Those high-efficiency compact fluorescent lights that are supposed to replace energy-wasting incandescent bulbs have a looming problem: the materials to make them are in short supply.
So are materials vital for things like high-efficiency wind turbines and electric vehicle motors. Assistant Energy Secretary David Sandalow said those shortages could delay adoption of clean technologies, or make them more costly, so the Department of Energy has developed a strategy to try to avert shortages that is supported by $20 million in Congressional funding.
Sandalow, speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, outlined a three-pronged strategy DOE has developed over the past year to attack the problem: diversify supply, find more available substitutes, and recycle.
The shortages center around the so-called rare earths, but also include some lighter metals that have properties valuable to advanced technologies.
On the short-term critical supply list are dysprosium and neodymium, needed for magnets and motors in wind turbine-generators and electric vehicles, and terbium, europium and yttrium, which provide phosphors for high-efficiency linear and compact fluorescent light bulbs.
In the medium term, lithium, used in many EV batteries, and tellurium, used in solar thin films, are of concern for the coming years, but not yet critical. The DOE study also looked at gallium and indium, used in advanced solar panels, but found the supply risk low so far.
Complex supply headaches
Sandalow said the metals are not rare at all, but mining operations for them are. Currently, 95% of all rare earths come from China. In 2011, the Chinese government ratcheted down its export quotas, keeping the materials for its domestic wind, solar and battery manufacturers, who then export their finished products.
Asked whether China was restricting rare earths exports to advantage its own manufacturers, Sandalow agreed the quotas have "a lot to do with manufacturing."
But the shortages mean prices for rare earths have spiked to global highs, in some cases 10 to 20 times higher than 2010 prices, and more plans are emerging for extracting the materials outside China.
Sandalow said the DOE study team was able to identify about two dozen locations where mines for various rare earths may open in coming years, starting with Molycorp's Mountain Pass, CA, mine which is gearing up production now.
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