00:00From a strategic perspective, critical minerals are really vital.
00:08The demand for them is rising, but for so many, China controls the market.
00:16While the rest of the world slept, China built end-to-end supply chains.
00:23The rest of the world's woken up now.
00:29This vast expanse of mineral sands north of Perth is rich in zirconium, an element vital
00:36to China's military build-up.
00:41Australia has the world's largest reserves, but China dominates processing.
00:47Well, we're in the middle of one of the world's largest fields for heavy mineral sands.
00:58We've come to meet adjunct professor Ian Satchel, one of Australia's leading authorities
01:05on critical minerals.
01:07What's the significance of this area?
01:11Heavy mineral sands generally have come out of volcanoes, been worn down into sand, stirred
01:18by the sea and the tides over many, many millions of years, and not degraded, so they are very
01:25robust minerals.
01:27Well, zirconium has a wide, wide range of uses.
01:30Everything from whitening our bathroom tiles and our basins and toilets, through to sheathing
01:37nuclear fuel rods.
01:40China needs zirconium, and lots of it.
01:45With a melting point of more than 1800 degrees, it's used in the protective coating for hypersonic
01:51missiles that travel at more than five times the speed of sound.
01:58It's also a vital ingredient in the nuclear fuel cycle.
02:04Zircon exists in some places in abundance, particularly in Australia, but in other places like China,
02:10they have very little or none of it.
02:12The
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