Government provides millions for research.
The Australian government has again made millions available to support projects related to the extraction and processing of critical raw materials. While it was mainly companies from the mining industry that benefited from these funds in the past (we reported), this time it is research organisations. These include the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, which will receive the lion’s share of the total funding, the equivalent of almost ten million US dollars. It is conducting a research project that aims to accelerate the discovery, extraction and processing of rare earths from deposits with comparatively low concentrations. Geoscience Australia is to explore the possibilities of further developing the domestic industry for critical raw materials such as gallium, germanium and indium, for which the equivalent of around two million US dollars will be provided. Australia aims to establish itself as an alternative supplier of important resources, as many countries want to make their supply chains less dependent on the raw materials superpower China.
