estimate)
Status
In authoring
Prerequisites
An L1 course in the area, or an entry review

Why now

Strategic status speeds permitting and finance access, shaping where new mining and processing capacity, and its community and environmental risks, emerge. European Commission, Strategic projects under the CRMA, 9 October 2026

Learning outcomes

  1. Define critical mineral and the other key terms of the discipline and use them correctly in a written case
  2. Explain critical minerals supply and mining operations and safety with a worked example and its source
  3. Apply the discipline's method to a documented case and explain each result with its source
  4. Analyse a named case against tailings storage facilities, stating evidence, date and limits

Modules

  1. Critical minerals supply
    • Critical minerals supply
    • Mining operations and safety
    • Tailings storage facilities
  2. Commodity price risk
    • Commodity price risk
    • Resource revenues
    • Community and human rights risk
  3. Mine closure and legacy
    • Mine closure and legacy
    • Responsible sourcing
  4. Lab: the discipline's method
    • The share of a mineral's supply held by its largest source sets the concentration index; the share of supply a disruption removes, divided by the short-run price elasticity, gives the price rise; a stockpile covers part of the gap for a time, and the size of that stockpile is the decision.
    • Work the method through a documented case and explain each result
    • Read the method's sources and stated values

Labs with Academy tools

Nexus Standards

Teaches

  • NRS-X4 Trade, transport and supply chains risk
  • NRS-P10 Third-party, outsourcing and concentration risk
  • NRS-H60 Hazard family: Supply-chain and flow disruption
  • NRS-M10 Method fabric: Markets, trade and supply chains

Relies on

  • NS-1 The UNI and the artefact catalogue
  • NS-16 UNI application profile (how articles, documents, code, data, APIs and interfaces carry the UNI)
  • NRS-C1 Risk vocabulary and ontology
  • NRS-C2 Risk assessment method
  • NRS-C3 Hazard, exposure, vulnerability and capacity data
  • NRS-C4 Risk data model, identifiers and exchange
  • NRS-C6 Systemic and cascading risk
  • NRS-C7 Early warning, triggers and anticipatory action

Assessment

  • 40%Lab recordWork the discipline's method through a documented case and explain each result with its source and date
  • 40%Case memoApply the discipline's methods to a named place or organisation, stating evidence and limits
  • 20%Key terms checkShort answers on the key terms, marked against the definitions

Delivery

  • Self-paced online, with the labs in the browser
  • Cohort study over six to eight weeks, with a weekly lab review
  • Co-delivered with a partner institution, inside its own courses

Partner on this course

  • Co-teach a module and bring a current case from your work
  • Host a cohort for your learners, with your own schedule and review
  • Contribute a lab: a dataset your institution publishes openly, or a model
  • Review the course content and its references before it opens
  • Translate the course and adapt its cases to your region

How institutions and experts take part

In the Academy LMS

Course on the learning platform
Intermediate, 4 topics
Cohort group
A community group for each cohort of learners
Achievement
Recorded on completion of the assessed work

References

  1. European Commission, Strategic projects under the CRMA, 9 October 2026
  2. Graedel et al., Methodology of metal criticality determination, 2012
  3. Sovacool et al., Sustainable minerals and metals for a low-carbon future, 2020
  4. Owen et al., Catastrophic tailings dam failures and disaster risk disclosure, 2020
02Live map

Activity and hazards in the Black Sea region

Night-time lights and population, the geography of production and markets, with floods and sea state, over the Black Sea region.

The interactive map needs JavaScript; the layer list and sources are below.

Layers 2

Activity and hazards

Latest available

NASA GIBS / EOSDIS · ASTER GDEM (METI, NASA) · Blue Marble (NASA) · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) · Natural Earth

Loading the latest NASA imagery.

Drag to move. Ctrl or ⌘ and scroll, pinch or the buttons to zoom; hover for the values under the pointer; reset returns to the region.

Activity and hazards, framed on the Black Sea region.Satellite and model products as NASA publishes them, each with its own date. They are indicators, not assessments of any place.

