Reshaping Heavy Rare Earth Supply Chains Amidst China's Stringent Environmental Regulations
Wei Chen and Peng Wang and Fanran Meng and Alexandra Pehlken and Qiao-Chu Wang and Wei-Qiang Chen
Fundamental Research
ABSTRACT China's official heavy rare earth (HRE) supply, vital to the global sustainable transition, has declined by 90% over the past 20 years. Global concerns have mounted regarding China's restrictive production quota policies, yet the real-world bottlenecks remain unclear. This study explores China's terbium (a critical HRE element) supply-demand conflicts and supply chain bottlenecks and simulates future trends. We identify a growing terbium shortage (a total of 3300 metric tons) in China as its registered production declined by 90% during the period from 2007 to 2018. Contrary to previous views that attribute HRE supply limitations to the production quota policy, we find that only 25% of China's quota was utilized in 2018. Such a large quota-supply gap stems primarily from the enforced closures of HRE mines since the current mining techniques failed to reach stricter environmental regulations. Furthermore, our simulations predict a 2-5-fold increase in terbium shortage by 2060 under the burgeoning ambitions in EVs and wind power. However, this looming shortage could potentially be mitigated by 27-70% under the scenario of breakthroughs in green mining techniques. This study highlights the urgency of seeking and promoting HRE green mining technologies, with implications for shifting global attention from geopolitical competition to green supply.
2024
article
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