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We Might Not Have Enough Materials for All the Solar Panels and Wind Turbines We Need, an Analysis Finds (popularmechanics.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Plenty of high-tech electronic components, like solar panels, rechargeable batteries, and complex circuits require specific rare metals. These can include magnetic neodymium, electronic indium, and silver, along with lesser-known metals like praseodymium, dysprosium, and terbium. These metals are mined in large quantities in countries around the world, and they make their way into the supply chains of all sorts of electronics and renewables companies.
A group of researchers from the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure determined how many of these important metals will be required by 2050 in order to make enough solar panels and wind turbines to effectively combat climate change. With plenty of countries, states, cities, and companies pledging to go 100 percent renewable by 2050, the number of both solar panels and wind turbines is expected to skyrocket. According to the analysis, turbines and solar panels might be skyrocketing a bit too much. Demand for some metals like neodymium and indium could grow by more than a dozen times by 2050, and there simply might not be enough supply to power the green revolution.
A group of researchers from the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure determined how many of these important metals will be required by 2050 in order to make enough solar panels and wind turbines to effectively combat climate change. With plenty of countries, states, cities, and companies pledging to go 100 percent renewable by 2050, the number of both solar panels and wind turbines is expected to skyrocket. According to the analysis, turbines and solar panels might be skyrocketing a bit too much. Demand for some metals like neodymium and indium could grow by more than a dozen times by 2050, and there simply might not be enough supply to power the green revolution.
There’s a persistent myth about wind turbines that just won’t seem to go away despite reality running to the contrary: they need rare earth materials to generate electricity.
For those not acquainted with rare earths like neodymium and dysprosium, they’re used in products from your iPhone and computer to flat screen TVs and certain types of batteries.
While they can be difficult to mine, rare is a misnomer: they exist in abundance throughout the earth’s crust.
Many people think rare earths are also a necessary component of wind turbines, but the facts find otherwise: only about two percent of the U.S. wind turbine fleet uses them, and that number shouldn’t change much in the years to come.
https://www.aweablog.org/rare-...
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
aluminum - didn't work out too well.
It works just fine. Look up some time. All that stuff strung between the poles and transmission towers ... aluminum. So is the stuff underground. Even the larger service lines into your house are made of aluminum. Pretty much the only copper left is small wire (branch circuits from your panel) due to the higher cost of terminating aluminum properly.
Have gnu, will travel.