Data: NASA GIBS · ASTER GDEM · Blue Marble · © OpenStreetMap contributors · Natural Earth · NASA EONETSources and licences

  • We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • VIIRS Black Marble night-time lights, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; distributed by the NASA Level-1 and Atmosphere Archive and Distribution System (LAADS DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), Columbia University. 2018. Gridded Population of the World, Version 4 (GPWv4): Population Density, Revision 11. NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC). Licensed under CC BY 4.0. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). doi:10.7927/H49C6VHW. CC BY 4.0
  • VIIRS near-real-time products (flood, land surface temperature, snow cover, corrected reflectance), NASA LANCE; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • GHRSST Level 4 MUR analyses, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory; distributed by the NASA Physical Oceanography DAAC (PO.DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • ASTER GDEM is a product of METI and NASA (ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model V003, NASA LP DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). Cite as: NASA/METI/AIST/Japan Spacesystems and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team (2019). ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model V003. doi:10.5067/ASTER/ASTGTM.003. NASA open data
  • Made with Natural Earth. Free vector and raster map data @ naturalearthdata.com. Public domain
  • © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), via NASA GIBS (coastlines, boundaries, roads and place names). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). ODbL
  • Blue Marble, NASA Earth Observatory; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • Context on the globe and flat map: coastlines, boundaries, roads and place names from NASA GIBS reference layers (OpenStreetMap data, ODbL, © OpenStreetMap contributors); Blue Marble imagery as an optional base; 3D terrain and the elevation read-out from the ASTER GDEM elevation colour index (5 m to 200 m classes, exaggerated for legibility). Boundaries are drawn as published and imply no position on any territory.
  • Globe: MapLibre GL JS 6.9.1, BSD-3-Clause, © MapLibre contributors.
  • Live events: NASA Earth Observatory Natural Event Tracker (EONET); events are indicative and keep their original source links.
  • NASA GIBS: We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS).
  • Weather data by Open-Meteo.com (https://open-meteo.com/), licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
  • Optional layers (5 sources in the layer list: live, forecast, observed and context) print their provider credit on the map and here when switched on; forecasts are model output and derived indices are estimates.

Layers and dates

  • Night-time lights, daily: VIIRS Black Marble (VNP46A2), NASA LAADS DAAC · 12 Oct 2026
  • Population density, 2020: Population: CIESIN, Columbia University, Gridded Population of the World v4.11 (2018), NASA SEDAC, CC BY 4.0 · static
  • Flood water, 3-day composite: VIIRS Global Flood Product, NASA LANCE · 14 Oct 2026
  • Sea surface temperature anomaly: GHRSST MUR25, NASA JPL PO.DAAC · 12 Oct 2026
  • True colour: VIIRS NOAA-20 corrected reflectance, NASA LANCE · 13 Oct 2026

03How learning runs

How learning runs, as a process you can run

Select a scenario and press Play: course, pathway, practice, faculty, cells and record.

04What is changing

Frontier course · L3 advanced, programme courses and standards

Critical minerals, mining and extractives: frontier methods

The methods, data, tools and studies that changed critical minerals, mining and extractives between 2024 and 2026, taught by reproducing them on open data.

Level
L3 Advanced
Study time
about 28 hours (planning estimate)
Status
Planned
Prerequisites
Critical minerals, mining and extractives: foundations and practice; Working knowledge of a scripting language (Python or R) for the labs

Why now

Strategic status speeds permitting and finance access, shaping where new mining and processing capacity, and its community and environmental risks, emerge. European Commission, Strategic projects under the CRMA, 9 October 2026

Learning outcomes

  1. Explain what changed in critical minerals, mining and extractives since 2024 and cite the studies, data or rules behind each change
  2. Reproduce EU adopts second list of strategic raw materials projects on open data and state the uncertainty of the result
  3. Evaluate a 2024 to 2026 study: its question, data, method, limits and what it changes for practice
  4. Design an analysis that combines a frontier method with the faculty's instruments, and justify each choice

