Revision of solar panel production process.
Rare earth metals in solar panels.
Rare earth metals are used in solar panels and wind turbines as well as electric cars and consumer electronics.
We don t recycle them and there s not enough to meet growing demand.
Mining for rare metals is considered to be one of china s most polluting industries presenting potential disasters relating to contamination that threaten to cause a wide scale catastrophe.
A shortage of rare earth metals used in everything from electric car batteries to solar panels to wind turbines is hampering the growth of renewable energy technologies.
These compounds which are highly toxic when mined and processed also take a heavy environmental toll on soil and water.
More clean energy means more solar panels wind turbines electric vehicles and large scale batteries.
Researchers are now working to find alternatives to these critical elements or better ways to recycle them.
Demand for some metals like neodymium and indium could grow by more than a dozen times by 2050 and there.
But it also means more demand for the materials that make those technologies possible.
According to the analysis turbines and solar panels might be skyrocketing a bit too much.
Rare metals are especially vital for renewable energy technologies such as electric cars and solar panels.
A new report by the french environment and energy management agency ademe shows that rare earth minerals are not widely used in solar energy and battery storage technologies.
For example a single tesla vehicle requires about 15 pounds or a bowling ball s worth of lithium and thin cheap solar panels need tellurium one of the rarest elements on earth.