Rare earth elements, or REEs, are chemical elements essential to cell phones, computers, electric vehicles, wind turbines, and virtually all digital electronics. These reusable elements, with strange names like cerium (Ce), neodymium (Nd), praseodymium (Pr), dysprosium (Dy), and terbium (Tb), can be recycled from electronics. However, REE resources are limited, akin to fossil fuels. Additionally, only 4 countries in the world contain roughly 85% of the REE supply found in the crust. Therefore, scientists aim to develop methods for mining and sustainably distributing REEs.
Peng Wang and colleagues suggested the solution could be to establish a new global economic system called a circular economy. Circular economies are based on obtaining readily available resources and reducing waste. For example, China nationalized this policy in the 2000s to capitalize on its quantity of REEs. They explained that countries and industries use 5 strategies to develop a circular economy: baseline usage, recycling, reuse, substitution, and reduction.
First, countries monitor their current resource usage to establish a baseline. Then they recycle readily available resources to reduce waste, and build persistent machines and technology they can reuse. Next, they encourage industries to use easy-to-obtain resources at the manufacturing level, referred to as substitution, while keeping the production process lean to avoid wasting excess material, referred to as reduction. Different countries also combine these individual strategies to maximize sustainability, producing composite outcomes.
The researchers argued that not all circular economy strategies have an equal impact. For example, they suggested that reduction and substitution are the most effective strategies since they occur at the production source, while recycling and reuse are reactionary measures instead of preventative. To determine which strategies would be most beneficial to REE distribution, they considered how the REE industry aligns with the 5 circular economy strategies.
The researchers explained that mining companies extract most REEs directly from the earth, referred to as in-ground stocks. However, notable supplies of REEs are only found in a handful of countries, like China, Brazil, Vietnam, and Russia. Current electronics already contain a bountiful stock of REEs, called in-use REEs. The team argued that recycling these devices would reduce the quantity of in-ground stocks required to be extracted, which could help economies stabilize as in-ground stocks decrease. Following the current economic model, the researchers projected that most of the in-use stock would be thrown away and become unusable shortly. For example, they predicted that both Dy and Tb will be exhausted by 2042 if nations fail to introduce in-use stocks efficiently.
The team pointed out that trade would also impact a global circular economy. Free trade allows resources like REEs to flow openly through national borders, with taxes and tariffs as compensation. However, if free trade is interrupted, it would prevent reclaiming in-use stocks of REEs. For example, they estimated that a no-trade “armageddon” scenario would more than double waste for REEs like Nd, Pr, Dy, and Tb, since countries with in-use stocks export their resources to other countries.
The researchers explained that China is currently the only nation that can fulfill its own REE supply. However, they predicted that the United States could have up to 50% of the in-use stocks by 2050. They argued that the trade of in-use REEs will become a multi-billion-dollar industry in the next few decades, so it is in the United States’ interest to develop circular economy practices. They suggested these practices also provide social benefits, since nations focused on resource extraction can develop sustainable economies based on processing in-use stocks instead of exploiting current stocks.
The researchers concluded that implementing a circular economy to recycle in-use stocks would help expand the global availability of future REEs. But to succeed, the global economy would need to come together, which might prove challenging. They proposed that the United States form relationships with countries specializing in recycling to start the trend of the West joining this economic system.
