Recycling of Rare Earth Metals Critical to Renewable Energy

03 March 2011 Swift action is needed to recycle Rare Earth Metals (REM) if the UK's plans to achieve 15% renewable energy by 2020 are to come to fruition according to the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS). The assertion comes as part of a submission by RICS to the Government's Science and Technology Committee as it called for a policy similar to the EU's WEEE Directive to cover REM. The 17 metals that comprise REM are fundamental components in all current renewable energy technologies - from solar panels, wind farms and hydroelectric turbines to possible energy conservation systems and nuclear applications. However, with the Chinese government controlling around 97% of REM production and growing global shortages, a recycling programme is badly needed to protect the future of renewable energy production. These metals are extremely difficult to isolate and mine, and the UK does not have a secure domestic source of these critical materials - yet they are being disposed of after just one use. For this reason RICS says that the country should be investigating how to recover what has already been harvested and is lying unused or being discarded as waste. With an estimated 30 million computers and laptops containing these metals currently lying unused, the UK has access to abundant quantities of REMs in the form of obsolete consumer technology. No active commercial recycling programme currently exists in the UK. However, the institute claims that a 'closed-loop' production process involving collecting unused electronic equipment and reusing the elements is both economically and practically viable. "The growing shortage of Rare Earth Metals could very soon have a considerable impact on the future of renewable energy. A policy similar to the EU’s WEEE Directive on electronic equipment recovery is urgently needed, as failure to act could mean that future green energy projects become economically unfeasible," said Rebecca Mooney, RICS Project Executive. "While such abundant quantities of these metals are available above ground, we should not be pursuing costly extraction processes of virgin materials," she added.