Modules

  1. EU adopts second list of strategic raw materials projects
    • The European Commission adopted the second list of strategic projects under the Critical Raw Materials Act, covering projects that extract, process or recycle strategic raw materials and diversify supply, which the Commission treats as being of public interest.
    • Strategic status speeds permitting and finance access, shaping where new mining and processing capacity, and its community and environmental risks, emerge.
    • European Commission, 9 October 2026
  2. USGS: US fully import-reliant for 13 critical minerals
    • USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 reported that of 58 commodities on the final 2025 US critical minerals list, excluding metallurgical coal and uranium, the US was fully import-reliant for 13 and over 50% reliant for 20 more; China led supply for eight.
    • Import reliance and supplier concentration data are core inputs for critical mineral supply risk scoring and procurement strategy.
    • U.S. Geological Survey, 6 February 2026
  3. Reproduction lab
    • Extend the discipline's method with one frontier method and compare its results
    • State the uncertainty and the limits of the result
    • Peer review against a shared checklist
  4. Technology that helps and the risks it carries
    • Traceability and distributed ledgers.
    • Exposure to chip and export controls, and concentration in critical minerals.

Labs with Academy tools

Nexus Standards

Teaches

  • NRS-X4 Trade, transport and supply chains risk
  • NRS-P10 Third-party, outsourcing and concentration risk
  • NRS-H60 Hazard family: Supply-chain and flow disruption
  • NRS-M10 Method fabric: Markets, trade and supply chains

Relies on

  • NS-1 The UNI and the artefact catalogue
  • NS-16 UNI application profile (how articles, documents, code, data, APIs and interfaces carry the UNI)
  • NRS-C1 Risk vocabulary and ontology
  • NRS-C2 Risk assessment method
  • NRS-C3 Hazard, exposure, vulnerability and capacity data
  • NRS-C4 Risk data model, identifiers and exchange
  • NRS-C6 Systemic and cascading risk
  • NRS-C7 Early warning, triggers and anticipatory action

Assessment

  • 50%Method reproductionReproduce one frontier method on open data and state the uncertainty of the result
  • 30%Study reviewA critical review of a 2024 to 2026 study: question, data, method, limits, what it changes
  • 20%Peer reviewReview two other learners' reproductions against a shared checklist

Delivery

  • Self-paced online, with the labs in the browser
  • Cohort study over six to eight weeks, with a weekly lab review
  • Co-delivered with a partner institution, inside its own courses

Partner on this course

  • Co-teach a module and bring a current case from your work
  • Host a cohort for your learners, with your own schedule and review
  • Contribute a lab: a dataset your institution publishes openly, or a model
  • Review the course content and its references before it opens
  • Translate the course and adapt its cases to your region

How institutions and experts take part

In the Academy LMS

Course on the learning platform
Expert, 4 topics
Cohort group
A community group for each cohort of learners
Achievement
Recorded on completion of the assessed work

References

  1. European Commission, Strategic projects under the CRMA, 9 October 2026
  2. U.S. Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026, 6 February 2026
  3. Graedel et al., Methodology of metal criticality determination, 2012
  4. Sovacool et al., Sustainable minerals and metals for a low-carbon future, 2020
  5. Owen et al., Catastrophic tailings dam failures and disaster risk disclosure, 2020
05Take part

Take part in the work

Start from who you are.

06Questions

Questions, answers and key terms

Is the course free?
Yes. Every course and learning material of Risk Academy, led by the Nexus Consortium, is free to study, self-paced or with a cohort. Ordinary participation has no fee; paid work, internships and fellowships are separate arrangements.
What does completing a course give me?
A completion record: the course, its version, the date and what was assessed, private by default and shared by you. It stacks into discipline, department and programme achievements. A record states what was studied and assessed and does not certify competence; it is not a licence, a professional title or an employment status.
Where do the data and the places come from?
Every faculty teaches on a twin of a real place built from open data; each layer carries its provider, licence and date, and every result on the Academy states its source. Maps and figures are indicators for teaching, never an assessment of a place.
How do I take part beyond the course?
Form a competence cell of three to seven people, study a shared pathway, take a supervised assignment in the National Working Groups, or bring a cohort from your institution. For organisations.

Key terms

Term

Critical mineral

A mineral of high economic importance whose supply is at risk.

Term

Tailings storage facility

A structure that stores the fine waste left after ore processing.

Term

Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management

An international standard for the safe management of tailings facilities.

Term

Resource curse

The pattern in which resource wealth is linked to weaker growth or governance.

ReportsContribute

Contribute evidence from this page.

Reports is the Consortium's quarterly publication. What you know about this subject can become evidence, a case or a correction in the next edition, credited to you and published under CC BY 4.0 where it is your own work.

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