Rare earth elements (REEs) provide important properties to clean energy technologies such as wind turbine and hybrid electric vehicles. The global REE demand will grow rapidly during the global transformation toward a greener economy in the next decades. This high demand will require a steady supply chain in the long run. China has a monopoly of global REE production and extraction. The global REE supply chain runs the risk of disruption along with Chinese REE policy evolution. To overcome this supply chain vulnerability, new strategies and measures should be adopted to satisfy future REE supply/demand. There is a pressing need to explore REE deposits, develop efficient REE recycling techniques from end-of-life products, improve substitution technologies for REEs, and reduce the number of critical REEs used in devices. Such measures are facing significant challenges due to environmental factors and an unbalanced market, and overcoming them requires efforts from government and REE companies.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.