Re: Bath Science Cafe: What Happens When We Run Out Of Oil?

[dave andrews]

The JRC, some research outfit in Holland, has recently published a report showing that rare earths are unlikely to be a constraint on wind turbines.

"The share of the neodymium and dysprosium that will be used by the European wind turbines sector in the 2020-2030 timeframe would remain 1% of world supply were realistic supply assumptions used.

The misperception that Europe's wind farm industry is a major user of rare earth metals can now be laid to rest. The European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) has now published its "Report on Critical Metals in Strategic Energy Technologies", clearly showing that the European wind energy industry is not a significant user of rare earths.

"The share of the neodymium and dysprosium that will be used by the European wind turbines sector in the 2020-2030 timeframe would remain 1% of world supply were realistic supply assumptions used", said Justin Wilkes, Policy Director of the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) today in Brussels.

The JRC report correctly identifies the increasing use of permanent magnet generators in wind turbines. The main materials used in these magnets are rare earth oxides, mainly neodymium and dysprosium.

"

Dave

On 17 December 2011 14:38, Tony Locke <tlo...@tlocke.org.uk> wrote:

Hi,

> On the 12th December, we went along to the Bath Science café, to watch Prof. Chris Rhodes give a talk on What Happens When We Run Out Of Oil?
>
> Two things stood out in the talk. Rhodes explained that not all oil is the same. Light oil has low viscosity, and heavy oil has high viscosity (bitumen being the heaviest). On another
> axis, sweet oil is low in sulphur, and sour oil has high sulphur content. Rhodes reckons we've used about half of the total oil in the earth, but most of the stuff we've used is light and
> sweet, and most of the oil left is sour and heavy.
>
> The thing is that light and sweet oil is easy to extract and use. Heavy and sour oil is hard to extract and refine. In the worst case (bitumen) it takes 3 barrels to extract 4 barrels.
>
> The other thing that I hadn't properly realized was that wind turbines need rare earth elements (REE) in their manufacture. Rhodes says that China has 97% of the REE in the
> world, and they need all of that for their own turbines. He opined that scarcity of REE would be the thing stopping the expansion of wind turbines. Is that true?

http://blog.tlocke.org.uk/2011/12/science-cafe-what-happens-when-we-run.html

Cheers,

Tony.

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