北京大学光华管理学院陈丽华和中国科学院城市环境研究所陈伟强团队合作，在研究循环经济战略下的区域稀土供需平衡中取得新成果。2024年1月4日，国际知名学术期刊《自然—地球科学》发表了这一成果。
团队人员提出了一个综合模型，以量化循环经济战略是如何重塑关键稀土元素(如钕、镨、镝和铽)全球供应链的。该模型考虑了2021-2050年10个地区的地下和使用中的储量。这些预测包括三种被广泛接受的气候情景的全面部署。研究发现，在特定地区和元素水平上，地下储量、供需之间存在相当大的不匹配，而重稀土元素的不匹配是实现净零排放目标的关键障碍。
研究认为，随着矿产供应商地下储量的下降，消费地区在使用储量的积累，可以促进稀土元素创造一个更加平衡和较少两极分化的地缘政治格局，循环经济战略可以在未来三十年内增加70.1万吨二次供应，减少2306万吨需求。研究强调，实施这些循环经济战略需要在可持续转型过程中，进行稀土元素治理方面的国际合作。
据研究人员介绍，社会对稀土元素的依赖日益增加，这对全球实现低碳转型构成了挑战。虽然循环经济战略已获得关注，但其具体影响仍无法衡量。
附：英文原文
Title: Regional rare-earth element supply and demand balanced with circular economy strategies
Author: Wang, Peng, Yang, Yu-Yao, Heidrich, Oliver, Chen, Li-Yang, Chen, Li-Hua, Fishman, Tomer, Chen, Wei-Qiang
Issue&Volume: 2024-01-04
Abstract: The growing dependence of society on rare-earth elements poses a challenge to achieving a just low-carbon transition globally. While circular economy strategies have gained attention, their specific impacts remain unmeasured. Here we present an integrated model that quantifies how circular economy strategies can reshape global supply chains of the critical rare-earth elements such as neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium. The model considers both in-ground and in-use stocks across ten regions from 2021 to 2050. The projections include the full deployment of three widely accepted climate scenarios. We find a considerable mismatch between in-ground stocks, supply and demand at specific region and element levels, with the mismatch for heavy rare-earth elements as a key obstacle for achieving net-zero emissions targets. We suggest that, as in-ground stocks decline among mineral suppliers, the accumulation of in-use stocks in consuming regions can foster a more balanced and less polarized geopolitical landscape for rare-earth elements, and circular economy strategies can lead to an increase of 701kt secondary supply and a decrease of 2,306kt demand within the next three decades. Implementing these circular economy strategies will require international cooperation in the governance of rare-earth elements amid sustainable transition.
DOI: 10.1038/s41561-023-01350-9
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-023-01350-9