Rare Earth Metals For Solar Panels

Rare metals are especially vital for renewable energy technologies such as electric cars and solar panels.

Rare earth metals for solar panels. These can include magnetic neodymium electronic indium. Thin film pv technologies for example contain potentially critical metals such as tellurium. To meet greenhouse gas emission reduction targets under the paris agreement renewable energy production has to scale up fast. In 2011 the average price of rare earth metals shot up by as much as 750 percent.

This means that global production of several rare earth minerals used. High performance batteries need lithium which is only easily extracted from briny pools in the andes. However a lack of rare earths does not mean that the components of solar modules are harmless. Experts have found that the rare metals required to build solar panels such as indium and tellurium are not in sufficient supply to keep up with demand.

Plenty of high tech electronic components like solar panels rechargeable batteries and complex circuits require specific rare metals. They re just by far the best for the application neodymium is a so called rare earth element a silvery metal with a very important role in renewable energy. Rare earth metals hard to find materials with unfamiliar names such as lanthanum neodymium and europium are used in wind and solar energy projects but dwindling supplies could hindera roll out of low carbon technologies and slow china s shift away from coal power. However recent research coming out of the netherlands has spotted a red flag to relying on solar panels as a panacea for global emissions problems.

Thin cheap solar panels need tellurium which makes up a scant 0 0000001 percent of the earth s crust making it three times rarer than gold.