Rare earths supply chains will be challenged by REPowerEU: EC researcher

The major push towards renewable energy, including wind power, as envisaged by the European Commission's REPowerEU scheme may be challenging in terms of accessing the necessary supplies of rare earths, an EC research expert said May 18.

The construction of significantly more wind turbines, which use rare earth elements for magnet motors, will require the setting up of strategic rare earth supply partnerships, or product substitution in some cases, Michalis Christou, European Commission senior expert and researcher in energy security and transport, told a critical minerals webinar organized by the International Renewable Energy Agency, or IRENA, an intergovernmental organization.

The webinar followed the EC's May 18 launch of the REPowerEU initiative, which aims to eliminate EU dependence on Russian energy supplies by 2030. The plan aims to increase the 2030 target for EU renewable energy from 40% to 45% of total supplies, via a significant stepping up of both solar and windpower installations. Windpower, which already covers 15% of EU power demand, is now projected to rise from 190 GW to 480 GW in 2030 with the majority still onshore, where permitting issues have slowed growth.

REPowerEU is a "very ambitious plan" said Christou, pointing out that the plans to rapidly scale up windpower may put considerable pressure on critical rare earths supplies and permanent magnets, particularly as some 98% of permanent magnets today come from China.

"Definitely we need to increase supplies. Strategic partnerships are necessary to ensure the required supply and wherever possible diversification of markets," Christou said. "We are assessing supply risks and bottlenecks."

Substitutions under study

Designs to allow substitution of one rare earth by another, or use smaller quantities of rare earths are under consideration, Christou said. It is most important to use as little neodymium as possible and significantly step up recycling and reuse, he said. The European Raw Materials Alliance aims to set up an investment plan to source 20% of the region's rare earths from mining to magnets by 2030, he said.

Dolf Gielen, IRENA director of innovation and technology, said that energy from wind turbines needs to double to meet the 1.5 degrees climate targets, particularly in offshore wind, and that this will require an 11-fold to 26-fold increase in use of rare earth elements by 2050. More rare earth elements will also be needed for permanent magnet motors for electric vehicles, with up to 30 million EVs expected to have been sold by 2030, compared with some 7 million in circulation today.

"Some automakers want to phase out rare earth element magnet motors because of uncertainties in projections (of supplies availability and prices)" Gielen told the webinar. "But we don't have a resource problem, we have an uncertainty problem," he said.

Alternative EV motor designs currently result in lower performance, for instance with a reduced driving range, he said.

Rare earths neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium are key to the production of the permanent magnets in EVs and wind turbines, yttrium and scandium for hydrogen electrolysers, while europium, terbium and yttrium are used in energy-efficient fluorescent lighting, IRENA noted.