Circular Economy Strategies will need to Balance Out Supply/Demand Challenges in Global Rare Earth Element Markets

Hightlights

• Circular economy strategies are crucial for rare-earth elements supply/demand balance.
• Monitoring and utilizing in-use stocks can address upcoming shortages.
• Global collaboration is needed to effectively govern rare-earth markets.

Scientists from academic centers in the People’s Republic of China, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands in a recent report published in Nature Geoscience first and foremost acknowledge the growing rare-earth element importance across nations today. Part of the effort to move to low carbon output, so-called circular economy strategies, involving regenerative models aiming to reduce waste and resource use, and to keep products and materials in use, gained particular attention worldwide. Yet Peng Wang with the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Xiamen and colleagues point out that actually quantifying how such actions remain a challenge. Enter the authors’ integrated model quantifying just how circular economy strategies can reshape global supply chains of the critical rare-earth elements, from neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium to terbium.

Considering both in-ground and in-use stocks across ten regions, the authors’ analysis covers the period of the recent past to well into the future: 2021 to 2050.

Inclusive in the model are projections associated with three widely accepted climate scenarios. Based on the mismatch between in-ground stocks, supply and demand at specific region and element levels, heavy rare-earth elements represent the key obstacle for achieving net-zero emissions targets.

Consequently, a recommendation from Wang and colleagues. As in-ground stocks decline among total mineral supplies, the key will be to utilize in-use stocks via recycling based on the demands of consuming regions. Such regional actors can facilitate a balanced, less polarized geographical landscape for rare earth elements and circular economy strategies leading to greater amounts of secondary supply (701 kt) as well as a decrease of 2,306 kt demand over the next three decades. Within this time frame greater need to integrate circular economy strategies, necessitating even greater geopolitical internal collaboration to govern rare-earth elements more effectively.

Scientists from academic centers in the People’s Republic of China, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands in a recent report published in Nature Geoscience first and foremost acknowledge the growing rare-earth element importance across nations today. Part of the effort to move to low carbon output, so-called circular economy strategies, involving regenerative models aiming to reduce waste and resource use, and to keep products and materials in use, gained particular attention worldwide. Yet Peng Wang with the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Xiamen and colleagues point out that actually quantifying how such actions remain a challenge.

Enter the authors’ integrated model quantifying just how circular economy strategies can reshape global supply chains of the critical rare-earth elements, from neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium to terbium.

Considering both in-ground and in-use stocks across ten regions, the authors’ analysis covers the period of the recent past to well into the future: 2021 to 2050.

Inclusive in the model are projections associated with three widely accepted climate scenarios. Based on the mismatch between in-ground stocks, supply and demand at specific region and element levels, heavy rare-earth elements represent the key obstacle for achieving net-zero emissions targets.

Consequently, a possibly prescient recommendation from Wang and colleagues. As in-ground stocks decline among total mineral supplies, the key will be to utilize in-use stocks via recycling based on the demands of consuming regions. Such regional actors can facilitate a balanced, less polarized geographical landscape for rare earth elements and circular economy strategies leading to greater amounts of secondary supply (701 kt) as well as a decrease of 2,306 kt demand over the next three decades. Within this time frame greater need to integrate circular economy strategies, necessitating even greater geopolitical internal collaboration to govern rare-earth elements more effectively.