U.S.-Japan Conference: Securing Critical Resources in a New Green and Industrial Era

Innovative new technologies, from components like batteries to systems such as airplanes, demand the specific properties of a growing number of rare metals used in complex combinations and in increasingly refined amounts. Technology now relies on an entirely new set of critical materials, namely rare metals, for products manufactured today that are very different from those produced just twenty years ago.

While the world is not running out of rare metals, developing new supply lines can take a decade or more. Advanced economies are approaching a point where the speed of development and number of new devices will outpace the ability to secure the materials this new industrial age requires. As new devices proliferate, advanced countries like the United States and Japan are linking their economic futures to rare metals, with production often dominated by one mine or one country.

On November 30, Sasakawa USA will partner with the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Cetner at Stanford University to hold a conference to discuss and lay out the challenges, opportunities, and limitations of creating resilient supplies of critical materials. The event will include expert roundtables on specific aspects of bringing rare metals from production to product. This will be the first conference to bring together companies from the entire the rare metal supply chain, including experts and officials from both Japan and the United States, countries that both rely on the entire spectrum of these resources for manufacturing. 

8:30      Welcome
      Dennis Blair, Chairman and CEO, Sasakawa USA
      Takeo Hoshi, Director of Japan Program, Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford University

8:40      Scene Setter: Key Issues in Critical Resources
      David Abraham, Director, Technology, Rare, and Electronic Materials Center

9:30      Panel 1: Identifying Resource Insecurity: The unique supply line challenges of rare metals
      Moderator:       Richard Dasher, Director of US-Asia Technology Management Center, Stanford University
      John Thompson, Wold Family Professor in Environmental Balance for Human Sustainability, Cornell
      University
      Tom Graedel, Yale University
      Yuuko Yasunaga, Director of Mineral and Natural Resources Division, Ministry of Economy, Trade, and  
      Industry of Japan

10:30    Break

11:45    Video message: Setting the Government Agenda for Ensuring Critical Resources
      Senator Lisa Murkowski, Chariman, Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee

12:00    Lunch

12:30    Keynote Address: Rare Metals in Defense and National Security
      Moderator:       Takeo Hoshi, Director of Japan Program, Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Center, Stanford University
      Dennis Blair, Chairman and CEO, Sasakawa USA

1:00      Break

1:15      Panel 3: Identifying material concerns and solutions to enhance resiliency in supply lines 
      Moderator:       Daniel Sneider, Associate Director, Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Center, Stanford University
      Elbert Loois, Managing Partner, HTM Advisory
      Luka Erceg, Executive Chairman, DryLet
      Nick Kotaki, Managing Director, Material Trading Company Ltd.
      Geoff Bedford, President and CEO, Neo Performance Materials

2:15      Break

2:30      Panel 4: Strategies for a New Industrial Age: Substitution, Recycling and a Circular Economy
      Moderator:         Martin Steurner, Research Economist, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
      David Abraham, Director, Technology, Rare, and Electronic Materials Center
      Steve Conlin, President, ICD Alloys and Metals
      Toru Okabe,  Professor, Department of Materials Systems and Dynamics, Tokyo University
      Ian Monroe, Visiting Scholar, School of Earth Science, Stanford University

3:30      Summary and Way Forward
      Dennis Blair, Chairman and CEO, Sasakawa USA
      David Abraham, Director, Technology, Rare, and Electronic Materials Center

3:45      Adjourn