Clean energy will substantially increase REE demand
Serpell, et. al, 21 --- a research associate at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy (May 2021, Oscar Serpell, Benjamin Paren - a Ph.D. student in the department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, Wan-Yi Chu - assistant professor at Mills College in Oakland, California and a former postdoctoral researcher in the Goldberg Group, located in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania, “RARE EARTH ELEMENTS: A RESOURCE CONSTRAINT OF THE ENERGY TRANSITION,” https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/KCEP-Rare-Earth-Elements.pdf, JMP))
The clean energy technologies sector is expected to increase demand for REEs considerably, because strong magnets are critical in the construction of direct drive wind turbines and permanent magnet motors for electric vehicles (DOE 2019; Hanejko 2020).
Direct drive wind turbines currently make up a small fraction of the total wind energy capacity in the United States. However, their high efficiency and relatively low maintenance requirements compared to other turbine technologies have put direct drive wind turbines in consideration for large-scale offshore wind installations.
Similarly, motors containing REE permanent magnets have recently become the standard choice for electric vehicles due to their high efficiencies. With the growing need to forgo fossil fuels, the demand for REEs from the wind and electric vehicle industries is projected to increase in the near future (Alonso et al., 2012).