Rare metals are especially vital for renewable energy technologies such as electric cars and solar panels.
Rare earth metals in solar panels.
A shortage of rare earth metals used in everything from electric car batteries to solar panels to wind turbines is hampering the growth of renewable energy technologies.
More clean energy means more solar panels wind turbines electric vehicles and large scale batteries.
Rare earth metals hard to find materials with unfamiliar names such as lanthanum neodymium and europium are used in wind and solar energy projects but dwindling supplies could hinder a roll out of low carbon technologies and slow china s shift away from coal power.
Mining for rare metals is considered to be one of china s most polluting industries presenting potential disasters relating to contamination that threaten to cause a wide scale catastrophe.
We don t recycle them and there s not enough to meet growing demand.
But it also means more demand for the materials that make those technologies possible.
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By depleting earth of its resources solar energy is not sustainable as the components required are limited.
Rare earth metals are used in solar panels and wind turbines as well as electric cars and consumer electronics.
According to the analysis turbines and solar panels might be skyrocketing a bit too much.
A new report by the french environment and energy management agency ademe shows that rare earth minerals are not widely used in solar energy and battery storage technologies.
These compounds which are highly toxic when mined and processed also take a heavy environmental toll on soil and water.
Demand for some metals like neodymium and indium could grow by more than a dozen times by 2050 and there.