An assessment of U.S. rare earth availability for supporting U.S. wind energy growth targets

Global initiatives are focused on deploying clean energy technologies that decrease greenhouse gas emissions. However, many of these technologies rely heavily on a volatile rare earth element (REE) supply chain. In 2016, the global supply of these REEs continues to be concentrated within a small num...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Energy policy 2017-12, Vol.113 (C)
Main Authors: Imholte, D. D., Nguyen, R. T., Vedantam, A., Brown, M., Iyer, A., Smith, B. J., Collins, J. W., Anderson, C. G., O’Kelley, B.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
rare earth
supply chain
system dynamics
wind energy
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Summary:Global initiatives are focused on deploying clean energy technologies that decrease greenhouse gas emissions. However, many of these technologies rely heavily on a volatile rare earth element (REE) supply chain. In 2016, the global supply of these REEs continues to be concentrated within a small number of countries while clean energy demand continues to grow. To address the critical nature of these REEs, global efforts have been made to diversify supply of REEs. However, it is unclear if the success of these efforts, combined with the most-promising domestic REO production capacity, will be enough to ensure REE supply for domestic clean energy technology demand, including wind energy. We apply a static and dynamic approach to estimate U.S. REE production capacity and its associated effect on U.S. wind energy growth out to 2030. Our static approach shows that U.S. light REE supply from the Mountain Pass, Bear Lodge and potential Phosphate mines operating at maximum production capacity could provide significant light REE supply to satisfy U.S. targets for wind energy REE consumption. Furthermore, when we consider market dynamics, domestic light REE production is inadequate for alleviating the supply constraint which limits overall U.S. wind energy growth out to 2030.
ISSN:0301-4215
1873-6777