New Review Warns Rare Earth Supply Chains Remain Fragile Despite New Recovery Pathways

Highlights

• A new comprehensive review reveals that rare earth supply security depends not on mining abundance, but on processing capacity—with China controlling ~90% of global refining operations, creating strategic vulnerabilities for nations pursuing energy transition and defense modernization.
• The study maps how neodymium, dysprosium, and terbium power electric vehicles, wind turbines, defense systems, and medical technologies—demonstrating that rare earths are hidden enablers of modern infrastructure, yet supply chains remain dangerously concentrated.
• Researchers conclude that emerging recovery technologies like bioleaching and e-waste recycling show promise but aren't yet scalable, meaning future resilience requires coordinated industrial policy and allied processing capacity, not just new mines.

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A new review led by Idris Demir, alongside Asim Mustafa Ayten, Soner Top, Mahmut Altiner, and Sait Kursunoglu, brings together researchers from institutions including Ankara Social Sciences University, Abdullah Gul University, (opens in a new tab) Cukurova University (opens in a new tab), and Batman University (opens in a new tab) to deliver a clear message: rare earth elements may be relatively abundant in the Earth’s crust, but a secure and scalable supply remains deeply constrained. Published in Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration, the study explains—clearly for both experts and general readers—that demand from electric vehicles, wind turbines, electronics, defense systems, and medical technologies is accelerating faster than resilient supply chains can be built. The authors’ central conclusion is that rare earth supply is not just a geological issue—it is a tightly linked system of applications, extraction and recovery technologies, and geopolitical control, with China continuing to dominate both mining and, more critically, processing.

Professor Idris Demir, First Author

Source: X

Study Methods: A System-Level Review

This is a comprehensive review study, not new fieldwork or a single experimental breakthrough. The authors synthesize peer-reviewed literature, government data, and institutional reports from roughly 2015 to 2025 to build a system-level understanding of the rare earth ecosystem. They examine both primary sources—including bastnaesite, monazite, xenotime, apatite, allanite, and clays—and secondary sources such as red mud, fly ash, mine waste, e-waste, wastewater, and phosphogypsum. The goal is to connect how materials are used, how they are recovered, and how geopolitical realities shape supply resilience.

Key Findings: Critical Materials Hidden in Plain Sight

Rare Earth Exchanges™ suggests that the most important takeaway is simple: rare earths are everywhere, but rarely visible. They enable the motors in EVs, the magnets in wind turbines, the coatings in jet engines, the sensors in defense systems, and even medical imaging technologies. The application map on page 5 visually links REEs to renewables, electronics, aerospace, medicine, and industrial systems—highlighting their central role in modern life.

The study also underscores the importance of specific elements. Neodymium, dysprosium, and terbium are essential for high-performance permanent magnets, making them critical to both clean energy and military systems. At the same time, global supply chains remain highly concentrated: China accounts for roughly 60% of mining and about 90% of processing capacity, a structural advantage built over decades.

Strategic Implications: Great Powers Era 2.0

For Rare Earth Exchanges readers, this reinforces a core thesis: we are operating in Great Powers Era 2.0, where supply chains are instruments of national power. The study confirms that processing—not mining—is the true chokepoint. Even when rare earths are mined outside China, they are often still processed within Chinese-controlled systems.

This creates a powerful asymmetry. Nations pursuing energy transition, defense modernization, or advanced manufacturing remain exposed to supply disruptions, pricing pressure, and geopolitical leverage.

Limitations and What Comes Next

As a review, the study does not demonstrate that emerging recovery technologies—such as bioleaching, ionic liquids, or recycling from waste streams—are ready for large-scale, cost-competitive deployment. Many remain early-stage, capital-intensive, or difficult to scale industrially.

Still, the direction is clear. Future resilience will depend on processing capacity, recycling innovation, and coordinated industrial policy across allied nations. Mining alone will not solve the problem.

The bottom line: in rare earths, access is not enough. Control—especially of processing and separation—defines power.

Citation: Demir I., Ayten A.M., Top S., Altiner M., Kursunoglu S. Rare Earth Elements in the Global Economy: Usage, Recovery, and the Quest for Supply Security – A Review. Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration (2026).