The global fight of critical minerals for energy should move to solutions for a less material critical technology base “The Middle East has oil. China has rare earth metals”, said Deng Xiaoping, the architect of China's modern economy, in 1990s, with astonishing foresight. The implications of his insight are forming the geopolitics of this century as the energy transition relies much on materials; e.g., nickel, lithium, cobalt are used in batteries, rare-earth elements in magnets of wind turbines and electric motors. Extraction of rare mineral sources is concentrated in a handful countries. For example, more than half of Li-reserves are in South American countries, which discuss establishing cartels to control pricing of Li. China, Europe, the USA are competing on acquiring access to critical minerals in Africa and South America, causing geopolitical tensions. Nature 619 (2023) 436 correctly foresees that the global fight for critical minerals is becoming costly and damaging. Much of the present discourse of critical minerals is focused on concentration and abundance of materials than on actions mitigating these issues. There’s a range of measures that can alleviate the problem such as incorporating circular economy incl. recycling but also intensifying R&D and science on broad basis: (1)   Aim at higher power/energy density (2)   Consider alternative technology pathways (3)   Use substitute materials (4)   Improve process/material efficiency (5)   Develop metamaterials (AI !) For example, changing battery chemistry can eliminate critical materials in Li-battery: Li-Co-Ni -> LiFePo4 drops off Co and Ni, and sodium-ion battery can replace Li with Na. There are more examples for other technologies, too. Artificial intelligence will help finding totally new pathways. Just looking into the abundance of elements can give some hints for future discovery and efforts in addition to the above list: Use sparsely or avoid rare earth elements, precious metals and the nine rarest "metals" (e.g., Pt). Instead, focus on rock-forming elements (and industrial metals). Keep in mind the Top 10 most common elements in the Earth’s crust (O, Si, Al, Fe, Ca, Na, Mg, K, Ti, H) – all the rest are