WEMO24-Compiled Report-Interactive compressed (002) 4154-7882-8116 v.1 - Flipbook - Page 41
Global
Outlook
• The EU has adopted in Q1 2024 its new Critical Raw Materials
Act (CRMA)172, and has been seeking to develop mining
projects within EU borders. Various economically exploitable
deposits have been found. For example, the mining company
LKAB announced that it found a deposit of over 1 million tons
of rare earths in Northern Sweden173. At the beginning of
June 2024, Rare Earths Norway Group announced that their
Fensfelter174 deposit in south-east Norway should contains 8.8
million tonnes of rare earths175 and that mining could begin in
2030. Investment in the project is estimated at €900 million.
Other areas in Southern Europe, such as the Balkans, may
also contain considerable resources, but remain largely
underexplored at present.
171 https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/2637
172 https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/sectors/raw-materials/areas-specific-interest/
critical-raw-materials/critical-raw-materials-act_en
173 https://lkab.com/en/press-eu23/#:~:text=LKAB%20has%20identified%20significant%20
deposits,electric%20vehicles%20and%20wind%20turbines.
174 https://www.ngu.no/nyheter/
fensfeltet-satt-pa-europa-kartet-storste-forekomst-av-sjeldne-jordarter
175 Rare Earths are a family of 17 metals with special electromagnetic properties that make them
indispensable to the energy transition).
They are used in various high-tech applications including,
smartphones, wind turbines, electrical motors, hard disk
drives, LEDs, and more. They are key for the energy transition
as an electric car requires six times the mineral inputs of a
conventional car, and a wind plant requires nine times more
minerals than a gas-fired plant. REEs market is forecasted to
grow from 2024 to 2031, with a projected CAGR between 10%
and 13% and could increase six-fold by 2040.
China entered the (REE) market in the 1980s and the Western
countries were initially happy to let it takeover these material
extraction and refining activities as they release toxic chemicals
and radioactive wastes.
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They paid little attention to China’s increasingly significant lead.
Yet, China’s dominance over the sector gave it a significant
political leverage. In September 2010, after a spike in tensions
between China and Japan related to a territorial dispute, China
appeared to place an unofficial embargo on rare earth exports
to Japan.
In 2024, China’s, accounts for one-third of known worldwide
rare earth reserves, 60% percent of mined production and 85%
percent of processing capacity.
Graphite is used for batterie’s anodes. The need for graphite will
increase by 25 times due to electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing
growth alone.
In 2023, the USA imported 100% of its natural graphite of which
42% from China. The EU has a similar dependence. Western
dependency was exploited in 2023 when China imposed
graphite export restrictions in retaliation for USA limits on
semiconductors sales.
WEMO 2024
• In 2021, the USA American Critical Mineral Independence
Act171 was adopted to provide support for a domestic supply
of critical minerals.
Rare Earths Elements (REE176): Contrary to what their name
suggests, they are abundant in the earth’s crust, but they are
found in low concentrations and are hard to separate from other
elements, which is what makes them “rare.”
176 REE describe the 15 lanthanides on the periodic table (La-Lu), plus Scandium (Sc) and Yttrium
(Y).
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As for clean tech equipment, Western countries have adopted
speci昀椀c legislations on these raw materials:
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