Scarcity IssuesIt's better when scientists say it. They don't have a stake in the game. An analyst says buy a stock and I almost want to do the opposite because they are selling your enthusiasm to buy. A scientist says something and you gotta listen. They're just being smart guys with a worry.
Scientific groups fear shortages of key metals
China’s lock on rare earths market called just one example
WASHINGTON — Technologies for green or renewableenergy batteries, solar cells and advanced electric motors depend on critical chemical elements that are threatened by major supply shortages, two influential American scientific groups said in a report Friday.
And China’s chokehold on the chemical elements, known as rare earths, is just one example, the groups said. The report called for the U.S. government to research and develop new sources for a broad range of critical materials and to more closely monitor the supply of and demand for them.
The study’s
release
follows the recent introduction of a Senate bill, consistent with the report’s recommendations, meant to ensure that the United States can globally compete in emerging energy industries. That bill, by Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., also calls for federal money to train people to work in the advanced materials field.
Late last year, the U.S. Department of Energy filed a report sounding similar warnings.
Many of the materials in question are now traded in relatively small volumes but are becoming increasingly critical to the production of clean energy technologies, according to the report by the American Physical Society and the Materials Research Society.
The materials in question, with names like indium, gallium and tellurium, until a few years ago were mainly “laboratory curiosities,” Thomas Graedel, a Yale professor and a member of the report committee, said Friday. But shortages of those and other elements could slow the deployment of green technologies, he said.
The threat to supplies comes not only from geopolitics, as with China’s restricting exports of rare earth elements, the report said. More fundamentally, it said, global production of many vital materials is simply not keeping pace with demand.
The report said the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy should create a committee to examine the production and use of these energy-critical elements, and aim to enhance their production or find substitutes.
Recycling would help, too, the report said.