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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.
I predict that when the coming resource crunch comes, if ever, the rising price of such-and-such raw material will rise enough that an alternative will emerge. Neodymium too costly? You can make a perfectly good electric generator using other magnets or inductance. Indium too expensive? Well, perhaps we won't use as many CIGS solar panels, and instead stick with silicon.
And, who knows, we'll probably be prospecting asteroids by 2050. If the cost for certain materials on earth is high enough, there may be a business case for it. Indium costs about $5/gram presently, or $5M/tonne. If there's a resource crunch and the cost goes up, say, 5-fold, perhaps someone will have enough incentive to mine asteroid indium for $25M/tonne.
Probably didn't consider this:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/1...
Researchers have found hundreds of years' worth of rare-earth materials underneath Japanese waters — enough to supply to the world on a "semi-infinite basis," according to a study published in Nature Publishing Group's Scientific Reports.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Can't we send a 3D printer to the Asteroid Belt or the center of the Earth to make solar panels and send them to us?
Can't we just make solar panels out of coal . . . ?
We seem to have enough of that now, that nobody wants.
And think of the brilliant irony, of former coal miners now producing solar panels.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Yes, something that exists as 0.0033% of the crust isn't rare. We won't even get into the tiny fractions of a percent of that fraction of a percent that are actually in a position where mining is either economically or technologically possible. Or that governments wouldn't hold out and go to war over the resources when they even are able to be mined in an area.
"But, but, my non science based website says these elements aren't rare, even though the site owner probably cant spell Geologist or even mineral without resorting to a dictionary!"
The surface area of the Earth is 5*10^8 km^2. The USGS says the thickness of the crust is 30 km, so the volume is 1.5*10^10 km^3. At your percentage, that would be 5*10^5 km^3 of whichever rare earth metal you're talking about. Let's take neodymium as an example, with a density of 7 g/cm^3, or 7*10^12 kg/km^3. That would be a total of 3.5*10^18 kg of neodymium in the Earth's crust. If only one millionth of that is accessible, that would still be enough for every person on Earth to have their own MW-scale wind turbine.