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Regional rare-earth element supply and demand balanced with circular economy strategies

Nature Geoscience volume 17, pages 94–102 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

The growing dependence of society on rare-earth elements poses a challenge to achieving a just low-carbon transition globally. While circular economy strategies have gained attention, their specific impacts remain unmeasured. Here we present an integrated model that quantifies how circular economy strategies can reshape global supply chains of the critical rare-earth elements such as neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium. The model considers both in-ground and in-use stocks across ten regions from 2021 to 2050. The projections include the full deployment of three widely accepted climate scenarios. We find a considerable mismatch between in-ground stocks, supply and demand at specific region and element levels, with the mismatch for heavy rare-earth elements as a key obstacle for achieving net-zero emissions targets. We suggest that, as in-ground stocks decline among mineral suppliers, the accumulation of in-use stocks in consuming regions can foster a more balanced and less polarized geopolitical landscape for rare-earth elements, and circular economy strategies can lead to an increase of 701 kt secondary supply and a decrease of 2,306 kt demand within the next three decades. Implementing these circular economy strategies will require international cooperation in the governance of rare-earth elements amid sustainable transition.

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Fig. 1: Framework of DIRECCT.
Fig. 2: RE-leveraged and pledged GHG reduction in the NZE scenario.
Fig. 3: The demand, supply and reserve of REEs at global and regional levels in the baseline scenario.
Fig. 4: Global shift of REEs from in-ground stocks to in-use stocks in the NZE scenario.
Fig. 5: Material flows of the REEs and regional interdependence in the NZE scenario under different CE scenarios.

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Data availability

The data generated and/or analysed in this study are provided in supplementary information and in the figshare repository (https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.24471670). The published data sources underlying the parameters used in this study are documented in supplementary information. Source data are provided with this paper. Any additional data are available from the corresponding authors.

Code availability

The code used to manipulate the data and generate the results is available from the figshare repository (https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.24471568).

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Acknowledgements

This research was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (72274187 to P.W., 71961147003 to W.-Q.C.), CAS IUE Research Program (no. IUE-JBGS-202202 to P.W.), Strategic Research and Consulting Project of Chinese Academy of Engineering (no. 2023-02JXZD-03 to W.-Q. C.), Research Project of Ganjiang Innovation Academy of Chinese Academy of Sciences (no. E355F004 to W.-Q. C.) and State Grid Project (no. 1400-202357639A-3-2-ZN to P.W.).

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  1. These authors contributed equally: Peng Wang, Yu-Yao Yang.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Lab of Urban Environment and Health, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen, China

    Peng Wang & Wei-Qiang Chen

  2. Ganjiang Innovation Academy, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ganzhou, China

    Peng Wang & Wei-Qiang Chen

  3. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Peng Wang & Wei-Qiang Chen

  4. Guanghua School of Management, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Yu-Yao Yang, Li-Yang Chen & Li-Hua Chen

  5. School of Engineering, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change, Newcastle University, Newcastle, UK

    Oliver Heidrich

  6. Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML), Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands

    Tomer Fishman

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Contributions

P.W. and Y.-Y.Y. designed the research, with steering and supervision from W.-Q.C. and L.-H.C.; P.W., Y.-Y.Y. and O.H. contributed to the methodology; P.W., Y.-Y.Y., O.H., T.F. and L.-Y.C. conducted the analysis. P.W., Y.-Y.Y., O.H. and W.-Q.C. led the drafting of the manuscript. All authors contributed significantly to the final writing of the article.

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Correspondence to Li-Hua Chen or Wei-Qiang Chen.

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Nature Geoscience thanks Takuma Watari and Zongguo Wen for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Primary Handling Editor: Tamara Goldin, in collaboration with the Nature Geoscience team.

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Wang, P., Yang, YY., Heidrich, O. et al. Regional rare-earth element supply and demand balanced with circular economy strategies. Nat. Geosci. 17, 94–102 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-023-01350-9

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