Europe is desperately looking for "rare earths"

Audio 19:30

A wind power plant.

(Illustrative image).

© TOBIAS SCHWARZ / AFP PHOTO

By: Frédérique Lebel

22 mins

This is one of the paradoxes of the ecological and digital transition.

To run wind turbines, solar power, electric batteries and even our mobile phones: we need new sources of energy.

These are the rare earths;

around twenty strategic metals.

And demand will explode: we should consume 50 times more in 30 years.

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However, their extraction is not very environmentally friendly, and

China supplies more than 90% of the needs in Europe

.

The European Union is therefore seeking autonomy here too, but it will not be easy because China has further tightened its control over these critical raw materials for industry.

In Beijing, our correspondent Stéphane Lagarde.

Rare earths tell us geologists are not that rare in the earth's crust.

On the other hand, their extraction is very complex.

Does Europe have resources?

 For sure.

The European Commission has already listed all the regions such as the Rhine Valley which could host deposits.

In Portugal, for example, there is lithium, a strategic metal as they say.

But the project to open a mine has aroused the anger of residents and farmers who see it as a threat to the environment.

Report in one of these small villages in the north of Portugal signed Marie-Line Darcy.

And in the United Kingdom

, now outside of Europe, we are working hard to find resources.

And a reduction in dependence on China goes through Angola.

There are Neodymium and Praseodymium used for wind turbines.

The raw materials will be exported to

Hull, in the north of England, where a first huge rare earth processing plant is being built.

Marie Billon.

And so as not to run out of rare earths, why not recycle them

.

Europe has thought about it.

There is also a European directive dating from 2002, updated in 2012 which specifically targets all electronic and electrical waste… but, for the moment, only one percent of rare earths is recycled.

Their recovery is complex and not always profitable.

Report within a company specializing in the reprocessing of this waste in the Paris region, signed

Juliette Gheerbrant.

Portrait  

And since we are talking about European technological autonomy, we will also be talking about strategic autonomy

.

The idea is more and more necessary in view of the latest Aukus scandal;

the alliance between the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom, a real blow in the back of the Americans to France, which also costs it a contract of 56 billion euros for the purchase of 12 submarines . 

Diplomacy also goes through violent crises, it is one with at the helm the French Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Yves Le Drian who did not hide his anger….

A portrait signed

Carlotta Morteo

, from the International Service.

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  • Environment

  • Digital

  • Energies

  • China

  • European Union

  • Portugal

  • UK

  • Angola

  • United States

  • Australia

  • France

  • Jean-Yves Le Drian

  • Diplomacy

  • Industry

  • Raw materials

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