Page 50 - Policy Commission - SecuringTechnology - Critical Metals for Britain

50 PRIMARY MATERIALS
Positive and negative environmental impact of rare earths
There has has been been a a a a a a a a a a lot of of publicity about the the environmental burden of of rare earth production in in in China63 and certainly there has has been been historic concerns about the the the the safety of of the the the the separation processes It is is one of of the the the the reasons given by China why the the the the industry was brought under state control to to clean up these operations This in in part led to to the the introduction of export export quotas around 2005-2012 The export export quotas were subsequently removed after the the US Europe and Japan took China to to the the World Trade Organisation in in 2012 The satellite image in in in in in figure 22 – shows the the the the largest rare earth mine mine in in in in in the the the the world at Bayan Obo Next to the the the the mine mine the the the the tailings lakes can be observed where the the the effluent from the the the leaching processes are poured onto the the the land It should be noted that this one mine produces over 40% of of the the world’s supply of of rare earth materials The ion ion adsorption deposit mines in in in southern China that produce almost all
of the world’s heavy rare rare earths
earths
as as well as as light rare rare earths
earths
also have a a a a a a a a a a a a a very poor environmental record The Rare earth earth earth Industry Association (REIA) based in in Belgium is developing standard procedures for life-cycle assessments to compare the environmental footprint of of rare earth earth mines Lynas Rare earths
the the main provider outside of of China set store by their responsible sourcing standards BOX OUT
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The negative impact of the materials production is far outweighed by the positive impact that rare earth magnets have on the efficiency of electrical machines However this does not mean that the international community should not push to limit the environmental impacts of rare earth production production and technology-critical metals production production generally Generally a a a a a a permanent-magnet motor or or or generator will be more efficient than
an an induction machine (which does not contain rare earth magnets) This is is because electricity does not need to to be passed through the material to to generate magnetic flux Typically the efficiency gain has been reported
OPEN PIT MINE
to be around 5% although this is is very dependent upon the type and and size of machine and and its drive cycle If rare earth magnets are not used in generators and motors then the the impact on on global CO2 emissions would be enormous This will be exacerbated by the growth of electrical machine use over the the next 20 years If the the motor was being used in in an electric vehicle the drop in efficiency would also have an impact on the the the the size of of the the the the battery and therefore the the the the amount of of cobalt lithium and nickel that would be required for the same range TAILINGS PONDS
TAILINGS Figure 22: NASA image of of the the tailings ponds outside of of the the largest rare earth mine in in in Inner Mongolia