Are we ready to recycle the “rare earths” behind an energy revolution?

Enlarge / China's Bayan Obo mine currently produces about half the world's supply of rare earth elements. (credit: Google Earth)

The transition to electric vehicles and renewable sources of electricity, now gaining serious momentum, is largely about dispensing with fossil fuels. But in order to end our reliance on those substances, we need a growing supply of other materials—things like lithium and rare earth elements. Unlike fossil fuels, however, these materials need not be consumed when we put them to use. In principle, devices can be recycled at end of life to return these precious materials to a closed loop that could eventually minimize the need for mining.

But with solar arrays, wind turbines, and electric vehicles starting to hit the disposal stage in increasing numbers—while manufacturing skyrockets—is a new recycling industry actually ramping up to take advantage? The answer is “not really” for reasons both familiar and novel. A lot of heavy lifting remains between here and a closed loop for clean energy technologes.

I prefer my earths medium rare

The so-called “rare earth elements” (or REEs) include the 15 lanthanide elements on the periodic table—lanthanum through lutetium—plus scandium and yttrium straight above them. Despite the name, most of the rare earths are more common than gold or silver in the Earth’s crust, although high-quality ores are indeed hard to come by.